Rabbits

RabbitsAuthor(s): Julian YoungSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Apr., 1972), pp. 170-185Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4318721 .

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JULIAN YOUNG

RABBITS*

(Received 26 May, 1971)

I. THE OBJECT OF ATTACK

In [2] Quine says that the object of the indeterminacy of translation thesis (I.T.T.) that appears in Chapter 2 of [3] is to dispose of 'uncritical semantics',

The myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words labels. To switch languages is to switch labels. (p. 27)

According to one version of the museum myth these meanings are platonic entities - propositions, attributes, and the like - while according to another they are ideas in the mind.

Something like the following represents the theory of communication subscribed to by the British Empiricists, in particular, by Locke.

Suppose A wants to communicate with B and succeeds. How has he done it? In ordinary discourse we would say of A such things as 'he got the idea across' and of B 'he grasped the idea'. Locke takes such talk literally. For him, meanings are ideas in the mind. But

the comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs whereby those invisible ideas, that his thoughts are made up out of, might be made known to others. (Essay, III, ii, I)

By conventional agreement then, users of a given language associate with each idea an outward sign or 'label', a word. To communicate with B, A picks that word or complex of words (a sentence) that labels the idea or complex of ideas (a thought) he has in mind, utters it, upon hearing which B conjours up in his mind an idea or complex of ideas. If B's idea is the same as, i.e. qualitatively similar to, A's successful communication has occurred. If not, it has not. If A wants to communicate with a foreigner he must learn a new label for his idea.

Philosophical Studies 23 (1972) 170-185. All Rights Reserved Copyright ? 1972 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland



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This, I believe, in an extreme form, is the sort of doctrine Quine has in mind as the mentalistic version of the museum myth. To obtain the platonic version we must substitute for ideas abstract entities such as propositions, whose labels are sentences, or attributes, whose labels are general terms. In this case not the mind but a non-spatio-temporal platonic heaven is the museum in question.

These, then, are the sorts of theories I.T.T. is designed to attack. Straw men, you might say. In themselves, perhaps. But Quine's view is that linguistics, philosophy and intuitive semantics are permeated by an "uncritical persistence of old notions of meaning, idea, proposition" (Reply to Chomsky, [4] p. 304) and these 'old notions' are surely derived from theories of the sort I have sketched.

II. THE METHOD OF ATTACK

If either version of uncritical semantics is correct then one consequence should be that for any univocal sentence in a foreign language a proposed translation of it into, say, English is objectively speaking either correct or incorrect. For if linguistic units stand to meanings as labels to exhibits it must be objectively the case that the meaning labeled by the English sentence is the same as that labeled by the foreign sentence, or not. If it is then the translation is correct. If not, it is not.

Quine's I.T.T. has as its fundamental claim that in translation there is no "objective matter [for a proposed translation] to be right or wrong about" ([3] p. 73). If this is correct, then uncritical semantics must be wrong for in positing ideas or platonic entities it posits an objective matter about which proposed translations are either right or wrong.

I now turn to Quine's argument for the non-objectivity of translation.

III. I.T.T., PART I

Although he himself does not, Quine's I.T.T. can conveniently be divided into three parts.' The first part says that

(1) relative to the evidence provided by the linguistically relevant behaviour of speakers of a foreign language translation is indeterminate



172 JULIAN YOUNG

in the sense that

manuals for translating one language into another can be set up in divergent ways, all compatible with the totality of speech dispositions, yet incompatible with one another. In countless places they will diverge in giving as their respective translations of a sentence of the one language, sentences of the other which stand to each other in no plausible sort of equivalence however loose. ([3] p. 27)

IV. RADICAL TRANSLATION

To avoid what he regards as philosophically irrelevant problems to do with bilingualism and languages which together with a third form a sort of continuum, Quine, in giving an example of translational indeterminacy, envisages a situation he calls 'radical translation', a situation where a linguist is engaged in the 'translation of a language of a hitherto untouched people". ([3] p. 28)

