Quine’s Behaviorism and Linguistic Meaning: WhyQuine’s Behaviorism is not Illicit

Tyrus Fisher

Received: 10 August 2010 /Accepted: 15 August 2010 /Published online: 24 September 2010# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Some of Quine’s critics charge that he arrives at a behavioristic account oflinguistic meaning by starting from inappropriately behavioristic assumptions(Kripke 1982, 14; Searle 1987, 123). Quine has even written that this account oflinguistic meaning is a consequence of his behaviorism (Quine 1992, 37). I take itthat the above charges amount to the assertion that Quine assumes the denial of oneor more of the following claims: (1) Language-users associate mental ideas withtheir linguistic expressions. (2) A language-user can have a private theory oflinguistic meaning which guides his or her use of language. (3) Language learningrelies on innate mechanisms. Call an antecedent denial of one or more of theseclaims illicit behaviorism. In this paper I show that Quine is prepared to grant, ifonly for the sake of argument, all three of the above claims. I argue that his claimthat “there is nothing in linguistic meaning beyond what is to be gleaned from overtbehavior in observable circumstances” is unscathed by these allowances (Quine1992, 38). And I show that the behaviorism which Quine does assume should beviewed as a largely uncontroversial aspect of his evidential empiricism. I concludethat if one sets out to dismiss Quine’s arguments for internal-meaning skepticism,this dismissal should not be motivated by the charge that his conclusions rely on theillicitly behavioristic assumptions that some have suggested that they do.

Keywords Quine . Indeterminacy . Meaning . Behaviorism

Introduction

Some of Quine’s critics charge that he arrives at a behavioristic account of linguisticmeaning by starting from inappropriately behavioristic assumptions (Kripke 1982,p.14; Searle 1987, p.123). Quine has even written that this account of linguistic

Philosophia (2011) 39:51–59DOI 10.1007/s11406-010-9277-2

T. Fisher (*)Department of Philosophy, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco,CA 94132, USAe-mail: tyrus@sfsu.edu

meaning is a consequence of his behaviorism (Quine 1992, p.37).The assumptions inquestion are about the relevance of the internal goings-on of language-users tolinguistic meaning. I take it that the above charges amount to the assertion thatQuine assumes the denial of one or more of the following claims: (1) Language-users associate mental ideas with their linguistic expressions. (2) A language-usercan have a private theory of linguistic meaning which guides his or her use oflanguage. (3) Language learning relies on innate mechanisms. Call an antecedentdenial of one or more of these claims illicit behaviorism.

In this paper I show that Quine is prepared to grant, if only for the sake ofargument, all three of the above claims. I argue that his claim that “there is nothingin linguistic meaning beyond what is to be gleaned from overt behavior inobservable circumstances” is unscathed by these allowances (Quine 1992, p.38).1

And I show that the behaviorism which Quine does assume should be viewed as alargely uncontroversial aspect of his evidential empiricism. In “Indeterminacy andthe Private Correlation Argument”, after discussion of Quine’s indeterminacy oftranslation thesis, I revisit a passage from Word and Object in which Quine grantsthat a person could have “mental ideas” or “neural states” associated with his or herlinguistic expressions and that these ideas could constitute a private theory ofmeaning (Quine 1960, p.74). I call this the private correlation argument, and Idiscuss how it is intended to show that the indeterminacy thesis and, by extension,Quine’s account of linguistic meaning is unscathed by the allowances made therein.In “Quine’s Concession to Behaviorism”, I consider Quine’s concession that theindeterminacy thesis is a consequence of his behaviorism. I discuss how thisbehaviorism is consistent with his acceptance of innate mechanisms and why thisbehaviorism should be viewed as an aspect of his evidential empiricism. Here also,an objection to his account of linguistic meaning that arises from this acceptance ofinnate mechanisms is considered and met with a reply. I conclude that if one seeks todismiss Quine’s account of linguistic meaning, then this dismissal should not bemotivated by the charge that the arguments for this account rely on an antecedentdenial that language-users associate ideas with linguistic expressions, utilize privatetheories of meaning, or that language acquisition relies on innate mechanisms.

