Metz Wisdom in World Philosophy

THE MEANING OF QUINE'S PHILOSOPHY
Author(s): George Romanos

Source: Metaphilosophy, Vol. 11, No. 3/4 (July/October 1980), pp. 210-228
Published by: Wiley
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METAPHILOSOPHY
Vol. 11, Nos. 3 & 4, July/October 1980
THE MEANING OF QUINE'S PHILOSOPHY
George Romanos
For nearly fifty years W. V. Quine's books and articles have

stimulated intense discussion and debate in the fields of logic and the
philosophy of language. And, during the latter half of this period,
perhaps no other figure has had a greater impact on the focus and direc
tion of philosophical research and argumentation.
However, in spite of the keen interest and attention Quine's published
views have almost invariably aroused, some of the most important and
far-reaching implications of his work seem to have escaped the notice of
most contemporary analytic philosophers. These implications have to do
with the familiar and fundamental question as to the relevance of
linguistic inquiry and analysis to traditional philosophical issues. I
contend that the simple, but elusive, philosophical perspective which
underlies and supports most of Quine's writings - and, particularly,
his essay "Ontological Relativity"1 represents, in its own way, as radical
a departure from prevailing philosophical thinking about philosophy as
did the celebrated rejection of traditional metaphysics by early 20th
century logical positivists.
"Ontological Relativity" represents, by Quine's own admission, the
single most complete formulation of his mature thought. The essay
contains his most comprehensive treatment of the role and scope of
human convention in language construction and interpretation. Here
Quine brings together several themes from his earlier work, including,
most notably, his collatoral theses of the indeterminacy of translation
and the inscruatability of linguistic reference,2 and relates them carefully
in order to develop the so-called "relativistic thesis", according to
which, our ultimate understanding of a language's subject matter - i.e.,
its "ontology" - is held to be thoroughly relative to our, at least,
partially, arbitrary choice of how to interpret or translate that language
in terms of another.
Quine's thesis of ontological relativity has been subject to occasional
misinterpretation as expressing, or implying, a relativism akin to Kuhn's
"Incommensureability" thesis, or Whorf's "Hypothesis".3 And, in
'Quine, Willard Van Orman, Onlological Relativity and Other Essays, New York, 1969,
pp. 26-68.
êe Quine, Willard Van Orman, Word and Object, Cambridge, 1960, pp. 26-79, and
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, op. cit., pp. 1-25.
3For example, see, Singer, Peter, "A Discipline Examining Nature's Ultimate Reality,"
New York Times, Sunday Supplement, May 8, 1977.
210
THE MEANING OF QUINE'S PHILOSOPHY 211
light of the extra-linguistic philosophical significance such claim
language are almost automatically accorded by many philosophe
misconstruals are not surprising. What I shall attempt to show
however, is that what the "relativistic thesis" really undercuts
much a belief in the objectivity of our knowledge of the wor
simply, the prevalent preconception of most analytic philosoph
the analysis of language is, in one form or another, essential to
tion, resolution or dissolution of outstanding philosophical pro
Philosophical "analysts" may be separated into two broad gr
One group, impressed with the apparent epistemological limita
our ability to directly apprehend philosophical truth, or "first
principles", chooses an indirect approach to these questions by examin
ing how we speak, or ought to speak, about the world and our experiences
of it. Members of this group look to the structure or meaning of
language as providing "hints" or "clues", as to what the nonlinguistic
facts really are - if not an actual "picture" of these "facts". This is the
perspective of Russell's "Logical Atomism"4 and of Gustav Bergmann's
approach to the construction and study of the "ideal'' language.5 Among
latter day adherents of so-called "ordinary language" philosophy
something of the same outlook is discernible in the writings of J. L.
Austin,6 Gilbert Ryle,7 and R. M. Hare.8
The other group of analysts either reject traditional philosophical
questions altogether, as meaningless, or else reinterpret them as purely
linguistic in nature; i.e., as questions actually concerning the grammar of
a language, the reference of terms, the usefulness of a linguistic
"framework", and so forth. Historical philosophical controversies are
held to arise either from confusion caused by the vagueness and impreci
sion of ordinary language, or, conversely, from philosophical misuse and
abuse of ordinary language. This staunchly anti-metaphysical approach
took shape dramatically with the early Wittgenstein9 and the Vienna
Circle positivists.10 It endures in the attitude, also, of the later Wittgenstein,
and of ordinary language philosophers most heavily influenced by him;
4Russell, Bertrand, "Logical Atomism," in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New

York, 1959, pp. 31-50.
5Bergmann, Gustav, Logic and Reality, Madison, 1964; Meaning and Existence, Madison,
1959; and The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, Madison, 1967.
'See, e.g., Austin, John L., "A Plea for Excuses," in Vere Chappell (ed.), Ordinary
Language, Englewood Cliffs, 1964, pp. 41-63.
7See, e.g., Ryle, Gilbert, "Use, Usage, Meaning," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
Supplementary Volume, XXXV (1961), pp. 223-230.
êe, e.g., Hare, R. M., "Philosophical Discoveries," in Richard Rorty (ed.,), The
Linguistic Turn, Chicago, 1967, pp. 145-162.
'Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by D. F. Pears and
B. F. McGuinness, London, 1961.
l0See, e.g., Jorgensen, Jorgen, The Development of Logical Empiricism, Chicago, 1951;
and Kraft, Victor, Vienna Circle. Translated by Arthur Pap, New York, 1958.
212 GEORGE ROMANOS
such as P. F. Strawson," Stephen Toulmin,12 and Stuart Hampshire.13