Suppose our linguist observes that every or nearly every time the natives (roughly) point to or have pointed out a rabbit they utter the one-word sentence 'Gavagai'. Then most likely the linguist will translate 'Gavagai' as 'Rabbit'. In Quine's terminology, he will form the 'analytic hypothesis' that 'Gavagai' is to be translated as 'Rabbit'. But, says Quine,

who knows but what the objects to which this term applies are not rabbits at all, but mere stages, or brief temporal segments of rabbits ([3] p. 51)

Elsewhere he suggests as another possibility that the natives apply 'Gava- gai' to 'undetached rabbit parts'. The problem here is that a choice between 'Rabbit', 'Rabbit stage' and 'Undetached rabbit part' as the translation of 'Gavagai' cannot be settled by observing the natives' linguistically relevant behaviour - roughly, their linguistic responses to visual and other sensory stimulation. For every stimulation that counts as a 'Rabbit' stimulation counts also as a 'Rabbit stage' or 'Undetached rabbit part' stimulation and vice versa. This is because

if you take the total scattered portion of the spatio-temporal world that is made up of rabbits, and that which is made up of undetached rabbit parts, and that which is made up of rabbit stages, you come up with the same scattered portion of the world each of the three times ([2] p. 31)



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How then could one determine the correct translation of 'Gavagai'? Only, says Quine, by mastering the natives' principle of individuation for gavagais. That is, only if, for example, one could find out whether the native counts a rabbit observed continuously from t1 to t3 as one or as more than one gavagai could we choose between 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage'. But mastering the natives' principle of individuation for gavagais involves mastering their scheme of reference - their use of quantifiers, numerals, identity and non-identity predicates and so on. And this "is what osten- tation... however persistently repeated, cannot teach" ([2] p. 32).

It is worth being fairly precise as to the exact nature of the indeterminacy of radical translation. Quine admits that relative to the behavioural evidence plus an assumption with regard to the natives' scheme of reference the translation of 'Gavagai' is determinate. His real point is that reference schemes form, as he sometimes puts it, 'co-ordinate systems'. Relative to one assumed co-ordinate system and the behavioural evidence, 'Gavagai' must be translated as 'Rabbit'. Conversely, if 'Gavagai' is translated as 'Rabbit stage' another co-ordinate system must be assumed. But the choice of a co-ordinate system is undetermined by the behavioural evidence: it is an assumption that goes beyond anything implicit in the evidence.

V. I.T.T., PART II

The second part of I.T.T. says that

(2) The behavioural evidence relative to which the indeterminacy mentioned in (1) exists is all the evidence there is.

As Quine puts it:

All the objective data he [the linguist] has to go on are the forces he sees impinging on the native's surfaces [sense organs] and the observable behaviour, vocal and otherwise, of the native. ([3] p. 28)

Thus, putting the first two parts of I.T.T. together we get

(3) Translation is indeterminate relative to all the evidence there is.

Quine emphasises, however, that translation should go on. Neither is it "capricious" ([3] p. 73) or arbitrary. The point is that if (3) is true, the principles a linguist uses in selecting one possible translation over another



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will be non-evidential in nature. That is, although they may make it more reasonable to select one translation over another, they will not increase the likelihood that the one selected is correct. [How, one might ask, could one selection be more reasonable than another without being more probably correct? An analogy may make the point clearer. Imagine that the evidence one possesses with regard to one's spouse's fidelity or infidelity is about evenly balanced. One might argue that a belief in fidelity although no more probably correct than its contradictory, is yet more reasonable on the grounds of its greater conduciveness to marital harmony, personal psychological equilibrium, and so on.] Simplicity (whatever exactly that is) according to Quine is one such principle. Familiarity, the principle of selecting translations that render a native ontology as much like one's own as possible, he might regard as another.

At various places, however, Quine mentions other principles a linguist might in practice employ whose non-evidential status is rather more problematic. Thus, to take but one example, in translating 'Gavagai' as 'Rabbit' the linguist, he says, will be

influenced by his natural expectation that any people in rabbit country would have some brief expression that could in the long run be best translated simply as 'Rabbit' ([3] p. 40)

We might formulate the principle implicit in this case somewhat as follows

(P.1.) If a distinguishable and discernible physical object occurs often in the environment of a group of people and is of interest to them (e.g. they eat it or worship it), then probably they will have a brief expression for it.

