In this chapter we discuss the possibility, desirability, and necessity of the principle “No Need to Speak the Same Language” (henceforth: NNSSL).1 We assume, as Wittgenstein does, that looking at “primitive” situations can shed insight on what is most important for communication and interpretation.2 For this reason, we introduce first contacts, that is, the situations where peoples with unshared histories encounter and there occurs communicative interaction without the help of interpreters. It will be used as a heuristic for the model of interpretation to be presented in chapter 9.
Though undoubtedly interaction happens, authors often exaggerate how much universality there is in first contact interaction. For example, Neumann (1994: 131) has the idea that the “ability to communicate gesturally” will enable one to initiate an “in-between state” and “a dialogue across difference.” We emphasize that one cannot assume the availability of universally recognizable gestures, with one exception: the quasi-universal of pointing to something to focus attention, although “an ostensive definition can be variously interpreted in any case” (see previous chapter).
We also discuss the desirability and the possibility of learning from first contacts, which in reality are dominated by asymmetrical power relations. After that we discuss Tully’s idea of an intercultural dialogue in which each participant speaks her or his own language, focusing on the Waitangi treaty as a case study. In the context of the philosophy of language, we review Davidson’s argument that leads to his thesis that “there is no such thing as a language.” In the last section of this chapter we explain how the notion of a shared world is to be understood in cross-cultural interpretation.
We believe that the NNSSL-principle applies to every form of cross-cultural interpretation and intercultural philosophy. On the NNSSL-stance, all participants in an exchange or negotiation can speak their native languages and are obliged to make efforts to understand the others. In principle it does not hamper communication if each participant speaks his or her native language. For example, in a bilingual country the members of a committee advising the government should all understand both languages and at meetings speak their own language. Legislation can specify which languages are admitted. This might be the source of serious conflicts. Nevertheless, such legislation should be inspired by the ideal of NNSSL. Any language not included means the exclusion of a background of alternative ideas, principles, and future possibilities from the common discourse.
We do not mean that adoption of this stance can automatically solve all problems. It will almost always increase practical problems. It is neither feasible, nor humane, to require a judge to understand eleven languages (which could be the first step toward the NNSSL-ideal in South Africa, given current legislation). Our point is that whatever pragmatic compromises may have to follow, the NNSSL should serve as the moral imperative.
When applied to interpretation across traditions, the NNSSL-principle suggests that the results of inquiries and examinations should be conveyed in the languages involved, so as to balance the dominance of the native language(s) of the interpreter(s). When it comes to intercultural philosophy, ideally, comparisons should be justified in both languages of the traditions being compared. In all the cases, the NNSSL-principle aims to abolish the suggestion that the community of contemporary philosophers should share a language suitable for its interpretative purposes or an implicit agreement to communicate in one shared dominant (world) language.
In a very different context (within the bounds of the Western traditions), Derrida has reached similar conclusions. Derrida distinguishes between two types of deconstruction: with the first type, one goes back to the founding concepts and the original problematic of a tradition with no change of terrain (as Heidegger does); with the second type, one aims at discontinuous, “eruptive” change of terrain (what French “postmodern” philosophers have been doing). Derrida claims that neither is possible, because: “The simplest practice of language ceaselessly reinstates the new terrain on the oldest ground.” Instead of these two options, he proposes: “A new writing must weave and interlace these two motifs of deconstruction, which amounts to saying that one must speak several languages and produce several texts at once” (1982: 135).3
Often writers on aspects of intercultural understanding and communication make a distinction between [i] understanding what somebody says in a shared language (intralinguistic communication); and [ii] understanding what somebody says in a strange language (interlinguistic communication). This suggests that there exists a qualitative or principled difference between the two (as distinct from a difference of degree or pragmatic difference). Admittedly, in the “normal” situation, there is a considerable difference between learning, speaking, and understanding one’s native language and learning, speaking, and understanding a second language.4 However, no matter how normal the normal case is, it would be wrong to assume that the normal case is by definition the better case and to defend or to hint at the thesis that there is a radical difference between inter- and intra-linguistic communication.
