Abstract
Quine has long maintained in connection with his theses of under-determination of physical theory and indeterminacy of translation that there is a fact of the matter to physics but no fact of the matter to translation. In this paper, I investigate Quine's reasoning for this claim. I show that Quine's thinking about under-determination over the last twenty-five years has landed him in a contradiction: he says of two global physical theories that are empirically equivalent but logically incompatible that only one is trueand that they are both true. In accord with the former position, I explain Quine'ssemantical argument for the claim that there is a fact of the matter to physics but not to translation. However, Quine has apparently come to regard this position as inconsistent with his empiricistic scruples: if both theories imply all and only true observation categoricals, then in what sense could one of them be false? Quine'strivial expedient argument construes such pairs of theories as merely two true descriptions of the same world in different terms. In accord with this latter position, I suggest that Quine is left without a way to differentiate under-determination and indeterminacy. In short, Quine's contradiction poses a serious dilemma: either only one such theory is true and his empiricism is sacrificed, or both theories are true and his distinction between under-determination and indeterminacy is sacrificed.
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Notes
Most notable of the critics I have in mind are Noam Chomsky and Richard Rorty. In his essay ‘Quine's Empirical Assumptions’, in D. Davidson and J. Hintikka (eds.),Words and Objections: Essays on the Work on W. V. Quine, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, (1969), pp. 53–68, Chomsky argues that neither physics nor translation has a fact of the matter. In his essay ‘Indeterminacy of Translation and of Truth’,Synthese 23, (1972), pp. 443–462, Rorty argues in favor of the view that both physics and translation have a fact of the matter.
I have examined the arguments of Chomsky, Rorty, Follesdal, and Aune and found them wanting in my essay ‘Translation, Physics, and Facts of the Matter’, in Lewis E. Hahn and Paul A. Schillp (eds.)The Philosophy of W. V. Quine, The Library of Living Philosophers Series, Open Court Press, La Salle, Illinois, forthcoming.
Cf. W. V. Quine: 1981, ‘On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma’, inTheories and Things, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., p. 39. A parallel point can be made concerning Quine's distinction betweenresponding andreferring. A very young child, as yet without ontological predilections, can learn to respond correctly to the conspicuous presence of red by uttering or assenting to the (pleonastic) observation sentence ‘This-is-red’. We can say that such a child has awarranted belief: we cannot say he has atrue belief. However, once the child acquires the knack of referring, then we can say his uttering or assenting to ‘This is red’ (now without hyphens) in the conspicuous presence of red is evidence not only of a warranted belief but also of atrue belief. For now, he not only uses or assents to the sentence under the appropriate stimulus conditions, he also assumes the existence of various objects. In short, responding is either warranted or unwarranted; referring is either true or false.
Cf. W. V. Quine: 1983, ‘Ontology and Ideology Revisited’,The Journal of Philosophy,LXXX, 500.
W. V. Quine: 1981, ‘Things and Their Place in Theories’ in W. V. Quine (ed.),Theories and Things, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., p. 23.
, my emphasis.
, pp. 21–22.
W. V. Quine: 1981, ‘Empirical Content’, in W. V. Quine (ed.),Theories and Things, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., p. 29.
W. V. Quine: 1969, ‘Replies: To Chomsky’, in D. Davidson and J. Hintikka (eds.),Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W. V. Quine, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, p. 302.
W. V. Quine: 1975, ‘On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World’,Erkenntnis 9, 313.
W. V. Quine: 1970, ‘On the Reasons for Indeterminacy of Translation’,The Journal of Philosophy 67, 178–179, note omitted.
W. V. Quine: 1975, ‘On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World’,Erkenntnis 9, 313.
, p. 320.
, p. 324.
, p. 324f.
Quine, ‘Empirical Content’, p. 27.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 28.
Ibid., p. 29.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 29–30.
W. V. Quine: 1975, ‘The Nature of Natural Knowledge’ in Samuel Guttenplan (ed.),Mind and Language, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 80, my emphasis.
W. V. Quine hints at this doctrine of the “trivial expedient” in the last two sentences of ‘On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World’; see note 10 above.
W. V. Quine, ‘The Nature of Natural Knowledge’, pp. 80–81.
Whether the weakening of the under-determination thesis also weakens Quine's argument for indeterminacy is debatable. In RIT and elsewhere he puts considerable weight on under-determination as premise in the argument for indeterminacy. However, he also seems to see indeterminacy where under-determination is absent - e.g., in OEES, p. 322. Also, he argues for indeterminacy independently of under-determination on the basis of Duhem's and Peirce's theses in ‘Epistemology Naturalized’, in W. V. Quine (ed.),Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York, (1971), second printing, pp. 80–81. A second interesting issue is how the weakening of the under-determination thesis affects the delicate balance between realism and instrumentalism in Quine's philosophy of science. For example, when Quine says that alternative global theories are true descriptions of the same world in different terms, he seems to be identifying “the world” with “empirical content”. This appears to have the consequence of trivializing ontology and emphasizing the instrumentalist role of ontologist posits -any ontology will do, so long as it facilitates true predictions! On the other hand, Quine's realism seems to be strengthened by the claim that all such alternative ontologies are purely verbal alternatives. The issue here is intriguing, subtle, complex, and, thankfully, beyond the scope of this essay!
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Work on this essay was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to whom I am grateful.
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Gibson, R.F. Quine's dilemma. Synthese 69, 27–39 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01988285
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01988285