Principles like (P.1.) are all very well, says Quine, as long as they are not mistaken for "substantive laws of speech behaviour" ([3] p. 74) i.e. evidential principles of the same type as inductive generalisations employed in the natural sciences. Why does Quine say that it would be a mistake to treat principles like (P.1.) as evidential principles? It is obvious why he needs to say this: if (P.1.) were an evidential principle useable in the process of translation then the linguist would be able to bring it to bear on questions of translation evidence other than that provided by native behaviour. Hence even if part one of I.T.T. were established part two would be false and the conclusion that translation is indeterminate relative



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to the totality of accessible evidence unsubstantiated. But as to providing an argument for his claim Quine is completely silent.

Perhaps he has something like the following argument in mind. Prin- ciples like (P.1.) could be initially established only with respect to the linguist's own language; for only if he already knew the language could he check the relevant correlations. Hence the scope of such principles is initially confined to his own language. To extend it to a foreign language he must first learn that language in order to check that the regularity observed to hold in the case of his own language holds for that one also. But this means that translation must occur before principles like (P.1.) can be applied and that hence such principles cannot be used in the process of translation - or rather, that if they are so used they can be used not as inductive, evidential principles but only as principles of convenience with a purely non-evidential status.

The assumption this argument makes is that there could be no evidence to justify the extension of a principle like (P. 1.) from one's own linguistic community to another accessible independently of learning the language of the other. But is this so? It is not conceivable, it might be suggested,2 that our linguist not only discovers the appropriate correlation in his own linguistic community but discovers also a psychological or neurological explanation of the correlation - say a psychological or neurological principle of least action? And is it not conceivable that he should discover also that the principle of least action is species invariant? In this case he would be justified in extending (P.1.) to the foreign language community independently of learning the foreign language.

But how exactly would the discovery of a species-invariant neurological or psychological principle of least action help us to provide evidence for a linguist's translation of 'Gavagai' as 'Rabbit' rather than as, say, 'Rabbitstage'? How, in other words, would it help us to discover the sorts of entity that belong to the extension of 'gavagai'? The principle would tell us, if established, that for any linguistic community the greater the frequency with which the language users refer to or talk about a given sort of entity the shorter will be the expression appropriate to such references or talk. But how, independently of learning the native language, can the linguist determine how frequently the natives indulge in rabbit- talk? Admittedly, he can know that the natives frequently indulge in talk about and reference to parts of that 'total scattered portion of the spatio-



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temporal world' that is indifferently made up of rabbit stages and rabbits but until he learns the native language and its principles of individuation he cannot tell whether the natives frequently refer to rabbits and never to rabbitstages or vice versa.

The upshot of this is to confirm Quine's view that a principle like (P.1.) could not be extended to a foreign language community independently of learning the foreign language. Rabbits do occur frequently, we suppose, in the environment of the natives. But we cannot tell whether they will have any expression at all for rabbits until we learn whether they have a rabbit or rabbit stage ontology. And that we cannot learn until we learn their language. Hence we cannot use (P.1.) as an evidential principle in the process of learning, i.e. translating, that language.

VI. I.T.T., PART III

According to the first two parts of I.T.T., with which we have as yet found no fault, translations are, for the most part, 'unverifiable' in the sense that different and conflicting sets of analytic hypotheses "could be tied for first place on all the theoretically available evidence." ([3] p. 75) The impression we have derived so far is that I.T.T. is an epistemological and sceptical thesis which we might be tempted to formulate finally as

(4) As between two translations of a foreign language we can never tell which one is correct and which incorrect.

But Quine's final view is not, in fact, an epistemological but a metaphysical one, analogous not to 'we can never have knowledge of other minds' but rather to 'there are no other minds'. For he emphasises strongly that his final view is that for almost all analytic hypotheses, with the dubious exception of those dealing with 'observation sentences' and truth-func- tions, there is "no objective matter to be right or wrong about" ([3] p. 73); as he puts it in his Reply to Chomsky, "where indeterminacy of translation applies, there is no real question of right choice; there is no fact of the matter" ([4] p. 303). Thus part three of I.T.T. I shall formulate not as the epistemological (4) but rather as the metaphysical

(5) As between two translations of a foreign language it makes no sense to speak of correctness and incorrectness



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(except, we might add, relative to an assumed 'co-ordinate system' (see p. 173 above).

