Órdenes de no resucitación

According to the first of the desiderata laid out in §4.2, an account of theory equivalence should predict some of the conditions under which it is likely for a theory to be received asabsurdby the proponents of another theory. The Synonymy Account does yield some predictions concerning when this is likely to happen. Furthermore, these predictions very much agree with the diagnosis as to why some Quineans have understood noneists as being committed to an absurdity.

It is reasonable to suppose that any theory whose entailment structure is such that there is a propositionpwhich entails every propositionq attributes topthe status of being maximally infor- mative, i.e., of beingabsurd. Suppose that theoriesT1andT2appear to be formulated in the same

language (broadly construed), and thatT1is committed to the truth of a sentence whose homonymous

interpretation by the proponents ofT2is a sentence that according toT2, expresses an absurdity. In

such case the proponents ofT2will takeT1to be absurd.

This prediction of the account can be generalised. The account predicts that a sufficient condition for a theoryT1to be understood as absurd by the proponents ofT2is that the homonymous interpreta-

tion of some of the sentences to whose truthT1is committed be sentences that entail some element in

(SeqT2)

−_{, where this is the set of minimal elements according to the ordering of entailment between} qua propositions. The reason is that each sentence in(SeqT2)

−_{is understood by the proponents of}

T2as expressing an absurdity, insofar as these correspond to minimal elements in this ordering.

As we saw in §2, Quineans appear to have understood noneists as speaking gibberish for precisely this reason. Noneists are committed to the truth of ‘some things do not exist’, a sentence which expresses an absurdity according to Quineans. Similar situations may be expected to happen in other debates.

According to the second desideratum, an account of theory equivalence should not have homony- mous interpretation as a mandatory facet of the interpretation of the content of one theory by the proponents of another theory, even when the proponents of the two theories are, broadly speaking, members of the same linguistic community. As we have seen in §4.3.3, satisfaction of this desideratum has been written into the Synonymy Account. This requirement underlies the need to appeal todeeply correct translation schemes, instead of correct translations, in order to determine whether two theories are synonymous.

The requirement imposed by the third desideratum on an appropriate account of theory equivalence is that any such account should allow for cases in which a theory is intelligible to the proponents of another theory even though the first theory cannot be fully understood in terms of the resources afforded by the second theory.

Notably, when talking about intelligibility and understanding in §4.2, it was not specified what it takes for a theory to be intelligible by the lights of another theory, nor what it takes for a theoryT1to

be fully understandable in terms of the resources ofT2.

The distinctions introduced in §4.3allow for an explication offull understanding. Full understand- ing can be cashed out in terms of embedding:

Full Understanding. TheoryT1is fully understandable in terms of the resources of theoryT2just

in caseT1 is embeddable inT2.

According to the notion of intelligibility at play here, intelligibility is easy to get. ForT1to be intelligible

by the lights ofT2it is enough thatT1not be understood as an absurd theory by the lights ofT2. But it

should be clear that it is possible for a theory to be neither fully understandable nor an absurd theory from the standpoint ofT2. Thus, the third desideratum on an adequate account of theory equivalence

is satisfied.

According to the fourth desideratum, an account of theory equivalence should explain how theories that would appear to be contradictory if interpreted homonymously are sometimes equivalent, and

offer some means of predicting when this will happen. As has already been remarked, there are cases in which homonymous interpretation is not the correct interpretation of the theories in question. Furthermore, it may happen that two theories that would turn out to be contradictory if homonymously interpreted are such that there are functionsf andgestablishing the solid similarity between them. In such case the question arises as to whether functionsfandgconstitutedeeply correcttranslation schemes. And we can expect this to be the case sometimes, in which case the theories are in fact synonymous. Thus, the Synonymy Account explains how it is that theories that would appear to be contradictory if interpreted homonymously are sometimes equivalent.

Concerning prediction, by coupling the explication of theory equivalence as theory synonymy with an account of what is required for a translation to be deeply correct, the Synonymy Account has the resources for generating some predictions concerning the equivalence of theories. In §4.3.3views on how to determine whether a translation is deeply correct were presented. Thus, the Synonymy Account has the resources required for generating predictions concerning the equivalence of theories. The last of the desiderata previously identified is one according to which any adequate account of theory equivalence should be able to yield conditions under which translations such as the one proposed by Woodward count in favour of the claim that ‘there is total overlap between the conceptual resources of the two theories’. According to the Synonymy Account some translations of the kind discussed by Woodward establish sameness of entailment structure, whereas others go beyond this, establishing sameness of theoretical structure.

Thus, the Synonymy Account takes seriously Woodward’s considerations involving translations. The existence of such mappings is a necessary condition for two theories to be equivalent. Furthermore, if such translations are deeply correct, then the theories turn out to be synonymous, and a fortiori equivalent.