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Meaning as Hypothesis: Quine’s Indeterminacy Thesis Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2010

Serge Grigoriev
Serge Grigoriev*
Affiliation:
Ithaca College
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Abstract

ABSTRACT: Despite offering many formulations of his controversial indeterminacy of translation thesis, Quine has never explored in detail the connection between indeterminacy and the conception of meaning that he had supposedly derived from the work of Peirce and Duhem. The outline of such a conception of meaning, as well as its relationship to the indeterminacy thesis, is worked out in this paper; and its merits and implications are assessed both in the context of Quine’s own philosophical agenda, and also with a view to a very different approach to meaning and understanding exemplified by the work of Gadamer.

RÉSUMÉ : Même s’il formule à diverses reprises sa thèse controversée de l’indétermination de la traduction, Quine n’a jamais examiné de près le lien entre l’indétermination et la conception de la signification qu’il aurait développée à partir des travaux de Peirce et de Duhem. Cet article esquisse le plan d’une telle conception de la signification dans sa relation à la thèse de l’indétermination et évalue les avantages et les implications de cette conception dans le contexte du programme philosophique de Quine lui-même, ainsi que selon l’approche très différente de la signification et de la compréhension élaborée dans l’œuvre de Gadamer.

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Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 395 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2010

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