Basic to the outlook of both groups is the shared assumption that t
structure or meaning of language - individual expressions or linguis
systems as wholes - can be objectively examined and analyzed in so
way in which extra-linguistic reality, as such, cannot. One group stu
the linguistic data only for the light it may shed on tradition
philosophical problems. The other group studies language for its ow
sake; to examine our patterns of conceptualization, and, perhaps, to
discover more fruitful ones. In what follows, I will concentrate my
attention on members of this latter group.
II
Under the spell of Wittgenstein's Tractatus early positivists radically

redefined the nature and purpose of philosophy: instead of setting out to
reveal the truth about the ultimate nature of reality, or existence,
philosophers were now to concern themselves solely with an investigation
of the nature and scope of significant discourse. Carnap refined and
augmented the basic positivist position by suggesting that otherwise
meaningless metaphysical claims be reinterpreted as disguised "linguistic
proposals".14 Metaphysical debates over the existence or reality of
physical objects, ideas, numbers, classes, etc., should be viewed, he
urged, as actually "linguistic" disagreements over the desirability of
adopting corresponding linguistic "frameworks"; i.e., the "thing"
language, the language of mentalism, arithmetic, set theory, etc. These
practical questions concerning what framework to adopt Carmap termed
"external" questions, and distinguished them sharply from the
theoretically meaningful "internal" questions of the formal and
empirical sciences, which, according to Carnap, are answered from
within given frameworks, according to precise methods of verification
specified by each framework's rules.15
A more recent version of this same view has been put forth by Nelson
Goodman with his claim that there is no one "way" the world is, apart
from the various possible alternative ways of describing or representing
it.16 For Goodman, how we "view" the world depends, essentially, on
"See, e.g., Strawson, Peter, "Analysis, Science and Metaphysics," in Rorty, op. cit.,
pp. 312-320; and Bounds of Sense, London, 1966.
l2Toulin, Stephen, "From Logical Analysis to Conceptual History," in Peter Achinstein
and Stephen Barker (eds.), The Legacy of Logical Positivism, Baltimore, 1969, pp. 25-53.
l3See, e.g., Hampshire, Stuart, "The Interpretation of Language; Words and Concepts,"
in C. A. Mace (ed.), British Philosophy in the Mid-Century, New York, 1957, pp. 267-279.
14Carnap, Rudolph, The Logical Syntax of Language. Translated by Amethe Smeaton,
London, 1937, pp. 298-302.
15Carnap, Rudolph, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology," in Carnap, Rudolph, Mean
ing and Necessity, Chicago, 1956, pp. 205-221.
16Goodman, Nelson, Languages of Art, New York, 1968, pp. 6-19; and "The Way the
World Is," in Nelson Goodman, Problems and Projects, New York, 1972, pp. 24-32.
the particular system of symbolization we employ to order, cons
and comprehend experience. There is no single "correct" or "rig
mode of symbolic representation because there is no absolute standard
"correctness" or "rightness" to judge by. For both Carnap a
Goodman, then, meaningful talk about the world is, first and fore
talk relative to some accepted linguistic framework or symbol sy
Philosophical talk, per se, on the other hand, concerns only the in
structures, and comparative pragmatic virtues of these syst
themselves.
Recognition of the relativity of meaningful talk about the world to
encompassing conceptual considerations rooted in language, while most
explicit in Carnap's philosophy, was implicit in the positivists' indict
ment of metaphysics. Once exploration of an imagined realm of being
beyond all language came to be seen as not only impossible, but even
meaningless, attention naturally came to focus on the conceptualizing
agency itself, viz., language. However, what this turn to language
presupposes is that what we say, or mean to say, about the world is open
to objective philosophical understanding and examination in a way in
which the world itself is not.
Carnap, following the lead of Wittgenstein and Schlick, made much of
the apparent truism that one must determine the meaning of a statement
before one can determine its truth.1'' This observed dichotomy between
questions of meaning and questions of truth was, then, taken to reflect
the division of labour between philosophers and scientists. The
philosopher hunts meaning and constructs, or reconstructs, language;
the scientist, language in hand, seeks truth, and builds theory. As ques
tions of linguistic meaning are, thus, held to be prior to, and independent
of, questions of theoretical truth, so too, then, is philosophy held to be
prior to, and independent of, science.
The conception of linguistic rules or conventions played a key role in
Carnap's theory of language. Carnap viewed each linguistic framework
as equipped with a complete set of conventionally devised syntactical and
semantical rules which set the conditions of meaning for all expressions
of the framework, by specifying just what can be said by means of these
expressions, and how.18 These conventional rules thus determine the
framework's logical or semantic structure, and represent, as it were, a
codification of its conceptual content. The scientist is viewed as working
within the conceptual boundaries set by a given framework's rules, and,
relative to these boundaries, deciding questions of truth and falsity
about the world. The philosopher, however, engaged in the task of
discovering and formulating such rules, is seen as involved in the
exploration and analysis of these very conceptual systems themselves.
l7See, e.g., Carnap, Rudolph, "The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical
Analysis of Language," in A. J. Ayer, op. cit., pp. 61-69; Introduction to Semantics,
Cambridge, 1942, pp. 22-29; and Meaning and Necessity, op. cit., p. 5.
18Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology," op. cit. (pp. 206-8, 213-5).
214 GEORGE ROMANOS
In Carnap's system each framework's

