Holophrastic indeterminacy

Holophrastic indeterminacy, or indeterminacy of sentence translation, is one of two kinds of indeterminacy of translation to appear in the writings of philosopher W. V. O. Quine.^[1] According to Quine, "there is more than one correct method of translating sentences where the two translations differ not merely in the meanings attributed to the sub-sentential parts of speech but also in the net import of the whole sentence".^[2]^[3]^[4] It is holophrastic indeterminacy that underlies Quine's argument against synonymy, the basis of his objections to Rudolf Carnap's analytic/synthetic distinction.^[5] Another kind of indeterminacy introduced by Quine is the "inscrutability of reference", which refers to parts of a sentence or individual words.

^ Cite error: The named reference Quine was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Quine1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Quine2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Hylton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Hylton2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Quine-1] Cite error: The named reference Quine was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Quine1-2] Cite error: The named reference Quine1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Quine2-3] Cite error: The named reference Quine2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Hylton-4] Cite error: The named reference Hylton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Hylton2-5] Cite error: The named reference Hylton2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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