Radical interpretation in philosophy means working out the meaning of words, sentences and whole languages from scratch, by observing how they are used. Philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

The concept was devised by W. V. O. Quine, who considered how to work out the meaning of a foreign word such as 'gavegai' (apparently meaning 'rabbit') by observing how speakers use it. Quine argued that full radical interpretation was impossible because multiple interpretations are always consistent with the evidence; this means translation is intrinsically indeterminate to some extent. Because we effectively learn language by radical interpretation (Quine argued), this means that meaning itself is inherently somewhat indeterminate. W. V. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000) was one of the most influential American philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. ...

Radical interpretation was studied further by other philosophers such as Donald Davidson. There are two Donald Davidsons: Donald Davidson (poet) Donald Davidson (philosopher) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...