matter of pure convention, the categor
which expressions of the framework r
the range(s) of values of the framework
the extensions of its predicates. Thus
existence or reality of whole systems of e
as questions as to what framework, with
invoke. Once a framework - e.g., Carnap's "thing" language - is
chosen, the existence of certain entities - in this case, physical objects -
is allegedly assured by the rules governing the use of the framework's
expressions.19 What exists, ontologically speaking, is then to be deter
mined by a mere inspection of the accepted framework's rules, and an
important kind of metaphysical inquiry is, thus, reduced to semantic
analysis.
Carnap followed essentially the same line in attempting to explain the
nature, or "ground", of logico-mathematical truth. Simply put, the
doctrine is that certain statements in a language are true or false just
because of the rules or conventions governing the meaning or use of their
constituent expressions.20 These logical, or "analytic", truths are held to
include all those of mathematics, as well as those of elementary logic.
The set of rules or conventions constituting a linguistic framework is
held, therefore, to determine fixed features of a conceptual scheme,
relative to which the existence of certain entities and the truth of certain
statements is guaranteed.
Quine has vigorously and repeatedly attacked Carnap's doctrine of
linguistic rules, as employed to support both of the above accounts of
ontological inquiry and logical truth.21 However, "Ontological
Relativity" contains a particularly pointed discussion of the complica
tions encountered when one tries to specify just what kind of objects a
theory or framework is concerned with:
We are finding no clear difference between specifying a universe of
discourse - the range of the variables of quantification - and
reducing that universe to some other. We saw no significant difference
between clarifying the notion of expression and supplanting it by that
of number. And now to say more particularly what numbers themselves
are is in no evident way different from just dropping numbers and
assigning to arithmetic one or another new model, say in set theory.22
[9Ibid.
20See, e.g., Carnap, Rudolph, "Meaning Postulates," in Carnap, Meaning and Necessity,
op. cit., pp. 222-229.
2lThe most well known critiques of Carnap's doctrine of logical or analytic truth is
contained in Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in Quine, Willard Van Orman, From
a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, 1953, pp. 20-46; and "Carnap and Logical Truth," in
Quine, Willard Van Orman, Ways of Paradox, New York, 1966, pp. 100-125. Quine's
basic critique of Carnap's account of ontology is contained in "On Carnap's Views on
Ontology," in Quine, Ways of Paradox, op. cit., pp. 126-134.
22Quine, "Ontological Relativity and Other Essays," op. cit., pp. 43-44.
Such explication, or "reduction", then, is achieved simply throug
translation of one theory or framework, say arithmetic, into the term
another, say set theory. What the objects referred to by expressio
the original framework are understood to be is, then, relative to
understanding of the reference of terms of the "background" lang
selected, and to the chosen manner of translating the former into
latter. Analogous considerations obtain for efforts to specify the m
ing or use of any other expressions which might be used in stat
framework's logical, or "analytic", truths. The problem with Car
doctrine is simply that it is hard to see what else the semantical rules
language might conceivably be other than just some selected rules
translating that language into some selected "background" langua
where what was to be explained - viz., the purportedly semantic ba
any ontological assumptions or logical truths - must already be
presupposed.
When we interpret a framework as Carnap suggests, we do so only
relative to the unexplicated terms of the background framework chosen,
which itself remains uninterpreted, except; in turn, relative to some
further translation of it into another language. The ontology of a
framework thus interpreted is merely identified or correlated with (part
of) that of the background language, by means of the rules of translation
invoked. Similarly, the allegedly logical or "analytic" truths of the
interpreted framework are also simply identified or correlated with
(some of) those of the background language. The interpreted framework
is not so much understood as abolished or explained away in favor of the
unexplicated terms of the background language. The interpreted
framework becomes, in effect, little more than an alternative system of
notation for expressing the truths and referring to the objects of the
background language - whatever these may be understood to be. Such
rules can never succeed in formally specifying the semantic or conceptual
structure of a language, for whenever translation finally ceases, the
meanings or reference of terms in the background language will remain
as formally unspecified as ever.
Now Quine too assigns convention an important role in answering
questions of truth and existence, but not as occurs in the adoption of
explicit linguistic rules and definitions. Quine cites the development of
set theory as an example of how new laws, and any entities satisfying
them, can be introduced all at once, without benefit of prior explication,
through a process Quine calls "legislative postulation".23 Such new laws
are thus adopted and directly incorporated into a pre-existing body of
theory, or system of beliefs, for the sake of the increased simplicity
and/or predictive efficacy they contribute to the system as a whole. As
for Carnap, the justification for these linguistic decisions is to be
primarily pragmatic, but there is no pretense of formally defining any
novel expressions. Instead the meanings of any new predicates intro
23Quine, "Carnap and Logical Truth," op. cit., pp. 111-114.
216 GEORGE ROMANOS
duced, and the nature of any objects to which they apply, is at best,
implicitly determined by overall theoretical context; i.e., by the
relationships of the new laws and predicated to each other and t
of the rest of the system, and of this system as a whole to experien
The basic ontology of a theory was imagined to represent certain f
features of a conceptual scheme - features determined by the (se
rules of the very language employed in developing the theory
generally, logical or "analytic" truth was imagined to reflect the
peculiarly linguistic considerations, and therein its claim of certaint
The failure of the doctrine of linguistic rules results, therefore
failure to clearly distinguish merely linguistic questions from theor
questions, generally, and, thus, in a failure to distinguish betw
philosophy, on the one hand, and science, on the other. Legisla
postulation, as characterized by Quine, betrays an irreduceable e
of conventionality, to be sure. However, in so doing it offers itself
mode of scientific hypothesizing, generally, and will not be con
the purely 'philosophical' realms of logic and ontology. To say th
existence is presupposed by the very way we "see" or speak ab
world, can be said as accurately for all entities as for any. So to
their truth is presupposed by the way we talk can be said as well fo
any true statements. The idea that linguistic meaning can som
isolated and examined independently of all extraneous theoreti
siderations is far less obvious than it may first have appeared.
The conceptual structure analysts believe inherent in signific
discourse simply does not yield to straightforward analysis and
tion. The ontological/conceptual import of a fully interpreted li
framework remains always relative to our presystematic grasp
unexplicated terms of a background language. Conceptual, or sem
truth seems to resist intelligible articulation every bit as much
metaphysical truth for a mystic like Bergson. It is no longer cl
saying what we really say there is is essentially easier than sayin
there really is.
The question which now must be faced is whether or not it ma
more sense to think we can abstract from all linguistic consider
order to explore language itself than it does to think we can d
apprehend the nature of reality apart from all language. Relat
language has emerged as a double-edged sword, and the reservat
the early Wittgenstein and Schlick concerning the possibility o
cant talk about the logical structure or meaning of language ha
strengthened by the "relativitic thesis'. If we are to accept the i
linguistic systems cast all our thoughts into varying conceptua
which shape and limit what we may even conceivably or mean
hold true, then, it seems reasonable to expect some objective w
identifying these moulds, recognizing their various individual c
and telling them one from another.
III
Perhaps, then, we are well advised to abandon efforts to explicitly

