Must We Know What We Mean?
Abstract: In his 1987 article “Indeterminacy, Empiricism and the First Person”, John Searle argues that we actually know what we mean; therefore, W. V. O. Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation must be wrong. In this paper, I will try to identify the mistakes in Searle’s criticism of Quine’s story. I will argue that Quine’s indeterminacy thesis can be construed as containing two theses- that is, the immanent indeterminacy and the transcendent indeterminacy. With these two indeterminacies in mind, Quine’s indeterminacy thesis will still remain tenable even if we actually know what we mean.
- Location
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Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
- Extent
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Online-Ressource
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Must We Know What We Mean? ; volume:1 ; number:19 ; year:2005 ; pages:21-33 ; extent:13
Kriterion ; 1, Heft 19 (2005), 21-33 (gesamt 13)
- Creator
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Cheng, Kuang-Ming
- DOI
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10.1515/krt-2005-011906
- URN
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urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022090314500581442147
- Rights
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Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
- Last update
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15.08.2025, 7:29 AM CEST
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Associated
- Cheng, Kuang-Ming
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