Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 03:25:09 -0800
Subject: Re: Routledge Guidebook to Being and Time (translation)


> To a large extent, Quine (of all people) would agree with that, I think.
> Quine agrees that not only is there translation (and interpretation)
> whenever we try to make sense (even) of the words of Other fellow
> native speakers, but also that there is translation (and interpretation)
> whenever we try to make sense of our own previously 'expressed'
> words.(This is a critical premise in his so-called 'notorious' doctrine of
> the Indeterminacy of Translation).  Of course, Quine's conclusion --
> which would, perhaps, be accepted by H -- is that 'meaning', QUA the
> kind of item that traditional philosophers and many current philosophers
> espouse, can be made NO sense of; e.g., that we can make no sense of
> 'meaning' AS whatever is expressed by the 'proposition', AS what
> correct translation preserves across time, and across languages, AS
> what is referred to in the following claim: "Der Schnee ist weiss," "Yuki
> ga shiroi desu," and "Snow is white" all have the same meaning
> (perhaps, 'meaning' construed 'Vorhandenheitlich' (?)), such an item as
> that is philosophical myth of the worse kind.

And if you are going to bother with Quine, it would be a crime to omit
Davidson's continuation of the project.  Especially his paper "A Nice
Derangement of Epitaphs," in which he offers his (in)famous thesis that
all linguistic activity is interprative. (and thus there is no such
thing as a language so-called)

Cheers,
Ryan Stubblefield


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