formulate the ontological assumptions or conceptual structures of our
theoretical frameworks. But to say they can't be explicitly formulated is
not to say our frameworks have no determinate conceptual significance
at all, or that we don't so recognize them. Suppose that our under
standing of the structure or meaning of our discourse is, after all, only
implicit in the end. Our linguistic systems take on concrete significance,
we may hold, only when applied, directly, or indirectly (i.e., via trans
lation), to experience in the form of a working theory. Conceptualization
may, then, be viewed as the product of the interaction between language
and experience itself, determinate enough in principle, but incapable of
formal statement.
And, after all, isn't just such an implicit understanding of language
exemplified by our daily, unhesitating use of "ordinary speech"? It
seems silly to ask for formal explication of ordinary language since there
is no form of language we understand any better. Perhaps, we must
accept a blurring of the distinction between philosophical and scientific
questions, which seems to depend upon making definite objective sense
out of the notion of linguistic rules or conventions, but certainly formal
rules are unnecessary in order to understand ordinary language and the
everyday world with which it deals. We might still talk meaningfully,
then, of possible ontologies and alternative conceptual schemes as long
as we realize that we must ultimately rely only on our implicit recognition
of these as characterized in terms continuous with the most ordinary and
familiar expressions at hand. Surely, a theory phrased as 'ordinarily' as
possible at least implicitly defines its subject matter.
And, of course the line between natural or ordinary language, on the
one hand, and more artificial or formally constructed languages, on the
other, has indeed, been sharply drawn by many philosophers. Even
Carnap's formal constructions relied on final explication in the terms of
everyday speech. This has led critics like Strawson to scorn the very idea
that Carnap's formal systems could possibly aid the cause of
philosophical clarification.24 Bergmann views our understanding of
ordinary language - upon which we are to rely in considering his 'ideal'
language - as immediate and intuitive in some way that goes essentially
beyond what can be captured in either formal or empirical semantics.25 A
similar spirit moves philosophers like Ryle and Hare and has prompted
J. L. Austin to characterize ordinary language philosophy, in general, as
"linguistic phenomenology".26
24Strawson, Peter, "Carnap's Views on Constructed Systems versus Natural Language in
Analytic Philosophy," in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap, The
Library of Living Philosophers, LaSalle, 1963, pp. 513-514.
2SBergmann, The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, op. cit., pp. 17-29.
26 Austin, op. cit., p. 47.
218 GEORGE ROMANOS
Ordinary language philosophers more in the tradition of the lat

Wittgenstein, however, explain our intuitive-like grasp of ordina
language as evidence of a "mastery" developed through ongoin
intensive exposure to, and practice in, its correct use during which
understanding of the language has become "second nature".27 This
and error method of language learning is not to be essentially diff
tiated from the method of induction and hypothesis employed in
empirical science, but for the comparative lack of self-consciousness with
which it occurs from early childhood on.
In Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein stresses the fact that
expressions are not learned singly, in isolation from one another, as in
the formal definitions of constructed systems. Instead, he explains, one
comes to understand an expression by seeing it "in-use", "in
application", or "in-action", by attending to the systematic relation
ships it exhibits with other terms in the language. "One cannot guess how
a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that."28 One
demonstrates one's "mastery" of a term not by providing formal defini
tions, but through responding appropriately in the various different
situations in which the expression occurs as part of more complex state
ments, demands, commands, requests, and queries. The sense or meaning
of a term is thus derived from its role within the language to which it
belongs, and from the way this language is employed to manage and
describe experience.29
Are we ready to concede, then, that we do, after all, really know what
we are talking about? An account of language learning, such as
Wittgenstein's requires no direct apprehension or intuition of linguistic
meanings and concepts. This is, rather, an empirical, even a behavioral,
theory of how we come to understand and employ a language without
ever necessarily being able to formally express this understanding, as
such.
Is the whole import of Quine's "relativistic thesis", then, simply that
any explicit interpretation of a theory will always be relative to our
implicit understanding of the background language employed? Is this
aura of profound and disquieting revelation generated solely by the
rather mundane realization that a prior understanding of some terms
must be presupposed if one is to meaningfully explicate others by means
of them? If so, a Wittgensteinian account of language "mastery" should
serve to bolster any failing confidence in the adequacy of our under
Standing of ordinary language, and it seems reasonable to think that any
translation or interpretation in terms of a language so "mastered" will
be as fuli, explicit, and objective as we need care to worry about.
27For his observations on our apparent semantic intuitions, see Wittgenstein, Ludwig,
Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombie, New York, 1968, § 197.
2*Ibid., § 340.
29Ibid., § 27-30. See also, Strawson, op. cit., p. 517.
The fact is, however, that the "relativistic thesis" cuts m