It is not the case either that cross-cultural communication is necessarily more opaque than intracultural communication, or that one can necessarily understand the other from the same tradition better than the other from a different tradition. In both cases it is a matter of making sense of what the other person does/says/believes/wants/means … and why. The same necessary conditions must be fulfilled, even if the exchange between native speakers looks more fluid, natural, blind, and unreflective than if one is speaking a non-native language. All interhuman communication should be understood as praxis, as interactive communion of some sort (even when guided by contestatory motivations). In this sense, it can be said that there is no essential difference between inter- and intracultural communication. Communication just happens—be it in an intercultural or an intracultural setting.
The terminology intra/inter/cross/trans-cultural invites the suggestion that there is a fundamental difference between inter- and intra-; hence there must be “a problem.” It is assumed that the problem of intercultural interlinguistic communication and understanding arises because one starts with being locked in one’s own language house and this problematic situation can only be resolved by speaking the same language. There are very few philosophers, linguists, or other theorists who would question this ideal. The belief that ideally one should speak the same language might make one blind to what is actually similar to all communication and understanding. We have to be aware of the hegemonic aspects of the urge to speak the same language. Further, the suggestion that ideally one must speak the same language in order to fully understand the other is based on the misleading idea that there is such a thing as complete understanding or exact meaning of an utterance.5
In this section we look at first contacts (first encounters): the situations where peoples with unshared histories encounter and interact without the help of interpreters.6 Considering first contact events can provide heuristic suggestions concerning the fundamental features of cross-cultural interpretation.7 Now look at what happened when Captain Cook’s ship arrived in March 1778 at the village of Yuquot (at Nootka Sound, West Coast of Vancouver Island, Canada) and met a group of Nootka (Nuu-chah-nulth) people:8
As we were coming [in] we were surrounded by thirty or 40 Canoes full of Indians who expressed much astonishment at seeing the Ship; they stood up in their Canoes, made many strange Motions, sometimes pointing to the shore & at other times speaking to us in a confused Manner very loud & shouting, & presently after they all sung in concert in a wild Manner, … We made Signs of Friendship to them and invited them along side the Ship where they soon ventured & behaved in a peaceable manner, offering us their Cloaths & other things they had in their Canoes, and trading immediately commenced between us; …
Night coming on they all paddled ashore except five or six Canoes which drew in a Cluster together at a small distance from the Ship, and as it were to bid us a good night the people in them sang in concert in no disagreeable Stile; this Mark of their Attention to us we were unwilling to pass over unnoticed & therefore gave them in return a few tunes on two french Horns after their Song was ended, to these they were very attentive, not a word to be heard among them during the time of playing; this salutation was returned by another Song from the Indians, after which we gave them a Tune on the Drum & Fife to which they paid the same attention as they had done to the Horns.
This citation is just one out of several records of this meeting, and this version has already passed through several reconstructions as a picture in which Europeans constitute the Pacific as “a ‘theatre’ of empire” (Clayton 2000: 17–29).9 But if we forget about this “hermeneutic relativity” for a moment, we can notice that not only trading but also exchange of songs and music commences at once. From the Nootka people’s point of view, the encounter at Yuquot receives a different light. Their version will also be the result of various reconstructions and negotiations. One version says that Cook’s vessels were found lost at sea and brought into the safety of Nootka Sound where they were treated with appropriate ceremonial welcome. One retold account runs as follows:10
Captain Juan Perez, sent north in 1774 … anchored offshore near Yuquot. We sent some canoes to investigate his unusual vessel and tried, by signing, to invite him to visit us at Yuquot. The next day we sent out many canoes to examine the odd people and vessel that had come to visit us. We managed to do very well in barter. By giving up a few furs and used hats, we were able to procure some valuable copper, iron implements, silver utensils and even a few beautiful shells. Unfortunately, before we could gain even more through trade, a small storm blew up and the ship inexplicably left.
