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- Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!pmafire!mica.inel.gov!guinness!opal.idbsu.edu!holmes
- From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
- Subject: Re: Semantics of Set Theory
- Message-ID: <1993Jan6.174209.22066@guinness.idbsu.edu>
- Sender: usenet@guinness.idbsu.edu (Usenet News mail)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: opal
- Organization: Boise State University
- References: <1992Dec28.190416.1204@guinness.idbsu.edu> <1992Dec31.112231.18915@husc3.harvard.edu> <1993Jan5.230354.26799@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu>
- Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:42:09 GMT
- Lines: 59
-
- In article <1993Jan5.230354.26799@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu> JDK@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu (KASTIN JONATHAN) writes:
- >In <1992Dec31.112231.18915@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu writes:
- >>
- >> I do not understand this appeal to inscrutability; surely it is not
- >> justified by anything claimed by Quine ("Ontological Relativity"), --
- >> each Quinean native is perfectly capable of articulating the
- >> disquotational scheme
- >> "Gavagai" refers to gavagai.
- >> If Quine argues that inscrutability of reference is not limited to the
- >> cases of radical translation between different languages, and that "we
- >> can reproduce the inscrutability of reference at home", he does so in
- >> the context of analyzing the case of "homophonic translation" of his
- >> neighbor's idiolect. Surely this is a far cry from blithely claiming
- >> that "reference in one's own language is inscrutable to oneself", --
- >> one is generally not required to homophonically translate his own
- >> idiolect. Randall, I entreat you to abstain from non-standard
- >> philosophical use of technical terms.
- >
- >Randall is quite correct in his exegesis of Quine. Quine's behaviorism,
- >and its attendant denial of the individual's privileged access to his
- >own internal states, implies that in order to understand his very own
- >utterances, the speaker must engage in (homophonic) translation. Radical
- >translation begins at home. (Take this as a reductio if you like.)
-
- Eh? First of all, Quine's behaviourism is a part of his philosophy
- which I do _not_ agree with (see, Mikhail?). I do have privileged
- access to my internal states (Quine probably would agree that I do,
- actually; his "behaviourism" is methodological), and I'm willing to
- exploit this access (which Quine is not). It's not so easy to
- exploit, though. I certain don't agree with the statements you make
- here; the sense in which I was saying that reference is inscrutable is
- quite unrelated to claims about translation; I assert (backed by
- formal logical results) that we cannot successfully define the
- relation of reference between the terms of the language we are using
- and the world in that same language; this is quite a different issue.
- But I don't think that we need to understand (the whole of) our
- reference relation; this is taken care of externally to us. Can I
- call it the "ineffability" of reference, Mikhail? This is also an
- issue which Quine discusses, by the way; I may have goofed on
- terminology.
-
-
- >
- >Jonathan
- >
- >
- >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- >| Jonathan Kastin I would say that my views are entirely my own, |
- >| CUNY Grad Center but that would be ridiculously ahistorical. |
- >| Philosophy Department Besides which, it might presuppose a viewpoint,|
- >| jdk@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu and thus an objective Reality. :) |
- >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
- --
- The opinions expressed | --Sincerely,
- above are not the "official" | M. Randall Holmes
- opinions of any person | Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
- or institution. | holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
-