than this. According to the "relativistic thesis", interpre
theory or language in terms of another never succeeds in
ontological/conceptual cards squarely on the table simply
are, ultimately, no such cards to show. The contention is not j
lack - on pain of infinite regress or vicious circularity - t
specify our ultimate ontological/conceptual presuppos
rather, that there is, in the end, nothing there to specify bey
directly achieved by the translation itself. Explicit inter
translation is not just an oblique and indirect rendition of
and blood story; it is - in the very impoverished and relat
here described - the whole story.
No matter how tirelessly we link one theory or framew
tionally to another we never succeed in reaching a backgro
whose ontology or conceptual apparatus is any more objec
and determinate than that of the original theory, simply
sense we are able to make of talk about the ontological or
import of a theory derives from the possibility of such trans
rather than constituting the basis upon which it proceeds.
for nothing less than the position that even in our most fa
inclusive "home" language, into which we may suppose all
formally constructed frameworks are ultimately translatea
ontological assumptions and mode of conceptualization
"inscrutable" and objectively indeterminate as ever.
To demonstrate his point Quine brings the consequences
known thesis of the indeterminacy of translation to bear on t
"home" language.30 Quine argues that by making appropr
sating adjustments in our interpretation of a "cluster of inter
ticles and constructions" - what Quine calls the "indi
apparatus" of English, viz., ". . . plural endings, pronouns
the 'is' of identity, and its adaptations 'same' and 'other' "3
easily interpret an ordinary term like "rabbit" as referri
strange entities as rabbit time slices, or undetached rabbit par
ordinary rabbits themselves.
Now Wittgenstein too, stresses that the ostensive learnin
depends crucially on our learning to master its use in sent
contexts where this same basic auxiliary vocabulary is
involved.32 Strawson also, holds that our basic categori
standing are fundamentally determined by the way they a
means of the "formal" concepts of number, unity, existen
and the like,33 which are associated with these same logic
30Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, op. cit., pp. 45-51.
3lIbid., p. 32.
32See, again, Wittgenstein, op. cit., § 27-30.
33See, for example, Strawson, "Analysis, Science, and Metaphysics," op. c
220 GEORGE ROMANOS
matical devices. What both philosophers overlook, however, is the

problem of determining specific interpretations for these basic expres
sions. Quine's point is, simply, that there is no objective basis for inter
preting this individuative apparatus so as to assure terms like "rabbit"
their conventional extensions, rather than some of the more bizarre
alternatives.
We can systematically reconstrue our neighbor's apparent references

to rabbits as really references to rabbit stages, and his apparent
references to formulas as really references to Godel numbers and vice
versa. We can reconcile all this with our neighbor's verbal behaviour
by cunningly readjusting our translation of his various connecting
predicates so as to compensate for the switch of ontology.34
If Quine is right it makes no objective sense at all to say that we are

really talking of physical objects rather than, say, time slices; but only
that we choose "physical-object"-talk to "time-slice"-talk as our
background language. The objective discrepancy between these two
apparently different ways of speaking shrinks to a question of mere
notational variance rather than of divergence in subject matter. Quine
refers to the network of terms, predicates, and auxiliary devices com
prising a background language as a "coordinate system" or "frame of
reference" which lends questions of ontology, conceptual import, and
the like, whatever significance they have. To question a theory's
ontology makes sense, claims Quine, only relative to some translation of
it into a background theory. "The background language gives the query
sense, if only relative sense; sense relative to it, the background
language."35
Absolute questions about the objects the expressions of a language
really refer to are as meaningless, asserts Quine, as questions about
absolute position or velocity. Just as the locations of successive spatial
coordinate systems can be identified only relative to some still further
coordinate system, until the regress finally halts, in practice, with
something like pointing, so too, Quine holds, when we question the
ontology of one theory after another, the regress can only be halted by
finally "acquiescing in our mother tongue", whose terms we accept "at
face value". Quine renders the full force of the "relativistic thesis" con
cisely as follows:
What makes sense is not to say what the objects of a theory are,
absolutely speaking, but how one theory of objects is interpretable or
reinterpretable in another.36
34Quine, op. cit., p. 47.

3>Ibid., p. 49.
16Ibid„ p. 50.
THE MEANING OFQUINE'S PHILOSOPHY 221
At first it may have appeared that a full specification of our o
logical assumptions and conceptual schemes, such as Carnap propo
was impossible only for the lack of an ultimate language in which to st
them definitively, once and for all. Now, though, the situation has
suddenly and drastically reversed; for Quine is claiming that it is
relative to some language chosen as "coordinate system" that talk
theory's ontology makes any sense to begin with. Our uncritical ac
tance and employment of our most familiar and all-inclusive idio
neither represents nor in any way engenders an implicit understanding
its true subject matter, referential scope, or ontological import. Th
critical acceptance testifies not to our presystematic ontological/co
tual awareness, but only to the ultimate pointlessness and mean
inglessness of such questions themselves.
IV
What has occurred is that a blow has been struck against philosophical
analysis every bit as decisive and crippling as the positivists' own earlier
assault on traditional metaphysics. What has been shattered is the
elementary assumption of most analytic philosophers, including both
Carnap and Wittgenstein, that (philosophical) talk about the structure,
meaning or content of linguistic expressions makes any objective sense to
begin with; regardless of what the specific nature and origins of this con
tent might be held to be.
The result is a view far more radical than Carnap envisioned. Not only
is reality indeterminate, in and of itself, essentially dependent for its
organization and coherence upon our linguistic decisions; but, now, the
semantic or conceptual import of these decisions themselves is held to be
incomplete and indeterminate, in principle. In choosing between such
prima facie disparate systems as that of physical objects and that of time
slices, we do not appear to be making a choice that makes any objective
difference. Major ontological/conceptual differences are portrayed as
evanescent and ultimately meaningless. What breaks down is the very
idea of a conceptual scheme itself, as an inherent feature of a linguistic or
theoretical system. Not only is there no one way the world really is, but it
no longer makes any sense even to suppose there is a way we really say
it is.
The central lesson to be learned from the "relativistic thesis" is that
questions about what a language or theory is really about - absolute
semantical questions - are on a par wth questions about the world as it
really is - absolute metaphysical questions. Once one accepts the fact
that talk of the world apart from some applied linguistic or theoretical
system, is unintelligible, the parallel conclusion concerning the basic
categories or concepts a given language applies to the world must also be
faced.
To see this point clearly we need only reflect on the tenet that extra
linguistic reality will not "cohere" of itself and apply this consideration
222 GEORGE ROMANOS
to the problem of objectively determining just how a given por

