ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issue of how it is possible to understand the language of an incommensurable theory. It describes the idea of translation failure against the objection that it incoherently precludes understanding. The chapter discusses the objections which might be raised against the separation of understanding from translation. It considers an objection which stems from the principle of interpretative charity. Translation may seem intimately related to understanding. The semantic limits of a language need impose no limitation on a speaker's capacity to understand another language, so translation might fail while understanding succeeds. The independence of understanding from translation, which thus emerges in turn, suggests that one can understand a language without translation. Translation failure of the kind relevant to incommensurability involves an inability to translate between localized theoretical sublanguages within the context of a shared background language. Given the containment of such sublanguages within an encompassing background language, the background language may function as metalanguage for the sublanguages.