In 1778, our chiefs welcomed Captain James Cook and his party … to our territory at a gathering in the big house [at Yuquot]. … We remembered the great trade we had done with Perez’s ship [in 1774], and were anxious to secure exclusive trade with these new vessels. To this end, we sent out some of our best canoes and mariners to welcome and assist our visitors. This we were able to do, directing Cook’s ship through the fog to an anchorage well within our territory. We were able to bind Cook to us through ceremonial welcome and gift exchange, and to establish and maintain excellent relations with the captain and his crews in the hope that we could attract more visitors. We were very pleased with the trade that ensued, being able to exchange a few trifling furs, combs, spoons and hats for items we greatly valued, in particular iron, axes and cloth. This time, our visitors stayed with us longer and we were able to gain a better understanding of these men in “floating houses.”
Despite variations in the way the story is (re)told, the undeniable similarities of the two accounts are sufficient reason for saying that these accounts refer to the same series of events (i.e., the same space-time slice), although no story can tell how it “really” was (wie es gewesen). There is reasonable consistency on factual matters.
In the aforementioned 1778 event, the exchange of music was most probably considered in a positive vein on both sides.11 However, it seems to assume more significance for the Nootka people. They may have thought that Cook and his men “owned” the music they were performing.12 Only the person who “owns” a song is allowed to perform it.
Here is a case where making music definitely meant something different for both sides. On December 18, 1642, two Dutch ships dropped anchor in Taitapu—Golden Bay (on the coast of the South Island of what is now New Zealand). After some time, a group of two out of four canoes approached them,13
The men in the two prows began to call out to us in a rough, hollow voice, but we could not understand a word of what they said. We however, called out to them in answer, upon which they repeated their cries several times, but came no nearer than a stone shot; they also blew several times on an instrument of which the sound was like that of a Moorish trumpet; we then ordered one of our sailors (who had some knowledge of trumpet blowing) to play them some tunes in answer. Those on board the Zeehaan ordered their second mate … to do the same; after this had been repeated several times on both sides, and as it was getting more and more dark, those in the native prows at last ceased and paddled off.
Salmond (1991: 21–22) comments that the rough calling was probably an incantation or a haka, a chant of war, and the instrument played from the canoes was almost certainly a kind of shell trumpet, sounding to challenge the strangers and signaling that the people in the bay were on the alert.
Every form of human communication, including nonverbal communication during first contacts, rests on more or less successful attunement of mutual interpretation of utterances and other overt behavior (such as gesture, facial expression, intonation, silence). In interpreting the linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior of the other, it is one’s secure attunements that one tends to read into the behavior of others. Secure attunements are the certainties and natural responses embedded in the forms of life one participates in (Bearn 1985). They provide the limits within which extension of one’s FR-concepts can “absorb” the variation in recognizable human practices.14 Conversely, the other is equally occupied with attempting to make intelligible the other’s actions by means of her or his secure attunements.
Consider one more record concerning Cook’s journey along the coast of New Zealand. The date is April 7, 1773:15
We should have pass’d without seeing them [i.e., one man and two Women] had not the man holloa’d to us, he stood with his club in his hand upon the point of a rock. … The man seemed rather afraid when we approached the Rock with our Boat, he however stood firm. …
The captain then taking some sheets of white paper in his hand, landed on the rock unarmed, and held the paper out to the native. The man now trembled visibly, and having exhibited strong marks of fear in his countenance, took the paper: upon which captain Cook coming up to him, took hold of his hand, and embraced him, touching the man’s nose with his own, which is their mode of salutation.
Presently after we were joined by the two Women, the Gentlemen that were with me and some of the Seamen and we spent about half an hour in chitchat which was little understood on either side in which the youngest of the two Women bore by far the greatest share. We presented them with fish and Wild fowl which we had in our boat, which the young Woman afterwards took up one by one and threw them into the Boat again giving us to understand that such things they wanted not.