Indeterminacy and the Private Correlation Argument

Quine is comfortable with his account of linguistic meaning being characterized asbehavioristic. He accepts that there is such a thing as linguistic meaning, but hedenies that there is such a thing as internal linguistic meaning. This is to deny thatlinguistic meaning is linked essentially to something internal to language-users.Examples of things that would count as internal in the relevant sense are mentalideas or the neural states of a language-user. I will not try to give an account of whatit means for one thing to be linked essentially to another. But I am assuming that if,for some pair of things, one thing could remain unchanged despite the ad libitum

1 In his, “Indeterminacy and Mental States”, Dagfinn Føllesdal argues that Quine’s indeterminacy oftranslation thesis is compatible with the existence of mental ideas (Føllesdal 1990, 98). One way that thepresent paper differs from Føllesdal’s is that herein it is shown that this compatibility is acknowledged byQuine himself as early as Word and Object.

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variance of the other, then there is nothing worth calling an “essential link” betweenthese things.

I also take it that Quine assumes that linguistic meaning is public. This is toaccept that within a linguistic community, linguistic expressions can be understoodby more than one person and that no person is the sole arbiter of the linguisticmeaning of an expression.

Indeterminacy of Translation

Quine supports his view that the meaning of an expression cannot be essentiallylinked to internal things such as mental ideas or neural states, by appealing directlyto his arguments for the indeterminacy of translation. This well-known thesis entailsthat for a radically foreign language, two translators could construct correcttranslation manuals, each of which would be incompatible with the other. So thereis no uniquely correct translation of a language.

To call a language “radically foreign” is to say that the translators would beworking with a language that they have no prior knowledge of and that they musttranslate without the help of other bilinguals. To say that the manuals would beincompatible with each other is to say that for a given expression in the foreignlanguage, the translation manuals would disagree about which native-languageexpressions could be substituted for it. Quine explains this incompatibility by tellingus that alternating between the manuals while translating expressions in the foreignlanguage would yield nonsense, while using either of the manuals exclusively wouldyield perfectly adequate translations (Quine 1992, p.48). Roughly, Quine is claimingthat both manuals could be correct yet disagree about which native-languageexpressions are synonymous with particular foreign expressions. However, owing toQuine’s misgivings about synonymy saying only that could be misleading.2

Quine emphasizes that the only evidence that radical translators could have accessto is the behavior of the foreign-language-users plus the accompanying observableconditions (Quine 1992, p.37). This fact about the evidential situation of thetranslators, along with Quinean underdetermination of theory by data, leads Quine toconclude that there is more than one empirically adequate set of analyticalhypotheses that a linguist could use to construct her manual.3 These analyticalhypotheses constitute and guide the translator’s conjectures about which words orsentences of the foreign language and which words or sentences of the nativelanguage are best treated as synonymous.

Quine claims that as children, each of us is supposed to have occupied a roleanalogous to that of a radical translator (Quine 1977a, p.37; 1977b, p.26). Quine’s

2 The indeterminacy thesis is, of course, intended as an attack on the notion of synonymy. In defending thelegitimacy of synonymy, Carnap makes use of the idea of a translation manual in order to argue thatsynonymy is an empirically respectable notion. See for example, Carnap’s “Meaning and Synonymy inNatural Languages” and his reply to Quine in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (Carnap 1955 p.33;Carnap 1997, p.915).3 By “Quinean underdetermination” I mean a view according to which more than one theory implies allthe same possible data. See Quine’s, “Comment on Bergstrom” (Quine 1990, p.53). I take it that this viewentails that in some cases of theory choice there can be no crucial experiment.

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indeterminacy of translation thesis is intended to have consequences for how wethink about all language learning, and hence all linguistic meaning.

Two Types of Indeterminacy

In Quine’s work there are two distinct indeterminacy theses, one having to do withreference and the other with linguistic meaning. In his later work, Quine acknowl-edges that in Word and Object he does not distinguish the two theses neatly enoughto avoid their confusion among his commentators (Quine 1992, p.51). Though thearguments yield a thesis about reference, he holds that, relative to a given language,terms can have extensions. Quine writes, “‘rabbit’ denotes rabbits, whatever theyare, and ‘Boston’ designates Boston” (Quine 1992, p.52). For Quine, althoughreference is not immune from problems of indeterminacy, there is such a thing. Wecan, following Quine, call this type of indeterminacy, indeterminacy of reference(Quine 1992, p.50).

