Experiment #86 · Thought experiment

Quine's Gavagai

The indeterminacy of radical translation

W. V. O. Quine · 1960 · Philosophy of language

First published: W. V. O. Quine, *Word and Object* (1960), ch. 2.

A field linguist hears "gavagai!" whenever a rabbit appears. Does the word mean "rabbit," "undetached rabbit-part," "rabbit-stage," or "rabbithood instantiated"? No behavioural evidence can decide.

Quine argues that meaning, as fixed by all possible behavioural evidence, is fundamentally indeterminate. A linguist confronting a foreign language with no prior translation can construct multiple equally good "translation manuals," each mapping "gavagai" to a different reference (rabbits, rabbit-parts, time-slices, instantiations of rabbithood) yet predicting all the same observed behaviour. The thesis — indeterminacy of translation — undercuts the idea of meanings as determinate entities, supports semantic holism, and motivates Quine's wider naturalised epistemology and ontological relativity.

Formulation

Linguist hears native say "gavagai" only when rabbit present. Multiple translation manuals: gavagai = rabbit, = undetached rabbit-part, = rabbit-stage, = rabbithood. Each consistent with all behaviour; no fact of the matter selects one.

Compare this experiment

Dimensions Engaged

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Observer

Observer · Knowledge Extent: are facts about meaning fully fixed by behavioural evidence?

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Information

A direct argument that propositional content underdetermines its behavioural correlates.

Responses — How Schools Engage

Affirms / takes the bait 3

Naturalism

A foundational text of naturalised semantics: meaning is whatever can be reconstructed from behaviour, and the indeterminacy is genuine, not an artifact of insufficient data.

Pragmatism

A vindication of semantic holism and use-theory: meanings are not discrete entities but flow from total practice; alternative manuals reflect alternative coherent practices.

Structuralism

Meaning is structural — fixed by inferential and behavioural network — but the network underdetermines reference. A clean structuralist case.

Denies / rejects the premise 2

Realism

There is a fact of the matter about what "gavagai" means: the speakers refer to rabbits because rabbits are what they're typically reacting to. The indeterminacy is a methodological artifact of behaviourism.

Phenomenology

The case neglects the speakers' own intentional perspective; from inside the practice, "gavagai" has a determinate sense even if external behaviour underdetermines its translation.

Holds it inconclusive 1

Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism

Live debate: descendants of Quine's argument shape contemporary externalism and the metasemantics of "facts about meaning"; Davidson refined it; Kripke and Lewis pushed back.