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Radical Interpretation
Radical interpretation is interpretation of a speaker, including attributing beliefs and desires to them and meanings to their words, from scratch—that is, without relying on translators, dictionaries, or specific prior knowledge of their mental states. The term was introduced by American philosopher Donald Davidson (1973) and is meant to suggest important similarity to W. V. O. Quine's term radical translation, which occurs in his work on the indeterminacy of translation. Radical translation is translation of a speaker's language, without prior knowledge, by observing the speaker's use of the language in context.Davidson, Donald. Radical Interpretation. Originally published in Dialectica, 27 (1973), 314-28. Reprinted in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (2n. ed. 125-39). New York: Clarendon Press. Even more so than radical translation did for Quine, radical interpretation plays an important role in Davidson's work, but the exact nature of this role is up for debate. Some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Davidson (philosopher)
Donald Herbert Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher. He served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago. Davidson was known for his charismatic personality and the depth and difficulty of his thought. His work exerted considerable influence in many areas of philosophy from the 1960s onward, particularly in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and action theory. While Davidson was an analytic philosopher, and most of his influence lies in that tradition, his work has attracted attention in continental philosophy as well, particularly in literary theory and related areas. Personal life Davidson was married three times. His first wife was the artist Virginia Davidson, with whom he had his only child, a daughter, Elizabeth (Davidson) Boyer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radical Translation
Radical translation is a thought experiment in ''Word and Object'', a major philosophical work from American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine. It is used as an introduction to his theory of the indeterminacy of translation, and specifically to prove the point of inscrutability of reference. Using this concept of radical translation, Quine paints a setting where a linguist discovers a native linguistic community whose linguistic system is completely unrelated to any language familiar to the linguist. Quine then describes the steps taken by the linguist while attempting to fully translate this unfamiliar language based on the only data available: the events happening around the linguist combined with the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of natives. Direct translation As a first step, the linguist will use direct translation on occasion sentences. Hearing a lot of utterances of the one-word-sentence 'Gavagai' whenever the linguist sees rabbits, he suspects the one-word-sentence 'Rabb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indeterminacy Of Translation
The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th-century American 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 theory. The indeterminacy of translation is also discussed at length in his ''Ontological Relativity''. Crispin Wright suggests that this "has been among the most widely discussed and controversial theses in modern analytical philosophy". This view is endorsed by Putnam who states that it is "the most fascinating and the most discussed philosophical argument since Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories". Three aspects of indeterminacy arise, of which two relate to indeterminacy of translation. The three indeterminacies are (i) inscrutability of reference, and (ii) holophrastic indeterminacy, and (iii) the underdetermination of scientific theory. The last of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician and mathematician. A prolific author best known for his work on model theory, metamathematics, and algebraic logic, he also contributed to abstract algebra, topology, geometry, measure theory, mathematical logic, set theory, and analytic philosophy. Educated in Poland at the University of Warsaw, and a member of the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic and the Warsaw school of mathematics, he immigrated to the United States in 1939 where he became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Tarski taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1942 until his death in 1983. Feferman A. His biographers Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman state that, "Along with his contemporary, Kurt Gödel, he cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convention T
A semantic theory of truth is a theory of truth in the philosophy of language which holds that truth is a property of sentences. Origin The semantic conception of truth, which is related in different ways to both the correspondence and deflationary conceptions, is due to work by Polish logician Alfred Tarski. Tarski, in "On the Concept of Truth in Formal Languages" (1935), attempted to formulate a new theory of truth in order to resolve the liar paradox. In the course of this he made several metamathematical discoveries, most notably Tarski's undefinability theorem using the same formal technique Kurt Gödel used in his incompleteness theorems. Roughly, this states that a truth-predicate satisfying Convention T for the sentences of a given language cannot be defined ''within'' that language. Tarski's theory of truth To formulate linguistic theories without semantic paradoxes such as the liar paradox, it is generally necessary to distinguish the language that one is talking ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idiolect
Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people. The term is etymologically related to the Greek prefix ''idio-'' (meaning "own, personal, private, peculiar, separate, distinct") and ''-lect'', abstracted from ''dialect'', and ultimately from Ancient Greek grc, λέγω, légō, I speak, label=none. Language Language consists of sentence constructs, choice of words, and expression of style. Accordingly, an idiolect is an individual's personal use of these facets. Every person has a unique idiolect influenced by their language, socioeconomic status, and geographical location. Forensic linguistics psychologically analyzes idiolects. The notion of ''language'' is used as an abstract description of the ''language use'', and of the abilities of individual speakers and listeners.Zuckermann, Gh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Lepore
Ernest or Ernie Lepore (born November 20, 1950) is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist and a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. Education and career Lepore earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1978, and began teaching at the University of Notre Dame before joining the philosophy department at Rutgers University in 1981, where he has taught ever since. Philosophical work He is well known for his work on the philosophy of language and mind, sometimes in collaboration with Jerry Fodor, Herman Cappelen and Kirk Ludwig, as well as his work on philosophical logic and the philosophy of Donald Davidson. Selected publications *''Imagination and Convention: Distinguishing Grammar and Inference in Language'', with Matthew Stone (Oxford University Press, 2015) *''Handbook in Philosophy of Language'', ed. with B. C. Smith, (Oxford University Press, 2006) *''Insensitive Semantics'', with Herman Cappelen (2004, Basil Blackwell) *''Donald Davids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirk Ludwig
Kirk Alan Ludwig (born May 11, 1959) is an American philosopher who is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. Education and career Ludwig graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1981 and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1990, where he worked with Donald Davidson. He joined the faculty at the University of Florida in 1990, where he taught until 2010 when he joined Indiana University Bloomington. Philosophical work Ludwig works in Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Philosophy of Action. He is best known for his work on natural language semantics in the tradition of Donald Davidson, his interpretation of the work of Donald Davidson with Ernest Lepore, his work on collective action, shared intention, and institutional agency, and his work on the epistemology of thought experiments and philosophical i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metalanguage
In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to describe another language, often called the ''object language''. Expressions in a metalanguage are often distinguished from those in the object language by the use of italics, quotation marks, or writing on a separate line. The structure of sentences and phrases in a metalanguage can be described by a metasyntax. Types There are a variety of recognized metalanguages, including ''embedded'', ''ordered'', and ''nested'' (or ''hierarchical'') metalanguages. Embedded An embedded metalanguage is a language formally, naturally and firmly fixed in an object language. This idea is found in Douglas Hofstadter's book, '' Gödel, Escher, Bach'', in a discussion of the relationship between formal languages and number theory: "... it is in the nature of any formalization of number theory that its metalanguage is embedded within it." It occurs in natural, or informal, languages, as well—such as in English, where words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indeterminacy Of Translation
The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th-century American 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 theory. The indeterminacy of translation is also discussed at length in his ''Ontological Relativity''. Crispin Wright suggests that this "has been among the most widely discussed and controversial theses in modern analytical philosophy". This view is endorsed by Putnam who states that it is "the most fascinating and the most discussed philosophical argument since Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories". Three aspects of indeterminacy arise, of which two relate to indeterminacy of translation. The three indeterminacies are (i) inscrutability of reference, and (ii) holophrastic indeterminacy, and (iii) the underdetermination of scientific theory. The last of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meaning (linguistics)
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and computer science. History In English, the study of meaning in language has been known by many names that involve the Ancient Greek word (''sema'', "sign, mark, token"). In 1690, a Greek rendering of the term ''semiotics'', the interpretation of signs and symbols, finds an early allusion in John Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'': The third Branch may be called [''simeiotikí'', "semiotics"], or the Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also , Logick. In 1831, the term is suggested for the third branch of division of knowledge akin to Locke; the "signs of our knowledge". In 1857, the term ''semasiology'' (borrowed from German ''Semasiologie'') is attested in Josiah W. Gibbs' '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