Internal linguistic meaning is a different matter. Here the idea is that sentences aresynonymous by virtue of sharing a common meaning, and this meaning is to beidentified with a state of mind, of the brain, or some other broadly psychological andinternal thing. Quine does not merely claim that this sort of linguistic meaning isunderdetermined by evidence; he claims that the indeterminacy of translation argumentoutlined above warrants the conclusion that there is no such thing. It is this move fromQuine’s talk about the evidence available to a translator to his conclusion that linguisticmeaning is not to be identified with anything internal which must withstand theopening claims, (1) through (3) in order to avoid the charge of illicit behaviorism.

Kripke and Searle as Critics

Saul Kripke and John Searle have suggested the sort of interpretation of Quine’swork that I will argue is mistaken. In comparing Wittgenstein’s views about mindand language with Quine’s, Kripke writes:

Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind has often been viewed as behavioristic, butto the extent that Wittgenstein may (or may not) be hostile to the ‘inner’, nosuch hostility is to be assumed as a premise; it is to be argued as a conclusion...This feature of Wittgenstein contrasts with, for example, Quine’s discussion ofthe indeterminacy of translation (Kripke 1982, p.14).

And Searle writes:

The thesis that there are no objectively real meanings in addition todispositions to verbal behavior was already assumed at the start of thediscussion. Quine rejected any appeal to meanings, in any psychological sense,right from the start (Searle 1987, p.128).

Contrary to these suggestions, when Quine argues that mental ideas and neuralstates are the wrong sort of things to examine in order to characterize linguisticmeaning, he encourages considering the role in determining linguistic meaning thatthe “inner” could play.

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Before revisiting Quine’s private correlation argument, note a point ofclarification. It may be that Quine ultimately concludes that no things worth calling“mental ideas” exist.4 However, this move should be viewed as subsequent to hisargument that linguistic meaning is not internal. Quickly, this subsequent argumentmight go as follows: Once the explanatory merit of positing mental ideas is removedby arguing, for example, that mental ideas cannot be what determine the linguisticmeanings of our expressions, then the explanatory merit which would warrantpositing such things would be gone. So no good reason for positing the existence ofmental ideas would remain (Roth 2003, p.275). This later argument is not the subjectof this paper.

The Private Correlation Argument

Chapter two, section sixteen of Word and Object is entitled “On a Failure to Perceivethe Indeterminacy”. Here Quine moves quickly through seven causes of the failureto appreciate his points about the indeterminacy of translation and linguisticmeaning. One of these is the private correlation argument, and I quote it here:

A fourth and major cause of failure to perceive the point is a stubborn feelingthat a true bilingual surely is in a position to make uniquely right correlationsof sentences generally between his languages. This feeling is fostered by anuncritical mentalistic theory of ideas: each sentence and its admissibletranslations express an identical idea in the bilingual’s mind. The feeling canalso survive rejection of the ideas: one can protest still that the sentence and itstranslations all correspond to some identical even though unknown neuralcondition in the bilingual. Now let us grant that; it is only to say that thebilingual has his own private semantic correlation—in effect his privateimplicit system of analytical hypotheses and that it is somehow in his nerves.My point remains; for my point is then that another bilingual could have asemantic correlation incompatible with the first bilingual’s without deviatingfrom the first bilingual in his speech dispositions within either language, exceptin his dispositions to translate (Quine 1960, p.7. My italics).

Notice what Quine is willing to grant in the above passage: We are encouraged tosuppose and grant that mental ideas exist and that a person could have their own“private implicit system of analytical hypotheses”. This implicit system of analyticalhypotheses amounts to a private theory of meaning.

If the indeterminacy of translation thesis is correct, then two fluent language-userscould communicate successfully while utilizing different private semantic place-markers or theories of linguistic meaning. And this could be accomplished forprecisely the reasons that two entirely adequate translation manuals could beconstructed using incompatible analytical hypotheses.

4 There is disagreement about whether Quine denies the existence of mental states. Searle explicitlyavoides attributing this denial to him (Searle 1987, p.124). However, Paul Roth locates and analyzes anargument in Quine’s work that looks like just such a denial (Roth 2003, p. 275).

