So what sounded at first like a thrilling discovery - that
truth is relative to a conceptual scheme - has not so far been
shown to be anything more than the pedestrian and familiar fact
that the truth of a sentence is relative to (among other things) the
language to which it belongs.

The above is important to understand. Davidson's not wholly agreeing with the claim "truth is relative to a conceptual scheme". Rather, Davidson is clearly explaining it's inherent inadequacy for taking proper account of truth. He's saying that the truth of a sentence is relative to more than just a conceptual scheme.

He does grant the truth of all coherent ones as a means to show that they can be translated one into the other. His method is important to note here...

Towards the bottom of page 17, Davidson wrote:

I turn now to the more modest approach: the idea of partial rather than total failure of translation. This introduces the possibility of making changes and contrasts in conceptual schemes intelligible by reference to the common part. What we need is a theory of translation or interpretation that makes no assumptions about shared meanings, concepts or beliefs. The interdependence of belief and meaning springs from the interdependence of two aspects of the interpretation of speech behavior: the attribution of beliefs and the interpretation of sen-
tences...

The emphasized portion MATTERS!!!

Just wanted to mention that - after some much more careful and slow re-reading - I've come to realize that Davidson may be correctly interpreted as rejecting the distinction between that which existed in it's entirety prior to language, and that which did not, by virtue of rejecting an uninterpreted world. If he wholly rejects the very idea of an uninterpreted world, then it would be both quite difficult and quite necessary for him to make sense of the common part of conceptual schemes when comparing different native tongues when that common referent clearly existed in it's entirety prior to our naming it.

What we need is a theory of translation or interpretation that makes no assumptions about shared meanings, concepts, or beliefs.

I wonder if valid argument to arrive at all of those things is acceptable?

I agree with Davidson's conclusion, I just arrived at it by virtue of taking another path. Shared meaning happens long before we become aware of it. Shared meaning is what makes language possible. Leaving it out renders any subsequent reporting unacceptable.

Assuming that those things are unnecessary for translation is not just a garden variety assumption, but it is an assumption none the less, and one that needs argued for.

Here it is... the shared referent of two different languages. It's always something other than both. There is the opening back to the actual world...

Read the end again...

Davidson could've used some prior focus upon shared meaning, although I understand he wants to avoid an uninterpreted world, it seems to me that clearly establishing a world including shared meaning would pick out individuals to the exclusion of all others. Hence, my earlier pleasure with Banno when he mentioned Kripke...

Convention T does not offer a method of translation described by Davidson(common referents) so much as a method of drawing an equivalence between two schemas talking about the same thing.

I'm not sure the worth of such an equivalence. The translation occurred prior to it's being used to fill out convention T.

By Davidson's method, convention T is capable of accounting for two languages picking out the same entity to the exclusion of all else. Davidson seems to want to be able to say that that re-attaches us to the unmediated world, and I would agree for it demands our focus upon directly perceptible things. Things that can be picked out to the exclusion of all else by a plurality of names. Common referents are key.

Snow is directly perceptible.

Snow is directly perceptible. — creativesoul

What do you mean by 'directly' perceptible? As opposed to what 'indirect' perception?

What do you mean by 'directly' perceptible? As opposed to what 'indirect' perception? — Isaac

Physiological sensory perception that is unmediated by language use.

Physiological sensory perception that is unmediated by language use. — creativesoul

In opposition to what? It sounds like you've just stated the equivalent of "perception is unaffected by the price of bread", no one ever thought it was. I'm missing something here. Do you mean to argue that interpretation of perception is unmediated by language use? That's something people have suggested. Or that perception is unaffected by conceptual schemes (related to languages)? That too is a claim that's been made here.

What no one has claimed (thankfully for our collective sanity) is that the physiological process of perception is affected by the act of making vocal sounds with a view to communicating with others - which is what you have literally opposed.

Physiological sensory perception that is unmediated by language use.
— creativesoul

In opposition to what? — Isaac

Being unmediated by language use is not so much in opposition to anything... aside from being informed by language, and thus being existentially dependent upon language. Such things cannot be sensibly called "unmediated by language use". It's a comparative device/measure. Not all comparisons involve two opposing things.