Part three of I.T.T. implies, Quine argues, the denial of uncritical semantics. For insofar as we posit propostions or ideas we

have to suppose that among all the alternative systems of analytic hypotheses of translations which are compatible with the totality of dispositions to verbal behaviour on the part of speakers of two languages, some are 'really right' and others wrong on behaviourally inscrutable grounds of propositional identity [or similarity of ideas]. ([3] p. 206)

The uncritical semanticist would not, I am sure, wish to deny the commitment Quine attributes to him. His theory has little or no interest unless it justifies us in speaking of correctness and incorrectness in translational situations. Thus if Quine can establish part three of I.T.T. he has succeeded in his aim of disposing of uncritical semantics. But can he?

No argument is offered for (5) independently of that culminating in (3). Thus Quine must assume (5) to be a logical consequence of (3). But is it? Does it follow from the fact that the totality of the evidence fails to determine a choice between two translations that it makes no sense to speak of correctness and incorrectness in this context? Well it would if, and only if, we accepted something like the principle that

(6) Where the evidence fails to determine a choice between two theories (sentences, hypotheses) it makes no sense to speak of truth or falsity, correctness or incorrectness.

But the trouble with (6) is that it appears to conflict with Quine's philosophy of science.3 For, particularly in 'Posits and Reality' he emphasises that although theory adoption is underdetermined by experience it does not follow from this that we cannot speak of scientific theories as correct or incorrect. What follows rather, is that decisions of correctness and incorrectness ultimately rest on 'pragmatic' grounds; theories are correct, ultimately, in the sense that they maximally satisfy such pragmatic deside- rata as simplicity, familiarity of principle, predictive power and so on. As Quine puts it in one place, "we can hope for no surer touchstones of reality" ([5] p. 241). Should we not then expect that far from accepting a principle whereby (5) follows from (3) Quine would reject (5) on the grounds that translational questions that are evidentially indeterminate are yet decidable on pragmatic grounds? Should we not expect, that is,



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that of rival translation manuals compatible with the totality of the evidence, the one that maximally satisfies simplicity, familiarity, etc., etc., is correct and the others incorrect?

Quine is aware of this difficulty. It is not clear, however, that he even indicates a satisfactory escape route. The closest he ever comes to so doing is in the following passage from his Reply to Chomsky. Where, he asks, does the parallel between theoretical physics and translation fail so as to allow us to speak of correctness in the face of the indeterminacy that infects the former but not in the face of that which infects the latter?

Essentially in this: theory in physics is an ultimate parameter. There is no legitimate first philosophy, higher or firmer than physics, to which to appeal over physicists' heads. ... Though linguistics is of course part of the theory of nature, the indeterminacy of translation is not just inherited as a special case of the underdetermination of our theory of nature. It is parallel but additional. Thus adopt for now my fully realistic attitude towards electrons and muons and curved space-time, thus falling in with the current theory of the world despite knowing that it is in principle methodologically under-determined. Consider from this realistic point of view, the totality of truths of nature, known and unknown, past and future. The point about indeterminacy of translation is that it withstands even all this truth, the whole truth about nature. This is what I mean by saying that, where indeterminacy of translation applies, there is no real question of right choice; there is no fact of the matter even within the acknowledged underdetermination of a theory of nature. ([4] p. 303)

The parallel fails, then, in that whereas in the case of adopting a 'theory of nature' there is no higher 'parameter' of truth or correctness to which to appeal and thus we have no choice but to fall back on pragmatic considerations, in the case of translation there is a higher parameter, namely, the theory of nature which we have adopted. Whatever rude things Quine says about Carnap's distinction elsewhere4, this, it seems to me, is a contrast between 'external' and 'internal' questions. In the nature of things, external questions can have only pragmatic answers. But internal questions, if they have genuine answers at all, should be decidable on grounds that are at least not immediately pragmatic; they should be decidable by reference to 'the whole truth about nature' that is given to us by the theory we adopt. Translational questions though internal are not thus decidable. Hence they have no genuine, i.e. correct or incorrect answers. Thus it looks as though the principle whereby Quine hopes to get from (3) to (5) is not (6) but

(7) Where the totality of the evidence fails to determine a choice



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between two internal theories (sentences, hypotheses) it makes no sense to speak of truth or falsity, correctness or incorrectness.

