Posted by Estella on August 31, 2006, at 22:43:29
In reply to Re: Biopsychosocial vs Biological Reductionism, posted by finelinebob on August 31, 2006, at 20:59:55
Thats all kinda interesting :-)
Are you familiar with Quine at all? He writes about 'radical translation' so that if an anthropoligist were to encounter a tribe what she would want to do would be to construct a translation manuel which would provide a way of translating from the natives tongue into english (or whatever).
He writes about how the anthropoligist should go about constructing the translation manuel. You need to try and figure a sign of assent and a sign of dissent. He talks about that a little. Then once you have that established you can try and figure out words for things.
He says that suppose a rabbit runs across the field and the native yells 'Gavagi' and points at it. You now have a number of candidate hypotheses as to what 'Gavagi' means. It could mean 'rabbit' or it could mean 'fetch me my spear!' or it could mean 'Jakes pet'. You need to try and establish which candidate translation is right by engaging in some hypothesis testing. If you know another native has a rabbit in a cage you could take the native to the cage and point at the rabbit and say 'Gavagi' to see whether you get assent or dissent. You are always supposed to radically translate with the assumption that the natives statements are true (principle of charity).
Quine argues that meaning is always underdetermined by stimulus meaning. Gavagi could mean 'rabbit' or it could mean 'undetached rabbit part' or it could mean 'rabbit until time t and duck afterwards' or it could mean 'rabbit on Tuesdays' or whatever. No matter how much empirical investigation we do the stimulus meaning always underdetermines the translation manuel.
Of course we don't typically encounter such radical scepticism... But Quines argument for the indeterminacy of translation (and the indeterminacy of reference) has implications for us understanding one another from WITHIN a language as well. How do I know that I use the word 'rabbit' to mean the same as you when you say 'rabbit'. Even if we agree in all our judgements of what does and does not count as a rabbit that still underdetermines what we mean by rabbit.
So in a way Quines argument kinda makes it surprising that language and communication is possible at all.
I guess you have that on the one hand (undermining the social aspect of language) while on the other you have Wittgenstein (undermining the private aspect of language). This is controversial but I'll try and reconstruct.
In order to use a word there must be something that counts as using the word correctly and something that counts as using the word incorrectly.
The correct / incorrect amounts to the word having a criteria of application.
If I invent a word just for me to label some inner sensation (and there is no translation into a public language) then there is no criteria of correct and incorrect application.
If I say 'there is that sensation again' and apply the word there is no distinction between seeming to apply the word correctly and actually applying the word correctly.
Hence meanings can't be a private individual matter because you need a linguistic community (of two people at least) in order for there to be a criteria of seems right / is right. Hence private languages (which can't be translated into public languages) are impossible.
But then Quine puts pressure on how much you can translate between languages... And how much you can translate between different speakers of the same language.
Then you have Davidson 'on the very possibility of a conceptual scheme' (or similar) saying that languages CAN be translated into other languages and if something can't be translated into another language then it is not a language.
Old stuff... I don't remember it very well. Probably haven't done a very good job of explaining. I need to learn more about the sociology.
I'm interested in the relationship between the following levels:
-Socio-cultural
-Psychological (Intentional stance / personal level / level of folk psychology)
-Cognitive psychology
-Neurobiology / neuroscienceSeems that the facts on the lower levels determine / fix the facts on the higher levels. Most people accept this (and neurobiology facts are fixed by chemical facts are fixed by the facts of physics). But there is controversy over whether different levels are explanatorily autonomous or whether you should always seek a reductive explanation. Is there a fundamental level (or does that depend on the question)? What is the relationship between explanations at each level etc.
Socio-cultural level is the one I"m the least familiar with...
poster:Estella
thread:680731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060825/msgs/681918.html