Translation between different schema about the same world is Davidson's aim. Different names for the same referent can be demonstrated best by focusing upon directly perceptible things. That's all I'm doing, per Davidson's suggested method.

It sounds like you've just stated the equivalent of "perception is unaffected by the price of bread", no one ever thought it was. — Isaac

If you believe this, then I have to question your sincerity here. What I wrote sounds nothing like what you wrote. Read them aloud and see for yourself. Red herring. Non sequitur. Invalid objection. Unacceptable.

You'll have to do better than this.

What I wrote sounds nothing like what you wrote. — creativesoul

If you believe this, then I have to question your sincerity here. Read them aloud and see for yourself. Red herring. Non sequitur. Invalid objection. Unacceptable.

You'll have to do better than this.

Come on, a little charity! I already stated that because it sounded that way to me, I must be missing something. I then asked you what I was missing.

Being unmediated by language use is not so much in opposition to anything... aside from being informed by language, and thus being existentially dependent upon language. — creativesoul

... Still not helping I'm afraid. You're talking about 'perception' - the processing of visual stimuli, right? And language - the method of communication by written or spoken word, right? I'm failing to see why anyone would think the physiology of one was mediated by the other in the first place (hence my analogy of 'the price of bread', something which people also would not think connected to physiology of perception in the first place). I mean what could the process even be by which such a thing would be possible? Co-evolution perhaps?

If all you're saying is that the physiology of perception is unaffected by our method of communicating using words then we agree, but why mention such an obvious and trivially true point? Hence me thinking I'm missing something.

Come on, a little charity! — Isaac

I'll return it when I see it. I've been plenty charitable in past, and would be glad to continue being so.

ou're talking about 'perception' - the processing of visual stimuli, right? — Isaac

All physiological sensory perception. "Visual" points to one kind, one system, etc. There are more as you well know.

All physiological sensory perception. "Visual" points to one kind, one system, etc. There are more as you well know. — creativesoul

OK, so all physiological sensory perception. Who has suggested (or who do you think might suggest and so need correction) that the physiology of these systems might be mediated by language use - the act of communicating with words. I can't see any possible connection at all (which I know is literally what you're saying), but I don't understand why you said it.

Who has suggested (or who do you think might suggest and so need correction) that the physiology of these systems might be mediated by language use - the act of communicating with words. — Isaac

The physiology wouldn't change, but brain processes that integrate that sensory information into perceptions might, if they're mediated by language. That's what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests. Looks like Davidson is arguing in contrast that we all actually perceive the same world, we just form different schemas of reference based on those perceptions, which can be translated between one another.

So while Eskimos might have 50 words for snow, and we have one, they could point out how their words point out variations in snow we gloss over in our language. The interesting question there is whether we noticed those differences before becoming aware that you could differentiate snow into fifty different kinds?

There has been discussion on whether the Ancient Greeks saw a blue colored sky or water based on Homer's odd choices of color language.

Yes, I'd certainly disagree with any notion that we actually perceive the same objects, unaffected by our beliefs and states of mind, I just wasn't at all sure that's what CS was arguing, so didn't want to go responding to the wrong thing.

The evidence that prior belief and emotional state can alter actual perception is overwhelming. This is, I think, what Kuhn is referring to, and I can't find anywhere in the paper where Davidson deals with the possibility of a content-scheme divide where the real/shared world content and the content upon which the scheme is built are one step removed by the model-dependent nature of our perception.

The idea even that we all perceive something as simple as snow the same way is questionable, but when it comes to objects of scientific theory, which was Kuhn's target, I think it very unlikely that we do.

While we're all offering how we prefer to think about it: as any visual artist knows, there's a lot of relativeness to what we sense and experience. Concepts don't stand between the tree and talk about the tree. The tree is a concept clothed in world.

What we see is grey and blue, and dark here and light there. When we say it's a tree, we have pushed the subjectum outward and located it amidst the colors. Heidegger.

People who don't notice this have experiences so dominated by concepts that they're blind to them and so might imagine they aren't there at all.

