ABSTRACT
In his discussion of radical translation, W.V.O. Quine adopts a radically, third-personal or ‘interpretationist’ methodological approach to sentence-meaning and belief content. This involves approaching issues concerning whether there is any meaning to a sentence and what its meaning is by asking whether and what we can know or find out about sentence-meaning and belief content. Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation is the conclusion of his discussion of radical translation. Quine restricts the data for the translation manual to alien speakers’ assent and dissent behavior in response to sensory stimulations, which again is expressive of his scientism and physicalism. All the facts there are are physical facts, and the physical facts relevant to speaking a meaningful language and holding beliefs are verbal behavior under sensory promptings physicalistically described, since these are the data that behaviorist psychology, the rigorous science of the mind of Quine’s day, recognizes.