language describes or represents reality, as Quine does in his con
situation of "radical translation".37 The result is the indetermin
incoherence of description itself. For to say that there is no single r
correct way of describing, representing, or conceiving of the world
say, as Goodman noted, that there is no objective standard for ch
between certain possible alternative descriptions. But this is, in
just to say that there is no objective difference between the way
purportedly different descriptions describe. And this conclusion mil
as strongly against the enterprise of conventional philosophical a
as traditional metaphysics.
Consider the peculiar nature of the problem facing Quine's f
linguist as he attempts to empirically determine the reference
native term "gavagai".38 His uncertainty over translating "gav
"rabbit" stems from the lack of any possible evidential basis for
deciding whether it is actually rabbits, and not, say rabbit time slices,
whose appearances uniformly correspond with native utterances of
"gavagai". Whether we determine there to be a rabbit, or a rabbit time
slice, before us will depend on whether we are viewing the world from
the vantage point of physical object theory or time slice theory; this is the
relativity of the world to language. Whether we judge the natives to be
speaking of rabbits, or rabbit time slices, will, similarly, depend on
whether our "coordinate system" for interpreting "alien" expressions is
ordinary physical theory, or, time slice theory; this is the relativity of
what language says about the world to language itself. The pointlessness
of maintaining there is absolutely a rabbit there is identical with that of
maintaining that "gavagai" absolutely refers to rabbits. The evidence in
each case is precisely the same, and insufficient, in principle, to decide
the matter.
Recognition that meaningful talk of the world occurs only from a
particular linguistic or theoretical perspective naturally leads to the
demand for a closer examination of these systems themselves. What
"Ontological Relativity" teaches us, however, is simply, to take Quine's
often cited figure of the "linguistic boat" seriously. Metaphysicians and
analysts both have tried to climb out and stand clear of this boat; the
former to get a clearer look at the world Outside, the latter to take a long
hard look at the boat itself. But if independent solid ground is to be
denied one, why should it be accorded the other?
Semantics as a discipline is, then, theoretically no better or worse off
than metaphysics. The methodological obstacles are virtually identical
and spring from a common philosophical orientation and motivation.
This is the desire to explain science - scientific theory and scientific
37See, again, Quine, Word and Object, op. cit., pp. 26-80; and Ontological Relativity and
Other Essays, op. cit., pp. 1-25.
38Quine, Word and Object, op. cit., pp. 51-57; and Ontological Relativity and Other
Essays, pp. 30-39.
truth - in some fundamental way that is essentially more basic th
scientific explanation itself. Metaphysicians seek to reveal the esse
nature and composition of the three dimensional physical world w
science describes. Analysts try to identify the essential logical and
ceptual components of the three dimensional physical world descri
itself. Both efforts are definitional in character, though metaphys
prefer the material mode of speech and analysts the formal. Meta
cians seek real definitions, analysts, nominal ones; but the analytic
search for the logical or semantic content of scientific truth is a mere
reflection, in the formal mode of speech, of the metaphysical pursuit of
essence.
Surprisingly enough, the relativity of ontology appears to strike hard

at one of Quine's own best publicized contentions regarding the alleged
superior clarity and intelligibility of concepts of the theory of reference
as compared with those of the theory of meaning, per se.19 Quine has
long opposed appeals to linguistic "meaning" in the narrow, intensional
sense employed in modal logics and by philosophers in their efforts to
explain such phenomena as translation, ambiguity, the so-called "pro
positional attitudes" and, especially, the analytic/synthetic distinction.40
The negative implications of indeterminacy of translation and
ontological relativity, however, come not just as one more assault on this
already hotly disputed, narrower notion of meaning, but are directed
squarely against the theory of reference itself - up to now the most
widely accepted and least disputed portion of semantics, of which Quine
himself has been one of the most ardent supporters.
Now, even the demise of the once favoured theory of reference might
conceivably be endured without utter despair were it not, perhaps, for
the fact that truth itself is commonly reckoned, by Quine and many other
philosophers, as one of the chief concepts of this field. Indeed, Tarski
has even shown how to formally define such a "semantic conception of
truth" for a certain restricted class of formalized languages, by means of
the semantic concept of satisfaction,41
Questions about the nature of the objects which satisfy the expressions
(open sentences, or sentential functions) of a language, like those con
cerning the objects named and denoted by its singular and general terms,
would appear to be as relative to a translation of that language into a
selected background language as are questions of ontology generally.
And thus, it would seem that to construct a notion of truth on the basis
Quine, Willard Van Orman, "Notes on the Theory of Reference," in Quine, From a
Logical Point of View, op. cit., pp. 130-138.
"^See Gilbert Harman's account in "Quine on Meaning and Existence," (Part I), Review of
Metaphysics, XXI (September, 1967), pp. 125-151.
4lTarski, Alfred, "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages," in Alfred Tarski,
Logic, Semantics, Mathematics. Translated by J. H. Woodger, London, 1956, pp. 152-278.
224 GEORGE ROMANOS
of such a concept would be to relativize it in precisely the same way