I think one of the reasons Davidson doesn't have much potency is that he wants us to think in terms of truth, but then wants us to understand truth as:

"P" is true IFF P (is true)

If you don't say "No shit." when you consider the T-sentence, you didn't get it. It's not an informative sentence. Triviality in, triviality out.

There are a lot of things we can get hung up about here.

One is whether conceptual schemes only cash out in effects on language use. This is a red herring, all that matters for Davidson's argument is whether incommensurable differences in conceptual schemes necessitate irreconcilable differences in language use. Absence of necessary evidence implies evidence of absence.

We could look at different procedures that generate conceptual schemes; maybe they are discursive like in Sapir-Whorf, maybe they are only partially linguistically mediated like in @Isaac and @creativesoul's proposals, maybe the differences in are in pre-conceptual styles of embodiment like in @frank's recent post. Of any such account; we can ask if the differences implied between incommensurable conceptual schemes entail irreconcilable differences in language use; we can re-ask the central framing device of the paper.

Another thing we can get hung up on is the role of the theory-ladened-ness of experience plays in establishing differences in conceptual schemes; people bring different theories to their experiences and act accordingly. Davidson acknowledges the theory-ladened-ness of experience and still attacks the notion of a conceptual scheme. He is writing to an audience of enlightened empiricists who no longer believe in the first two dogmas of empiricism; reductionism (brute facts and rules of composition thereof; anti-theory ladened accounts) and the analytic-synthetic distinction.

The new dualism is the foundation of an empiricism shorn of the untenable dogmas of the analytic-synthetic distinction and reductionism shorn, that is, of the unworkable idea that we can uniquely allocate empirical content sentence by sentence.

If we're still thinking about how our perceptions are model influenced - theory ladened, then we're actually in agreement with Davidson here! He still wants to rebuke the idea of conceptual schemes while admitting that experience is theory ladened.

Another thing we can get hung up about is the distinction between a conception and a conceptual scheme. Do people have differences in conception of the same phenomena? Yes. Are these differences in conception sometimes very hard to spell out, analyse, or even notice? Yes. In practice, will we be able to come to accord with someone who has a radically different conception every time? No. These are also red herrings, for the purpose of the paper's argument anyway. We need to focus on the modality associated with translation and with being incommensurable in the paper.

The translation procedure conceived of in the paper is not a literal act of translation or explication, it's an abstraction of translation that exists when and only when two conceptual schemes are (at least partially) commensurable. The context of translation is always aligned with what is possible, not what is probable actually. Incommensurability, then, is the absence of this abstract link; when it is impossible in principle to translate some language use from one user of a conceptual scheme to another holding a different scheme.

Even if they inhabit the same world or share in the same forms of life. Even if they use language in similar ways, and are partially understood by each other, an incommensurable kernel may persist. Under these circumstances; shared lives, worlds, languages; what device ensures the distinction between commensurable periphery and incommensurable centre of two schemes with partial overlap?

The scheme-content distinction.

Meanings gave us a way to talk about categories, the organizing structure of language, and so on; but it is possible, as we have seen, to give up meanings and analyticity while retaining the idea of language as embodying a conceptual scheme. Thus in place of the dualism of the analytic-synthetic we get the dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content. The new dualism is the foundation of an empiricism shorn of the untenable dogmas of the analytic-synthetic distinction and reductionism shorn, that is, of the unworkable idea that we can uniquely allocate empirical content sentence by sentence

Shared lives, worlds, languages, experiences are mere content that is apportioned by and partakes in a conceptual scheme. They are in the relation of conditioned data (content) and conditioning fact (scheme).

If we take a sentence like; "The cat is on the mat" -if it was true, would it be true without the conditioning of a conceptual scheme? Davidson would like to say yes!

Nothing, however, no thing, makes sentences and theories true: not experience, not surface irritations, not the world, can make a sentence true. That experience takes a certain course, that our skin is warmed or punctured, that the universe is finite, these facts, if we like to talk that way, make sentences and theories true.

Our experiences don't make the world a certain way; they give us evidence. The world will be as it is irrespective of the contours of our conceptions of it, and we don't need to add anything to a statement in order for it to be true. This is to say, the conditioning operation of a conceptual scheme upon its content adds nothing to the truth or falsity of its associated propositions.

