1 Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Linguistic Instrumentalism My paper ...

as the pursuit of what Dewey calls “the quest for certainty.” 8
Rorty specifically
challenges Fodor (220 and elsewhere).
Quine (1969) writes: “When we turn thus toward a naturalistic view of language
and a behavioral view of meaning, what we give up is not just the museum figure of
speech. We give up an assurance of determinacy” (28). He is correct. Quine uses
Wittgenstein and Dewey to develop his own thesis of “ontological” indeterminacy,
which goes far beyond the indeterminacy of ordinary translation:
When . . . we recognize with Dewey that “meaning . . . is primarily a property of
behavior,” we recognize that there are no meanings, nor likenesses nor
distinctions of meaning, beyond what are implicit in people’s dispositions to
overt behavior . . . . If by these standards there are indeterminate cases, so much
the worse for the terminology of meaning and likeness of meaning. (29)
In Quine’s “Ontological Relativity,” things turn out much the worse. The cor e of the
argument derives from Quine’s example of an ostensive definition of “rabbit” in a
hypothetical culture that uses “gavagai.” The ontological question is: Does it mean
rabbit, “undetached rabbit part,” “rabbit stage,” or something else (30). The problem is
that ostensive definition regardless of however much we come to agreement in action,
fails to ultimately fix the meaning of “rabbit,” which may have an endless array of
ontological assemblages. Identical twins raised in the same happy home may never be
sure that they are in ontological agreement.
With two such instances of internationally recognized philosophers such as
Quine and Rorty not merely noting the similarity, but making extensive use of it to
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