Davidson and Quine on translation: the challenge from the Global South

Abstract

This essay continues the project of Dilip M. Menon’s Changing Theory: Thinking Concepts from the Global South by illustrating how concrete examples drawn from Chinese philosophy expose problems with the influential translation theories of Donald Davidson and W. V. Quine. First, I show that Donald Davidson’s argument in “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” conflates learnability with translatability. Second, I argue that, while W. V. Quine’s indeterminacy thesis is true, his famous and dramatic “Gavagai!” thought experiment is less convincing than simple examples drawn from everyday translation practice. Third, Davidson’s and Quine’s arguments may have had the unfortunate effect of helping to support ethnocentrism in the mainstream Anglo-American philosophical tradition.