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As an illustration of the force of Quine’s argument consider the following scenario.Imagine two men haggling over the price of a car. Call these guys Will and Rudy. Thebargaining in this car deal is especially complex, but Rudy ultimately agrees to sell hiscar to Will subject to the following conditions: Will must give Rudy a certain sum ofmoney; he must help Rudy remove and replace the car stereo; and Will must giveRudy a ride to the bus stop. Only then will Rudy sign the title over to Will.

Supposing the two men do have different mental ideas correlated with eachexpression employed during their car deal, we have the following dilemma about theconclusion we ought to arrive at. Either the two language-users spoke to each otherand completed the deal to the satisfaction of both, but we should deny that this is acase involving linguistically meaningful communication, or we should conclude thatthe successful completion of the deal was made possible by a shared understandingof the linguistic meanings of the expressions involved despite the different privatesemantic correlations. One might point out that the fact that each language usersatisfied the conditions of the deal despite its complexity is excellent reason forconcluding that there was a shared apprehension of linguistic meaning involved. Infact, one might ask, what other standard of evidence for meaningful communicationis there?

Those who would deny that Will and Rudy were communicating meaningfullyare now in a tough spot. The temptation might be to object that despite theappearance that these two fluent language-users were able to communicate, the factremains that each had a different mental idea in his mind when uttering anexpression employed to complete the deal. Therefore, the objection would go, eachexpression simply meant something different to Will than it did to Rudy. However,the thing at issue is precisely whether or not linguistic meaning is essentially tied tointernal semantic correlations. So to claim that the expressions had differentmeanings for Will than they did for Rudy because they had different internalsemantic correlations associated with each expression looks like question-begging.

As for why Quine can justifiably move from an epistemic claim about availableevidence to the ontological claim that there is no such thing as internal linguisticmeaning, consider the following. The private correlation argument points out that ifit is true that the set of correlations between inner semantic objects and linguisticexpressions is underdetermined by evidence, then complex interactions like this cardeal can be accomplished even while their participants have different private mentalideas or private theories of meaning guiding their use of linguistic expressions. Butknowledge of linguistic meaning is shared among the fluent members of a linguisticcommunity, so it cannot be linked essentially to things which could vary amonglanguage-users while this variance remains unknown and inconsequential to themembers of that linguistic community.

In the private correlation argument we see Quine granting for the sake ofargument that mental ideas, or other internal semantic objects, exist and can ground aprivate theory of linguistic meaning. Arguably, these suppositions do not underminehis claims about linguistic meaning. For these reasons, claiming that Quine’s accountrelies on an antecedent denial that mental ideas exist or play a role in our use oflanguage is incorrect.

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Quine’s Concession to Behaviorism

I am claiming that as early as Word and Object, Quine has intended his argumentsfor his account of linguistic meaning to be equally successful whether or not internalsemantic objects like mental ideas exist or private theories of meaning are possible.An apparent obstacle to the plausibility of this claim is that Quine has admitted toassuming behaviorism in arguing for the indeterminacy of translation. Here I discusswhy this behaviorism amounts only to a largely uncontroversial aspect of hisevidential empiricism and not what I have called illicit behaviorism.

In Pursuit of Truth, Quine writes: “Critics have said that the thesis [ofindeterminacy of translation] is a consequence of my behaviorism, some have saidthat it is a reductio ad absurdum of my behaviorism. I disagree with this secondpoint but I agree with the first” (Quine 1992, 37). What Quine writes next isrevealing:

In psychology one may or may not be a behaviorist, but in linguistics one hasno choice. Each of us learns his language by observing other people’s verbalbehavior and having his own faltering verbal behavior observed and reinforcedor corrected by others (Quine 1992, p.38).

The position he is explaining is not about the mind. It is about the evidenceavailable to language-learners. In fact, he sees no alternative to the methodologicalapproach he assumes. About the only thing Quine’s behaviorism is ruling out here islanguage acquisition via something like extra-sensory perception. This should notstrike us as controversial.

