AN ARCHIMEDEAN POINT FOR PHILOSOPHY |
| |
Authors: | SHYAM RANGANATHAN |
| |
Affiliation: | Department of Philosophy, York University, S448 Ross, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada shyamr@yorku.ca |
| |
Abstract: | Abstract: According to an orthodox account of meaning and translation, meaning is a property of expressions of a language, and translation is a matching of synonymous expressions across languages. This linguistic account of translation gives rise to well‐known skeptical conclusions about translation, objectivity, meaning, and truth, but it does not conform to our best translational practices. In contrast, I argue for a textual account of meaning based on the concept of a text‐type that does conform to our best translational practices. With their semantic function in view, text‐types are Archimedean points for their respective disciplines. The text‐type of philosophy is no exception. Culture‐transcendent conceptual analysis can proceed on firm footing without having to deny the reality of radical cultural and linguistic difference by treating components of text‐types as the concepts to be analyzed. Analyses of central philosophical concepts are provided as a means of adjudicating philosophical controversy. |
| |
Keywords: | comparative philosophy conceptual analysis culture incommensurability indeterminacy language meaning moral semantics objectivity philosophy relativism semantics texts text‐types translation truth W. V. O Quine |
|
|