Meaning as Hypothesis: Quine’s Indeterminacy Thesis Revisited

摘要

Despite offering many formulations of his controversial indeterminacy ofntranslation thesis, Quine has never explored in detail the connection between indeterminacynand the conception of meaning that he had supposedly derived from the work ofnPeirce and Duhem. The outline of such a conception of meaning, as well as its relationshipnto the indeterminacy thesis, is worked out in this paper; and its merits and implicationsnare assessed both in the context of Quine’s own philosophical agenda, and alsonwith a view to a very different approach to meaning and understanding exemplifi ed bynthe work of Gadamer.