Inscrutability of reference
Encyclopedia
The inscrutability or indeterminacy of reference (also: indeterminacy of reference, or referential inscrutability) is a thesis propounded by 20th century analytic philosopher
Willard Van Orman Quine
in his book Word and Object
. The main claim of this theory is that, if one is to find out the referential object of any word from any language there are always multiple possible systems of hypotheses, which are equally correct. The referential relation is inscrutable, because it is subject to the background language and ontological commitments of the speaker.
. While the inscrutability of reference concerns itself with single words, Quine does not want it to be used for propositions, as he attacks those in another way. He challenges the translation or referential scrutability of whole sentences, proposing his idea of the indeterminacy of translation. In order to accomplish this, Quine makes the statement that there is a so-called holophrastic indeterminacy, which tells that there are always multiple translations of one sentence, which are not only different in the meaning of the single parts of them, but moreover is the whole meaning of both translations dissimilar. According to Quine, there is no way to give an example for holophrastic indeterminacy, because it affects the whole, and every language. Therefore, one has to blindly accept the validity of this hypothesis, or try to make sense of it via reflecting upon the idea. This theory, linked with the inscrutability of reference make up the main characteristics of the indeterminacy of translation.
The inscrutability of reference can also be used in a more extended way, in order to explain Quine's theory of ontological relativity. We are told that, if we try to determine what the referential object of a certain word is, our answer will always be relative to our own background language. Now, as Quine sees it, this idea is not only limited to language, but applies also for scientific questions and philosophical ones. For example, if we are proposed a philosophical theory, we can never definitely characterize the ontological commitment
s of it. The most we can do, is to adapt this theory to our current background philosophy, that is the theory of which we have already accepted the ontological commitments. Because of this theory, Quine was often regarded as a relativist
, or even a scientific skepticist
. He, however, insisted that he belongs in neither of these categories, and some authors see in the inscrutability of reference an undermination of relativism.
is therefore impossible. As a special part of this theory the inscrutability of reference indicates that, in trying to find out to which object a certain word (also sentence, sign etc.) of a language refers, there is never only one single possibility. That is even the case, if the possibilities that come into consideration lie very close together. Quine's example of the word "gavagai" is used to illustrate this. Note that it is also applied at the indeterminacy of translation, but has traditionally been introduced to point up referential inscrutability. The gavagai thought experiment
tells about a linguist, who tries to find out, what the expression gavagai means, when uttered by a speaker of a yet unknown, native language upon seeing a rabbit. At first glance, it seems that gavagai simply translates with rabbit. Now, Quine points out that the background language and its referring devices might fool the linguist here, because he is misled in a sense that he always makes direct comparisons between the foreign language and his own. However, when shouting gavagai, and pointing at a rabbit, the natives could as well refer to something like undetached rabbit-parts, or rabbit-tropes
and it would not make any observable difference. The behavioural data the linguist could collect from the native speaker would be the same in every case, or to reword it, several translation hypotheses could be built on the same sensoric stimuli. Hence, the reference between the term gavagai and its referring object is language- or framework-dependent, and therefore inscrutable. Quine regards this discovery as trivial, because it is already a widely accepted fact that all the different things one word might refer to can be switched out, because of their proxy functions.
Quine does not want to show that those native speakers might speak in interestingly different ways and we cannot know about it, but rather that there is nothing to be known. Not only is it impossible to discern, by any method, the correct translation and referential relation of gavagai, but, in fact, there is not even a correct answer to this question. To make sense of the word gavagai either way, the linguist simply has to assume that the native speaker does not refer to complicated terms like rabbits-tropes. The finding, then, that gavagai means rabbit is not really a translation, but merely a common sense interpretation.
It is important to note that indeterminacy and inscrutability not only occur in the course of translating something from a native, unknown language into a familiar one, but among every language. This holds also for languages which are quite similar, like German
and Dutch
, and even for speakers of the same language. One cannot with certainty say, what exactly his/her conversational partner refers to, when that person is talking about a rabbit. We commonly use the homophonic rule in those cases, i.e., if one utters rabbit, we assume s/he uses it in the same way we do. But, as has been shown, there are multiple possibilities which can be indistinguishable from one another. This also applies in our own case. We ourselves do not know what it is we are referring to in using the word rabbit, that is because there is, in Quine's word, no fact of the matter at all. One must not, however, use different possible referential objects in the same translation, because they are incommensurable and the resulting translation hypothesis would contain logical fallacies.