Is (7) true? Well it is if, as Quine seems to do in the quotation on p. 178 above, we identify the totality of the evidence with the 'whole truth about nature'. For trivially, if there is a correct answer to a translational question then that answer will be included in an inventory of all the truths about nature. But is Quine right that translation remains indeterminate in the face of the whole truth about nature? Certainly, if Quine's argument for parts one and two of I.T.T. is correct, translation is indeterminate in the face of all the evidence that is in principle accessible to the linguist. But the question is: is the whole truth about nature in principle accessible to the linguist? One's answer to this question depends, among other things, I would suppose, one whether or not one's theory of nature posited such things as 'linguistically neutral meanings', ideas or propositions.

Suppose, on the other hand, that we identify the totality of evidence (for a person S) not with the whole truth about nature but, more naturally, with the totality of evidence in principle accessible (to S). In this case, supposing Quine to be right to the extent that translation is indeterminate relative to the totality of evidence in principle accessible to the linguist, an uncritical semanticist would naturally deny the truth of (7). His position then would be akin to, perhaps a facet of, scepticism about our knowledge of other minds. He might be wrong, but Quine gives no argument to show that he is.

The upshot of this is, then, that Quine's argument against uncritical semantics is less than conclusive. To reach its conclusion part three of I.T.T. must be established. But part three is established only if it is a logical consequence of parts one and two. We saw that the most natural assumption, (6), that facilitates the derivation of part three from one and two is unavailable to Quine since it renders his views on translation inconsistent with his philosophy of science. A little metaphysical juggling led to the replacement of (6) by (7) and the removal of the appearance of inconsistency. But (7) was susceptible of two interpretations. On the first it was obviously true but involved Quine in straightforwardly begging the question against the uncritical semanticist. The second involved no overt question-begging but, in the absence of any argument for its truth, was of



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uncertain truth-value. Thus it remains uncertain whether part three of I.T.T. follows from parts one and two.

VII. A PROBLEM OF CONSISTENCY

To say that it is uncertain whether part three of I.T.T. follows from parts one and two is not, of course, to say that it does not. Hence while Quine may have failed to provide a sufficient reason for rejecting uncritical semantics, equally, we have so far failed to provide a sufficient reason for rejecting I.T.T. To the prospect of doing so I now turn.

Let us recapitulate. Taken together, we have seen, parts one and two of I.T.T. say that translation is indeterminate in the sense that different and conflicting hypotheses may be 'tied for first place on all the theoretically available evidence'. Notice how important it seems to be to Quine's position that with regard to, say, 'Gavagai' the different translation hypotheses should be genuine rivals, should genuinely conflict. For if they do not then there would seem to be nothing for translation to be indeterminate between.

What then is the nature of the rivalry or conflict between, for instance, the 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' hypotheses? Clearly there is a difference between the two hypotheses on the syntactic level. But this hardly represents a rivalry. What we must do is to discover a semantic difference between them which precludes their co-tenability as translations of 'Gavagai'.

Onp. 172 above we saw how Quine explains the rivalry. The two English sentences, as translations of 'Gavagai' though tied for first place on all the theoretically available evidence, are non-equivalent English sentences. What sort of equivalence is intended here? Not material equivalence for the two English sentences are, it would appear, materially equivalent. Most plausibly, 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' are non-equivalent in the sense that they have different meanings, or express different propositions. But now, if part three of I.T.T. is true, then there are no such things as meanings or propositions. Here then, a problem of consistency confronts the tripartite I.T.T. If parts one and two are to be maintained it appears to be vital to make sense of a semantic rivalry between different translation hypotheses. But if part three is to be maintained also, the most plausible way of making sense of the rivalry becomes inaccessible. The possibility presents itself, therefore, that I.T.T. is an inconsistent doctrine



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in that, taken together, the first two parts presuppose what is denied by the third part.

