Abstract
InWord and Object W. V. Quine argues that there is no uniquely correct way to assign referents to the terms of a language; any claim about the reference of a term is implicitly relative to a manual of translation. To Rudolf Carnap this must have seemed familiar. BeforeWord and Object was written Carnap had been saying the same thing inMeaning and Necessity: under the assumption of the method of the name-relation, any claim about the reference of a term is implicitly relative to what Carnap calls a “conception of the name-relation.” Yet Carnap is often taken to be a victim of Quine's relativistic notion of reference. Drawing on Carnap's discussion of the name-relation inMeaning and Necessity, it is argued that Carnap's and Quine's views on reference are not so far apart as is usually perceived.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carnap, R.: 1988,Meaning and Necessity. A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, Midway Reprint, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 100–106.
Creath, R.: 1990, ‘Carnap, Quine and the Rejection of Intuition’, in R. Barrett and R. Gibson (eds.),Perspectives on Quine, Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, pp. 62–63.
Creath, R.: 1994, ‘Functionalist Theories of Meaning and the Defense of Analyticity’, in W. Salmon and G. Wolters (eds.),Language, Logic, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: The Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh and the University of Konstanz Press, Konstanz, Germany.
Quine, W. V.: 1992,Pursuit of Truth, Revised Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 34, 51–52.
Romanos, G. D.: 1983,Quine and Analytic Philosophy, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 49–62.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I would like to thank the referees who reviewed this paper for their helpful and insightful comments. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Richard Creath both for his comments on earlier drafts of this paper as well as for conversations (beyond number) on these and many other issues related to the Quine-Carnap debate. Creath's own discussion of this topic entitled “Functionalist Theories of Meaning and the Defense of Analyticity”, appears in the volumeLanguage, Logic, and the Structure of Scientific Theories: The Carnap-Reichenbach Centennial, edited by W. Salmon and G. Wolters (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, and Konstanz, Germany: University of Konstanz Press, 1994).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Berge, W.H. Carnap and translational indeterminacy. Synthese 105, 115–121 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064105
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064105