uses Quine's thesis about the inscrutability of reference to challenge the traditional Realist's view that there is a mind-independent world to which our propositional attitudes refer (e.g. when we talk about or think of something, these things exist not in our minds, but in said mind-independent world). This traditional view implies a correspondence theory of truth
and might simply be called Realism about Being
. While Michael Dummett
already tried to show that the correspondence theory fails to obtain in some particular cases, Hilary Putnam is far more radical, for he claims that this theory fails in every case it is tried to be applied. On Putnam's account, the idea that we refer with our sentences and statements to a mind-independent, nonlinguistic world is an illusion. Further he claims that the problem to deal with is a language philosophical one and uses Quine's inscrutability of reference theory to clarify his point of view. He suggests, that, because the referential objects of a language are always inscrutable, the Realist's idea of a mind-independent world is ought to be a fallacy, because it presupposes distinct referential relations from language to objects in the mind-independent world.
. The classic example for the sorites paradox mentions a heap of wheat grains of which grains are taken away one by one, until at one time there's only a single grain left. This raises the question of where the line is to be drawn. How long does the heap remain a heap, are two grains still a heap? When one is talking about a heap s/he obviously no proper definition of it ready to hand. The referential object of heap is inscrutable, in the sense that there is no such thing and it is not even necessary for the use of the term heap.
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
in his book Word and Object
Word and Object
Word and Object is a 1960 book of epistemology by Willard Van Orman Quine. In it, Quine develops his thesis of the Indeterminacy of translation....
. The main claim of this theory is that, if one is to find out the referential object of any word from any language there are always multiple possible systems of hypotheses, which are equally correct. The referential relation is inscrutable, because it is subject to the background language and ontological commitments of the speaker.
Status among Quine's other theories
Alongside with the holophrastic indeterminacy, the inscrutability of reference is the second kind of indetermincy that makes up Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of (radical) translationIndeterminacy of translation
The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th century analytic philosopher W. V. Quine. The classic statement of this thesis can be found in his 1960 book Word and Object, which gathered together and refined much of Quine's previous work on subjects other than formal logic and set...
. While the inscrutability of reference concerns itself with single words, Quine does not want it to be used for propositions, as he attacks those in another way. He challenges the translation or referential scrutability of whole sentences, proposing his idea of the indeterminacy of translation. In order to accomplish this, Quine makes the statement that there is a so-called holophrastic indeterminacy, which tells that there are always multiple translations of one sentence, which are not only different in the meaning of the single parts of them, but moreover is the whole meaning of both translations dissimilar. According to Quine, there is no way to give an example for holophrastic indeterminacy, because it affects the whole, and every language. Therefore, one has to blindly accept the validity of this hypothesis, or try to make sense of it via reflecting upon the idea. This theory, linked with the inscrutability of reference make up the main characteristics of the indeterminacy of translation.
The inscrutability of reference can also be used in a more extended way, in order to explain Quine's theory of ontological relativity. We are told that, if we try to determine what the referential object of a certain word is, our answer will always be relative to our own background language. Now, as Quine sees it, this idea is not only limited to language, but applies also for scientific questions and philosophical ones. For example, if we are proposed a philosophical theory, we can never definitely characterize the ontological commitment
Ontological commitment
In the philosophy of language and metaphysics, an ontological commitment is said to be necessary in order to make a proposition in which the existence of one thing is presupposed or implied by asserting the existence of another. We are “committed” to the existence of the second thing, even though...
s of it. The most we can do, is to adapt this theory to our current background philosophy, that is the theory of which we have already accepted the ontological commitments. Because of this theory, Quine was often regarded as a relativist
Relativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
, or even a scientific skepticist
Scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism is the practice of questioning the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence or reproducibility, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". For example, Robert K...
. He, however, insisted that he belongs in neither of these categories, and some authors see in the inscrutability of reference an undermination of relativism.