Quine is aware that the attempt to make&sense of the rivalry between different translation hypotheses in terms of failure of equivalence is illegitimate. In his Reply to Harman ([4] pp. 295-97) he says the following of the passage from which the quotation on p. 3 above was selected:

That passage was lame also in another respect and of this I was aware at the time: the appeal to "any plausible sense of equivalence however loose". Substantially the same phrase recurs in statements of the indeterminacy of translation where I say that the two translators assign to the jungle sentence English sentences that are not equivalent English sentences in any plausible sense of equivalence however loose. I disliked having to appeal thus to equivalence, however apologetically, in the very formulation of a thesis designed to cast doubts on notions of translation or synonymy or equivalence. But I did better on p. 73f [of Word and Object]...:

... rival systems of analytic hypotheses can conform to all speech dispositions within each of the languages concerned and yet dictate... translations each of which would be excluded by the other system.

Here there is no appeal to equivalence. As Harman recently put it to me in conversation, it is just that the one translator would reject the other's translation. ([4] pp. 296-7)

Here is an implicit reply to our suggestion that the first two parts of I.T.T. presuppose the falsity of part three. The suggestion is that the conflict between 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' as translations of 'Gavagai' is to be understood not in terms of different meanings expressed by the two sentences but rather in terms of the brute fact that the one translator would reject the other's hypothesis. But is this good enough? Surely not. For the rejection would show a genuine conflict between the two hypotheses only if it was based on a justified (indeed true) assumption that there was something to reject. If Quine is right about the permeation of linguistics by uncritical semantics then, most likely, the one translator would reject his rival's hypothesis on the grounds that the two hypotheses are not co- tenable since 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' express different propositions. But Quine could not allow that this showed a genuine conflict between the two hypotheses, for according to part three of I.T.T. there are no such things as propositions. So although Quine is undoubtedly correct in his expectation that a 'Rabbit' protagonist would reject the 'Rabbit stage' hypothesis this does not help solve his problem. For the question is: what, as- suming the truth of part three of I.T.T., wouldjustify an assumption that the two hypotheses are not co-tenable? And this is just the original problem of making sense of the rivalry without rejecting part three of I.T.T.



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Perhaps at this point it would be helpful to shift our attention from intension to extension. In [2] Quine suggests that we may conceive of translational indeterminacy in terms of the failure of the evidence to determine a choice between English sentences that differ not (merely) intensionally but extensionally (also):

What is indeterminate is not just meaning but extension: reference.... The indeterminacy of translation cuts across extension and intension alike. The terms 'rabbit' 'undetached rabbit part' and 'rabbit stage' differ not only in meaning: they are true of different things. Reference itself proves behaviourally inscrutable. (p. 35)

(The talk of intensions here must surely be implicitly counterfactual: 'indeterminacy would cut across intension if there were such a thing'.) On the surface, this seems right. 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' do seem to have different extensions. Perhaps then, there lies here a semantic contrast between 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' that enables us to speak of a genuine conflict between our two translation hypotheses without presupposing the truth of uncritical semantics; the contrast perhaps lies in the fact that it is the presence of different objects that renders tokens of the two sentences true. But Quine cannot appeal to these considerations either, since the notion of an extensional contrast between 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' is again inconsistent with Part III of I.T.T. For surely, if we can sensibly speak of 'Rabbit' as having a determinate extension different from the extension of 'Rabbit stage', then it must be that, even if we can never find out how they use it, the natives, in fact, either do or do not use 'Gavagai' in such a way that its extension contains all and only those things we call rabbits. If they do, 'Rabbit' is the correct translation of 'Gavagai', otherwise it is incorrect. Hence part three of I.T.T. forbids us from making sense of the supposed conflict between the two translation hypotheses in extensional terms.

It is worth noticing that these same considerations forbid us from expli- cating the conflict in terms of a failure of - to use Quine's term and concept - stimulus synonymy. So far I have followed Quine's general line in explicat- ing translational indeterminacy in relation to the translation of (one-word) sentences. Now as sentences, 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage' are stimulus synonymous - very roughly, the sensory stimulations appropriate to their affirmation or denial are the same (see [3] pp. 31-5). But as terms, 'rabbit' and 'rabbit stage' are not, for, again very roughly, two terms 'F' and 'G' are stimulus synonymous for a person if and only if they are



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stimulus synonymous as sentences and he would assent to 'All Fs are Gs and vice versa' if asked. (see [3] pp. 54-5). Could we now make sense of the supposed conflict between our translation hypotheses by construing them as hypotheses about terms rather than sentences and pointing to the failure of stimulus synonymy between the two English terms?5 I think not. For although it is reasonable to suppose that neither of our translators would assent to 'All rabbits are rabbit stages and vice versa' the question is: would their failure to assent be justified? It would if 'Rabbit and 'Rabbit stage' have different extensions, but, as we have seen, Quine cannot allow that talk of such an extensional difference is sensible without abandoning part three of I.T.T.