would presumably mean, for example, that in attributing truth to a
sentence of arithmetic we would attribute a distinctly numerica
when this sentence is taken as dealing with natural numbers, b
different, set theoretical version when the same sentence is inte
instead, as treating of sets. So viewed, the nature of the truth attri
to one and the same sentence would vary systematically according to
one (arbitrarily) chooses to construe, and reconstrue, the references
constituent terms; thus making objective nonsense altogether, i
appear, out of talk of truth.
Tarski's semantically constructed concept of truth is not, how
such bad shape as this after all. Satisfaction, defined according to
Tarski's procedure, does not hinge on the perculiarly generic
characteristics of the elements of any particular universe of discourse,
but only on the broad, structural features required of a universe for it to
serve as the model of a given theory. Once quantification is fixed within a
language, different definitions of satisfaction can proceed by employing
diverse, albeit isomorphic, ontologies without thereby altering in any
way the membership of the total set of sentences determined as true.
Thus, given a consistent quantificational scheme, Tarski's procedure will
deliver one and the same account of truth and satisfaction regardless of
how ontologies are switched and predicates correspondingly
reinterpreted.42
However, even such modest semantic assumptions as these provide no
real basis for a truly objective or transcendant concept of truth. For talk
of the structure of a theory's universe, or even of the objectuality of its
quantification - i.e., whether its variables of quantification must
actually take on real values or not - still boils down to a question of
settling interpretations of its logical and individuative apparatus -
particularly its quantification. And this, according to Quine, still
remains a largely arbitrary matter at the level of radical translation. Since
Tarski's procedure applies only to languages which are themselves
applications of standard predicate logic, the semantic concepts it yields
will retain a degree of relativity proportional to that involved in
establishing the requisite quantificational form of such languages.
Within the previously undisputed realm of the theory of reference,
then, we may now discern two distinct levels, or degrees, of semantic
inquiry and discussion; both of which fail, in the final analysis, to
achieve full theoretical significance.
Semantics in the first degree, or at the deepest and most intuitive level,
would examine the peculiar features of a theory's domain of discourse
and would draw important generic distinctions between the correlated
objects of isomorphic domains. The main concepts of this level of
42See Quine's remarks concerning the bearing of ontological relativity on Tarski-type truth
definitions in "Comments on Donald Davidson", Synthese, July/August 1974, pp. 327-8.
semantic analysis are the familiar, traditional ones of naming, de
tion, and even satisfaction, understood intuitively. Semantics at this le
is rife with the two-fold relativity of ontology.
Semantics in the second degree, or at the shallower, more explicit lev
seeks only to delineate the basic contours or structural properties
theory's universe, and, perhaps, to decide if the theory must be viewed
dealing with any objects at all. The main concepts of this disembod
form of semantic analysis are model (true interpretation), isomorph
and objectuality (as of quantification); in addition to the concepts
satisfaction, truth and the rest, when explicated according to Tars
formal procedure. This more rigorous and precise mode of seman
analysis makes no real capital of much that is relative and arbitr
about reference, or ontology; but it too founders, finally, on the
bitrariness involved in establishing the basic logico-grammatical st
ture of a language, which is required in order to render its raref
concepts intelligible.
We may conclude, in either case, therefore, that a notion of tr
understood in terms of other semantic concepts, such as satisfac
cannot legitimately be identified with the concept of truth which can
significantly and univocally attributed to the sentences of a langu
without regard to the variety of different truth-preserving interpretat
to which these sentences may be subject.
In his discussion of "radical translation" Quine amply illustrates
we may lack any objective basis for projecting our own familiar ob
positing pattern, or indeed, any object positing pattern, on nativ
speakers, yet still proceed, via routing empirical observations, to
determine what native sentences are true, and even the specific truth
conditions of many of these. The conceptual primacy of truth over
meaning is, in fact, presupposed by an empirical approach to language
interpretation, such as Quine's method of "radical translation", in so
far as the objective determination of truth and truth conditions for
specific sentences is seen from the start as a pre-requisite to any deeper
semantic analysis, regardless of how determinate this latter analysis may,
or may not, prove to be.
Davidson has perceived this same conceptual ordering in Quine's
approach to radical translation and has proposed his own theory of
"radical interpretation" based on an explicit assumption of the primacy
of the concept of truth over concepts of meaning. "What we want to
achieve," states Davidson, is . .an understanding of meaning or
translation assuming a prior grasp of truth."43 Quine has endorsed
Davidson's proposal as making explicit what is implicit in his own
approach to translation (i.e., the "method of query and assent"):
43Davidson, Donald, "Belief and the Basis of Meaning," Synthese, Vol. 27, Nos. 3/4
(July/August 1974), p. 318.
226 GEORGE ROMANOS
It seems right to me to give a central role to what Davidson calls

'holding to be true', because this is just what one is getting at when one
uses the method of query and assent, which seems the central track to
learning a language; whether a foreign language as a field linguist or
one's own mother tongue as a small child.44
Rather than defining the truth in other semantic terms, then, con
sideration of what is required for the "radical" interpretation or trans
lation of a language actually suggests just the opposite course of action.
The observed empirical indifference of antecedently determined truth
and truth conditions of sentences, in either our own or an "alien"
tongue, to widely varying and mutually incompatible assignments of
internal semantic content, thus, emerges as an additional consideration.
For, given the indeterminacy of translation and the resulting relativity of
reference, once truth for the sentences of a language is settled, whatever
semantics one then goes on to choose will still remain a largely arbitrary
affair.
It is customary to acknowledge the underdetermination of scientific
truth relative to observation, or experience. Quine has tried to point out
that the indeterminacy of translation and meaning constitutes a second
dimension of underdetermination, over and above that of theoretical
truth itself.45 For where semantic analysis (including translation) begins
is precisely where theorizing, proper, leaves off. Semantic analysis starts
back in that remote portion of theory, far from the observational base,
where we deign to identify and speak explicitly of truth, evidence, and
theories themselves. Given the full corpus of scientific truth as its
parameters semantics seeks formal principles, or strategies, for construc
ting and reconstructing that truth; as well as for correlating (portions of)
that truth with (portions of) other truth. This discipline seeks truths
about the structural forms and relationships of given true statements. So
far as it is underdetermined it reveals no single set of structural proper
ties, but rather, a variety of alternatives ("analytical hypotheses").46 In
doing so it yields various formal reiterations of the same scientifically
ascertained "facts", as a mere by-product of the translational or inter
pretational effort. Semantic analysis so construed is a purely formal or
notational enterprise, constrained at its borders, not by observation, or
experience, but by antecedently perceived truth.
^Quine, Willard Van Orman, "Comments on Donald Davidson," Synthese, Vol. 27, Nos.
3/4 (July/August 1974), p. 325.
45See Quine, Word and Object, op. cit., pp. 73-79; "On the Reasons for Indeterminacy of
Translation," Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 62 (1970), pp. 178-183; and "To Chomsky," in
Jaakko Hintikka and Donald Davidson (eds.), Words and Objections: Essays on the Work
of W. V. Quine, Dordrecht, 1969, pp. 302-304.
ôr a discussion of the nature and role of "analytic hypotheses" see Quine, Word and
Object, op. cit, pp. 68-73.
VI
There remain at least three distinguishable kinds of philosophical

