Quine’s radical translation thesis makes cross-cultural concept comparison impossible

Evidence

Quine’s thesis is that there are no culturally universal meanings or propositions. 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

• DEFINE: Concise statement of Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis as applied to culture.
• XREF: Connects to analytic philosophy debates over meaning holism and incommensurability (Kuhn, Feyerabend). — connects to: Language barriers corrupt cross-cultural research through male-filtered translation