Illustration by the use of gavagai
In his indeterminacy of translation theory Quine claims that, if one is to translate a language, there are always several alternative translations, of which none is more correct than the other. A radical translationRadical translation
Radical translation is a term invented by American philosopher W. V. O. Quine to describe the situation in which a linguist is attempting to translate a completely unknown language, which is unrelated to his own, and is therefore forced to rely solely on the observed behavior of its speakers in...
is therefore impossible. As a special part of this theory the inscrutability of reference indicates that, in trying to find out to which object a certain word (also sentence, sign etc.) of a language refers, there is never only one single possibility. That is even the case, if the possibilities that come into consideration lie very close together. Quine's example of the word "gavagai" is used to illustrate this. Note that it is also applied at the indeterminacy of translation, but has traditionally been introduced to point up referential inscrutability. The gavagai thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
tells about a linguist, who tries to find out, what the expression gavagai means, when uttered by a speaker of a yet unknown, native language upon seeing a rabbit. At first glance, it seems that gavagai simply translates with rabbit. Now, Quine points out that the background language and its referring devices might fool the linguist here, because he is misled in a sense that he always makes direct comparisons between the foreign language and his own. However, when shouting gavagai, and pointing at a rabbit, the natives could as well refer to something like undetached rabbit-parts, or rabbit-tropes
Trope (philosophy)
The term "trope" is both a term which denotes figurative and metaphorical language and one which has been used in various technical senses. The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος , "a turn, a change", related to the root of the verb τρέπειν , "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"; this...
and it would not make any observable difference. The behavioural data the linguist could collect from the native speaker would be the same in every case, or to reword it, several translation hypotheses could be built on the same sensoric stimuli. Hence, the reference between the term gavagai and its referring object is language- or framework-dependent, and therefore inscrutable. Quine regards this discovery as trivial, because it is already a widely accepted fact that all the different things one word might refer to can be switched out, because of their proxy functions.
Quine does not want to show that those native speakers might speak in interestingly different ways and we cannot know about it, but rather that there is nothing to be known. Not only is it impossible to discern, by any method, the correct translation and referential relation of gavagai, but, in fact, there is not even a correct answer to this question. To make sense of the word gavagai either way, the linguist simply has to assume that the native speaker does not refer to complicated terms like rabbits-tropes. The finding, then, that gavagai means rabbit is not really a translation, but merely a common sense interpretation.
It is important to note that indeterminacy and inscrutability not only occur in the course of translating something from a native, unknown language into a familiar one, but among every language. This holds also for languages which are quite similar, like German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, and even for speakers of the same language. One cannot with certainty say, what exactly his/her conversational partner refers to, when that person is talking about a rabbit. We commonly use the homophonic rule in those cases, i.e., if one utters rabbit, we assume s/he uses it in the same way we do. But, as has been shown, there are multiple possibilities which can be indistinguishable from one another. This also applies in our own case. We ourselves do not know what it is we are referring to in using the word rabbit, that is because there is, in Quine's word, no fact of the matter at all. One must not, however, use different possible referential objects in the same translation, because they are incommensurable and the resulting translation hypothesis would contain logical fallacies.
Anti-Realist interpretation
Hilary PutnamHilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist, who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science...
uses Quine's thesis about the inscrutability of reference to challenge the traditional Realist's view that there is a mind-independent world to which our propositional attitudes refer (e.g. when we talk about or think of something, these things exist not in our minds, but in said mind-independent world). This traditional view implies a correspondence theory of truth
Correspondence theory of truth
The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes that world...
and might simply be called Realism about Being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
. While Michael Dummett
Michael Dummett
Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA D.Litt is a British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford...
already tried to show that the correspondence theory fails to obtain in some particular cases, Hilary Putnam is far more radical, for he claims that this theory fails in every case it is tried to be applied. On Putnam's account, the idea that we refer with our sentences and statements to a mind-independent, nonlinguistic world is an illusion. Further he claims that the problem to deal with is a language philosophical one and uses Quine's inscrutability of reference theory to clarify his point of view. He suggests, that, because the referential objects of a language are always inscrutable, the Realist's idea of a mind-independent world is ought to be a fallacy, because it presupposes distinct referential relations from language to objects in the mind-independent world.
Application in the Sorites Paradox
The inscrutability of reference is also used in the sorites paradoxSorites paradox
The sorites paradox is a paradox that arises from vague predicates. The paradox of the heap is an example of this paradox which arises when one considers a heap of sand, from which grains are individually removed...
. The classic example for the sorites paradox mentions a heap of wheat grains of which grains are taken away one by one, until at one time there's only a single grain left. This raises the question of where the line is to be drawn. How long does the heap remain a heap, are two grains still a heap? When one is talking about a heap s/he obviously no proper definition of it ready to hand. The referential object of heap is inscrutable, in the sense that there is no such thing and it is not even necessary for the use of the term heap.