activity which may be legitimately pursued within the overall Quinean
perspective sketched here. Each of these three modes of philosophy
displays a characteristic concern with "linguistic" issues of one form or
another, though none of them is identifiable with "first philosophy" or
"analysis" in any standard metaphilosophical sense. All three are, in
fact, to be carried on in a manner and spirit continuous with that of
theoretical science, generally.
Science has been tagged "self-conscious common sense". This "self
consciousness" manifests itself in language, through the systematic
articulation of sentences - /rue sentences, one hopes - about the world.
One mode of philosophizing may, then, be described as science, itself,
gone self-conscious. Here the characteristic scientific concern with the
construction of true sentences is reflected in the philosophical concern
with the construction of true sentences about true sentences. As the most
prized product of science, in general, is truth about the world, so the
most prized product of philosophy, in the current sense, is truth about
truth. This kind of philosophical inquiry is well labelled the theory of
truth, for the concept of truth assumes the role of its principal theoretical
concept. This portion of theoretical science, whose scope is the entire
range of scientific activity is closest to traditional epistemology and
philosophy of science.
There is also something which can still be said of philosophy in a
residual sense of linguistic or semantic analysis. This is philosophy as a
notational enterprise, where issues of theoretical truth, proper, are only
indirectly involved. Its business is the creative mathematical exploration
of linguistic or theoretical systems. Philosophical analysis as described
here seeks merely to bring to light structural analogies and relationships
between different systems, or different segments of the same system. In
so doing, it reveals various possible channels of inter-translation, as well
as opportunities for more localized definition and paraphrase. The truth
or falsity of the system explored is not the direct concern of the analyst,
as he plots formal relationships from one system to another. However,
the discovery of notational options and opportunities for theoretical
reduction and consolidation may certainly act as a strong stimulus and
aid to theoretical innovatons of a more direct sort.
The third sort of philosophical enterprise is most familiar from
Quine's own writings.47 Philosophy in this sense is more or less directly
concerned with those theoretical questions which are most apt to be
termed "metaphysical". These are the questions concerning the existence
or reality of e.g., minds, ideas, and intentions in psychology; numbers
and sets in mathematics; molecules and atoms, waves and particles, in
47Most memorably, perhaps, in Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," op. cit., 42-47.
228 GEORGE ROMANOS
physics, etc.. These are the theoretical

tional periphery of science. Answers to
systematic implications and disagreem
major divergences of overall theoretica
Quine has explained, there is often re
discussion of the theoretical systems themselves, in order to make
theoretical commitments explicit, and head off needless misunder
standing and question-begging.48
Many philosophers have believed, and continue to believe, that view
ing philosophy as an integral part of theoretical science, as is done here,
strips it of its normative, critical, or regulative authority. But this view is
itself a product of the outworn distinction between questions of fact and
questions of value. Rejection of the fact/value - or normative/
theoretical - distinction no more entails that all questions are questions
of fact, than that they are questions of value. Rather, it reflects an
appreciation of the subtle reciprocity of both factual and normative
considerations, to varying degrees, throughout the entire realm of
theoretical inquiry. That a theoretical or scientific account of truth and
theory construction should instruct us in how to think, and determine
truth, is no more paradoxical than that theoretical science should tell us
how to look at the world, generally. That the philosopher, qua theoreti
cian, should produce "rules" for the scientist to follow, is, essentially,
no more problematic than that the physicist should formulate "rules"
for the engineer to follow. The decision to treat philosophy as a fully
scientific discipline need carry with it no abdication of critical-normative
responsibility, so long as one is not committed to an impoverished view
of science itself.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
48Quine, Word and Object, op. cit., pp. 270-276.

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THE MEANING OF QUINE'S PHILOSOPHY

Author(s): George Romanos

THE MEANING OF QUINE'S PHILOSOPHY

For nearly fifty years W. V. Quine's books and articles have

4Russell, Bertrand, "Logical Atomism," in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New

such as P. F. Strawson," Stephen Toulmin,12 and Stuart Hampshire.13

Under the spell of Wittgenstein's Tractatus early positivists radically

In Carnap's system each framework's

23Quine, "Carnap and Logical Truth," op. cit., pp. 111-114.

Perhaps, then, we are well advised to abandon efforts to explicitly

Ordinary language philosophers more in the tradition of the lat

The fact is, however, that the "relativistic thesis" cuts m

matical devices. What both philosophers overlook, however, is the

We can systematically reconstrue our neighbor's apparent references

If Quine is right it makes no objective sense at all to say that we are

34Quine, op. cit., p. 47.

to the problem of objectively determining just how a given por

Surprisingly enough, the relativity of ontology appears to strike hard

of such a concept would be to relativize it in precisely the same way

It seems right to me to give a central role to what Davidson calls

There remain at least three distinguishable kinds of philosophical

physics, etc.. These are the theoretical

48Quine, Word and Object, op. cit., pp. 270-276.

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