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Modality, Mechanism and Translational Indeterminacy

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How does Quine argue to the indeterminacy of translation? It has always been hard to tell, but one construction goes like this: A fact is determinate only if it is empirically determinable, for empirical evidence under-determines truth about the trans-empirical; theory is underdetermined by data. Therefore, facts about the unobservable, facts of theory, are indeterminate. A fact about the meaning of a person's sentence is only determinate if it is empirically determinable. The meaning of a person's sentence is empirically determinable only if it is empirically determinable under what conditions he assents to it. The meaning of a person's sentence about something unobservable is determinable only if it is determinable what unobservable events are occurring whenever he assents to a sentence supposedly about the unobservable. It is not empirically determinable what is going on in the unobservable realm whenever someone assents to a sentence supposedly about the unobservable. Therefore it is undeterminable what a person's theory sentence means. Therefore what it means is indeterminate.
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Title: Modality, Mechanism and Translational Indeterminacy
Description:
How does Quine argue to the indeterminacy of translation? It has always been hard to tell, but one construction goes like this: A fact is determinate only if it is empirically determinable, for empirical evidence under-determines truth about the trans-empirical; theory is underdetermined by data.
Therefore, facts about the unobservable, facts of theory, are indeterminate.
A fact about the meaning of a person's sentence is only determinate if it is empirically determinable.
The meaning of a person's sentence is empirically determinable only if it is empirically determinable under what conditions he assents to it.
The meaning of a person's sentence about something unobservable is determinable only if it is determinable what unobservable events are occurring whenever he assents to a sentence supposedly about the unobservable.
It is not empirically determinable what is going on in the unobservable realm whenever someone assents to a sentence supposedly about the unobservable.
Therefore it is undeterminable what a person's theory sentence means.
Therefore what it means is indeterminate.

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