Behavior determines meaning, blocking radical language translation
Evidence
Quine’s thesis is that there are no culturally universal meanings or proposi- tions. This suggests that the ontological-epistemological status of meanings cannot be explored or analyzed outside of the context in which human beings speak or act. Consequently, behaviour is the determinant of meaning within a language. It is therefore not possible to unequivocally translate and compare theoretical concepts between radically different languages. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 569
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Summarizes Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis as applied by Oruka to African philosophy.
Related
- Meaning is determined by behavior and context, preventing universal translation. (similarity 0.91)
- Quine’s radical translation thesis makes cross-cultural concept comparison impossible (similarity 0.88)
- Quine’s indeterminacy thesis allows limited but real intercultural philosophical knowledge (similarity 0.81)
Broader Connections
- Leaving key emotion-words untranslated resists monolingual Western hegemony over meaning
#expands(0.60) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 421 - Histories and causal narratives persist buried inside the language used to tell them
#expands(0.50)