In “Epistemology Naturalized”, Quine makes the same point without mentioninganything called “behaviorism”. There he calls the same position “empiricism”(Hylton 2007, p.102; Quine 1977a, p.37).5 Quine writes:

A child learns his first words and sentences by hearing and using them in thepresence of appropriate stimuli. These must be external stimuli, for they mustact both on the child and on the speaker from whom he is learning... Internalfactors may vary ad libitum without prejudice to communication as long as thekeying of language to external stimuli is undisturbed. Surely one has no choicebut to be an empiricist so far as one’s theory of linguistic meaning is concerned(Quine 1977a, p.37).

What Quine calls “behaviorism” in Pursuit of Truth and what he calls“empiricism” in “Epistemology Naturalized” is the acceptance of the claim thatthe evidence which guides our learning of a language is the behavior of otherlanguage-users plus the observable circumstances surrounding that behavior.

In both of the above passages, the articulation of his point about the evidenceavailable to language-learners is followed by the claim that almost everyone agreeswith him. Empiricism about language learning is sometimes made out to be a viewthat is opposed to nativist theories of language acquisition, but charity forbids us

5 In Quine, Peter Hylton uses the same passages to make a similar point (Hylton 2007, p.102).

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from understanding Quine to be endorsing something of this sort. For if he weredescribing an empiricism opposed to nativism, then his confidence that he isarticulating a view shared by almost everyone would be puzzling.

Further, Quine is upfront about his endorsement of innate mechanisms. In,“Linguistics and Philosophy”, he denies that stimulus-response-conditioning issufficient for the learning of languages. He states that he regards questions about thestructure of, and the extent of the role for, innate mechanisms in language acquisitionto be an interesting question for scientific investigation. And he encouragesconsidering what roles internal mechanisms might play in our use of language. Itis in “Linguistics and Philosophy” that Quine writes, “the behaviorist is knowinglyand cheerfully up to his neck in innate mechanisms” (Quine 1976, p.57). Again it isinaccurate to accuse Quine of assuming illicit behaviorism prior to arriving at hisaccount of linguistic meaning.

This acceptance of innate learning mechanisms suggests an objection to hisaccount of linguistic meaning: if we suppose that language acquisition depends oninnate mechanisms then, owing to our shared evolutionary history, it is plausible thatwe all share the same innate mechanisms. If we all share the same innate learningmechanisms, it seems plausible that all the members of a particular linguisticcommunity are disposed to correlate similar internal semantic objects with particularlinguistic expressions. So it is plausible that there is a fact of the matter about whichinternal semantic objects we collectively associate with particular expressions. And,the objection concludes, we can identify these as the internal meanings of linguisticexpressions.

My reply is as follows. Even if it is the case that all of us associate the sameinternal semantic objects with the same expressions, this is only a contingent factabout us. It would remain conceivable that, say, mutant language-users could be bornwho do not make the same semantic correlations as most of us yet who neverthelessbecome fluent members of our linguistic communities. That is, they mightaccomplish fluency by virtue of different innate mechanisms and, accordingly,different internal semantic objects. So linguistic meaning still cannot be essentiallylinked to these things.

Conclusion

When critics such as Kripke and Searle claim that Quine exploits behavioristicassumptions in order to motivate his behavioristic account of linguistic meaning,they are claiming that Quine arrives at a behavioristic account only after assumingthat mental ideas or other internal semantic objects do not play a role in determininglinguistic meaning. Quine relies on no such denial. On the other hand, there is a typeof behaviorism that Quine does assume. This assumed behaviorism is consistentwith the existence of mental ideas, the utilization of private theories of meaning, andit requires a role for innate learning mechanisms. It is a behaviorism concerned onlywith the sort of evidence available to language-learners.

In making his case for the indeterminacy of translation and the account oflinguistic meaning that it leads him to, Quine does not assume illicit behaviorism.The behaviorism which Quine can rightly be said to assume should be thought of

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as a largely uncontroversial aspect of his evidential empiricism. In this paper Ihope to have shown that if one sets out to dismiss Quine’s arguments for internal-meaning skepticism, this dismissal should not be motivated by the charge that hisconclusions rely on the illicitly behavioristic assumptions that some havesuggested that they do.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Nick Alvarez, Craig Derksen, Luke Doughty, Kristian Kemtrup, IsabellePeschard, and Bas van Fraassen for their valuable help.

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