The prospects for rendering part three of I.T.T. consistent with parts one and two do not, therefore, look to be good. For part three forbids us from making sense of the rivalry necessary to parts one and two in either intensional, extensional, or stimulus intensional terms, and if this is so, it is hard to see what possibilities remain.

At this point the possibility suggests itself of a fundamental reconstruc- tion of Quine's argument. We have seen how hard it is to maintain both part three of I.T.T. and the claim that there are genuine alternatives for translation to be indeterminate between. But perhaps it is not Quine but merely the uncritical semanticist who is commited to the existence of such alternatives. Quine's argument could then be reconstructed as a reductio argument against the truth of the commitment along the following lines. For an uncritical semanticist, 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage', since they are paradigmatic expressions of different ideas or propositions, constitute rival hypotheses with respect to the translation of 'Gavagai'. Now if they are rival hypotheses, they are rivals such that the choice between them is undetermined by the totality of the evidence. But where the choice between two (internal) hypotheses is undetermined by the totality of the evidence, it makes no sense to speak of them as genuine rivals, to speak as if there was any question of correctness or incorrectness. Hence, in the present case, the supposed rivalry is not a rivalry at all and uncritical semantics is false.

Although this argument inherits the difficulties we noted in the last section with respect to principle (7) it is, it seems to me, the strongest version of Quine's argument against uncritical semantics obtainable. Whether it is an argument to which Quine would want to subscribe is more



184 JULIAN YOUNG

doubtful. In the first place, he nowhere shows any interest in abandoning the epistemological aspect of I.T.T. - the idea that there are genuine translational alternatives between which translation is epistemically indeterminate -whereas on the reductio interpretation, although we have a valid argument to part three of I.T.T., we obtain it only at the expense of abandoning the idea that translation really is indeterminate at all. And secondly, if the reductio is sound, then it constitutes an attack not merely on the uncritical semanticist but also on anyone who thinks that there is a genuine extensional difference between, for instance, 'Rabbit' and 'Rabbit stage'. And this, it would seem, does not sit well with Quine's generally favourable attitude towards extensions as contrasted with intensions.

Our general conclusion, then, is that either the conjunction of the first two parts, or the third part of I.T.T. must be abandoned. If the latter course is taken Quine no longer has even the appearance of an argument against uncritical semantics. But the first course looks to be textually unlikely, and to sit unhappily with Quine's broader views.

University of Auckland

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] 'Scepticism about Meang: Quine's thesis of Indeterminacy', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 48, 1970.

[2] 'Ontological Relativity' in Ontological Relativity and other Essays, Columbia Uni- versity Press, New York and London, 1969.

[3] Word and Object, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, 1960. [4] Words and Objections (ed. by D. Davidson and J. Hintikka), Reidel, Dordrecht,

1969. [5] The Ways of Paradox, Random House, New York, 1966. [6] Edward F. Becker, 'Indeterminacy Defended', Philosophical Studies 22, 1971.

NOTES

* Apart from Quine's own writings, I have learned most about the indeterminacy of translation thesis from [1] by Charles Landesman. Although I am sometimes critical of Landesman some of the following I regard as a development of his position. I am indebted also to my students, Carol Davies and John Campin.

An earlier version of this paper was read at the Annual conference for 1971 of the New Zealand Philosophical Association. II adopt this tripartite view of I.T.T. from [1].



RABBITS 185

2 This suggestion and the argument it is intended to refute are essentially Landesman's: see l1] pp. 327-30. 3 c.f. [1] pp. 331-2. 4 See 'On Camap's Views on Ontology' in [5] esp. pp. 129-33. 5 cf. [6].



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