Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine on Quine 289
which translate the alien language impeccably, and I conjecture that
they may, even so, sustain incompatible translations of some alien
sentences on highly theoretical matters. Both manuals cover the
ground to perfection, but in partly incompatible ways. They have
missed nothing; the indeterminacy is objective. The point of my
conjecture was a challenge to synonymy and hence to the reification
of meanings, notably propositions.
In Word and Object I based the conjecture on the cantilever character
of the scaffold of analytical hypotheses that relates the theoretical
reach of language to the linguist‘s evidence in verbal behavior.
Conflict between the two manuals seems likely over one sentence
or another on whose truth value the natives are open-minded. I see it
not as a failure of translation, but as a commendable rounding out of
translation beyond the bounds of actuality. It would be a case where
there was no reality to uncover, but only a blank to fill.
Unlike the indeterminacy of reference, which has its simple and
conclusive proof in proxy functions, the indeterminacy of translation
was always a conjecture, albeit a plausible one. It is a dismissal neither
of translation nor of meaning. I have questioned the reification
of meanings, plural, as abstract entities, and this not on the score of
their abstractness, but of their individuation; for there is no entity
without identity. Seeing meaning as vested primarily in the sentence
and only derivatively in the word, I sought in vain an operational line
on sameness of sentential meaning by reflecting on the radical translation
of sentences. My thought experiment in radical translation, in
Word and Qbject, was meant as a challenge to the reality of propositions
as meanings of cognitive sentences. [To repeat,] since there
is no entity without identity, no reification without individuation,
I needed only to challenge sameness of meaning of cognitive sentences.
There are no meanings without sameness of meaning. [And]
for pure sameness of meanings unsullied by shared origins of words
or mutual influences of cultures, where better to look than in radical
translation?
My conclusion was that the only overall test of a good manual of
radical translation was fluent dialogue and successful negotiation,
and my conjecture was that two manuals could pass muster and still
conflict in translation of some sentences remote from observation
and from social and commercial concerns. What was challenged was
the philosophical notion of propositions, the meanings of sentences.
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