Radical translation is a thought experiment in "Word and Object", a major philosophical work from American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in which year was the work made, in which Quine expands upon the line of thought of his earlier writings in "From a Logical Point of View" (1953), and reformulates some of his earlier arguments, such as his attack in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" on the analytic-synthetic distinction?
Radical translation Radical translation is a thought experiment in "Word and Object", a major philosophical work from American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine. It is used as an introduction to his theory of the indeterminacy of translation, and specifically to prove the point of inscrutability of reference. Using this concept of radical translation, Quine paints a setting where a linguist discovers a native linguistic community whose linguistic system is completely unrelated to any language familiar to the linguist. Quine then describes the steps taken by the linguist in his attempt to fully translate this unfamiliar language based on the only data he has; the events happening around him combined with the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of natives.
Contextualism Contextualism describes a collection of views in philosophy which emphasize the "context" in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P", "knowing that P", "having a reason to A", and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Some philosophers hold that context-dependence may lead to relativism; nevertheless, contextualist views are increasingly popular within philosophy.