If you had a supplementary theory that tied truth conditions of propositions to their meaning, like Davidson does, this would go a long way in undermining the scheme-content distinction; as the conditioning operation envisaged by the scheme upon the empirical data does absolutely nothing; and an operation that does nothing is irrelevant.

all that matters for Davidson's argument is whether incommensurable differences in conceptual schemes necessitate irreconcilable differences in language use. — fdrake

If scheme A and B are incommensurable, then an A-person 1) won't understand a B-person, and 2) couldn't possibly know that this understanding is missing.

Look back at Moliere's posts. He did an excellent job of explaining the role of vantage point in Davidson's argument. A person who claims incommensurable conceptual schemes is assuming a vantage point she couldn't possibly have.

Look back at Moliere's posts. He did an excellent job of explaining the role of vantage point in Davidson's argument. A person who claims incommensurable conceptual schemes is assuming a vantage point she couldn't possibly have. — frank

That's part of it, yeah. Didn't see @Moliere's equally excellent second one. Were you informing me of Moliere's excellent posts because you wanted to criticise something in my posts or because you thought they were worth a read more generally?

Were you informing me of Moliere's excellent posts because you wanted to criticise something in my posts — fdrake

I guess I didn't understand why you said this:

Of any such account; we can ask if the differences implied between incommensurable conceptual schemes entail irreconcilable differences in language use; we can re-ask the central framing device of the paper. — fdrake

Are you saying that if one brings a counter to Davidson's article, one should ask whether the counter is a strawman?

I guess I didn't understand why you said this: — frank

Oh, that post was motivated to get the discussion back on what I see as the central issue. The scheme-content distinction. The "red herrings" I highlighted are only of importance because they show up in the thread, and aren't really addressing what I see as the central issue in the paper.

Conceptual schemes arise from organising content (phenomena). It doesn't matter how the content is obtained.

Incommensurable schemes are nonetheless translatable, they must be for us to even know they are a scheme, and to know they are incommensurable.

Truth is a property of propositions, which by necessity are expressed in a language.

The truth of any scheme can therefore be expressed because it is a matter of language and we've just established that all schemes are translatable.

If we can express the truth of any scheme in common language then they are not truly incommensurable.

If they're not truly incommensurable, they might as well not exist. (bonus - if they don't exist then there's no scheme/content divide).

___

Any of that anywhere near?

Oh, that post was motivated to get the discussion back on what I see as the central issue. The scheme-content distinction. The "red herrings" I highlighted are only of importance because they show up in the thread, and aren't really addressing what I see as the central issue in the paper. — fdrake

I see. You were being a good moderator.

I think we nailed the basic ideas. We had sort of moved on to the provocative final sentences in the article, which could boringly be seen through the lens of the time it was written. More fun is to address those words in a larger arena that includes now.

Incommensurable schemes are nonetheless translatable, they must be for us to even know they are a scheme, and to know they are incommensurable. — Isaac

Ok, not everybody understood the article.

The failure of intertranslatability is a necessary condition for difference of conceptual schemes;

nothing, it may be said, could count as evidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our language that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activity was not speech behavior.

My strategy will be to argue that we cannot make sense of total failure [of translatability]

Struggling to see how those two propositions don't add up to exactly the idea that we cannot have differing conceptual schemes because that would require a failure of translatability and such failure is incoherent. Perhaps you could help?

Intranslatability isn't incoherent. "The mechanics of time travel were beyond the abilities of the human intellect, so the aliens couldn't translate the instructions." Totally coherent, but it requires a transcendent vantage point.

To posit intranslatability without access to transcendence produces an incoherent picture. How could human Jim know the instructions were impossible to translate? If he couldn't know that, he shouldn't be insisting that there is incommensurability.

To posit intranslatability without access to transcendence produces an incoherent picture. How could human Jim know the instructions were impossible to translate? If he couldn't know that, he shouldn't be insisting that there is incommensurability. — frank

If we were to detect an alien signal, but were unable to decode it despite our best efforts, wouldn't that imply incommensurability? Or just really strong encryption?