Again, this is a one-sided account. Cook’s team already knew quite a lot about the local people. For example, Cook could avail himself of his experience of earlier visits to the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands in his orientation to new encounters, and he received specific instructions from the British Royal Society concerning how to deal with the people he was to meet. Among these instructions one reads:16
To exercise the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several Lands where the Ship may touch. … They are human creatures, the work of the same omnipotent Author, equally under his care with the most polished European; perhaps being less offensive, more entitled to his favor.
Conquest over such people can give no just title; because they could never be the Aggressors. … There are many ways to convince them of the Superiority of Europeans, without slaying any of those poor people. …
Amicable signs may be made which they could not possibly mistake. … Opening the mouth wide, putting fingers toward it, and then making the motion of chewing, would sufficiently demonstrate a want of food.
No doubt the chronicles of Cook and his men reflect on these instructions, and Cook’s concern to fulfill his scientific-civilizing mission. For the British government and the Royal Society, if not for Cook himself, science and empire went hand in hand. Hence, the explorer’s texts can be regarded as imperial allegories.
Can a better interpretation of what was going on during this first contact be gained with the help of the oral history of the Māori (because the man and two women were no doubt Māori)? Detailed studies exist (see next section), but they add little to the specific points we want to make.17 Although there is only one edited account from one side, perhaps this comes closest to what is most basically going on in interhuman communication. What is going on is a lot: innumerable interpretations and judgments are made of the other person(s) long before any word is uttered or understood. Cook’s team and the local people they met both considered the others as similar to themselves, that is, as other human beings. Hence, they ascribed to them various attitudes (of the sort Western folk psychology calls emotions, beliefs, desires, intentions, moral judgments, and so on) that made some sense in the given circumstances of their shared Umwelt.
Every particular interpretation depends on innumerable other interpretations, each of which can be wrong, but many have to be right (to a great extent). For example, in the diaries of both Cook and Forster the man on the rock was described as being in fear. Perhaps this was true, but perhaps not. Perhaps he was angry at their trespassing; that is why he “holloa’d,” shouting: “Go away!” That is what the man and the two women were politely and seriously trying to tell Cook and his gentlemen and seamen in about half an hour of “chitchat” and that is what they wanted to say by refusing to accept the fish and wild fowl offered by Cook.18 (Cook and his men could have taken the last gesture as an insult, but they did not.) But perhaps the man was neither afraid nor angry. Maybe he was trembling from excitement and his holloa-ing was an invitation for somebody to come ashore, or perhaps he was excited or angry, but the trembling had nothing to do with his excitement or anger, because it was caused by illness. What is the real fact of the matter? But, does it matter? Every concrete situation (interpretation) is underdetermined by the data. Only in relatively rare cases will the incorrectness of a particular interpretation have significant consequences. There is no need to presuppose cross-cultural universals at this point. To act appropriately is measured in relation to the pragmatic success of a very complex process of interaction and does not depend on whether a particular interpretation is right or wrong.
In a successful first contact (in the eyes of beholders from both sides), there is always some way of engaging and reciprocating in shared practices. How these practices are described (or experienced) may differ very much. The “one man and two women,” with whom Cook and his gentlemen and seamen met, probably did not refer to the event afterward as having “spent about half an hour in chitchat.”
In summary, first contacts show:
•With rare exceptions, in first contacts one responds to the other in the way one does to human beings.
•Communication is possible without sharing a language or understanding the language of the other.
•One has some understanding of people long before understanding their spoken language (in part because they have a language).
•Ascription of beliefs and other attitudes starts long before one gets a hold on interpreting particular utterances. From the first moment onward, attunement of mutual interpretation is operative.
•Nonverbal behavior can be interpreted directly as rational or irrational, meaningful or nonsensical, moral or immoral, and so on (from the perspective of the interpreter).
•No universals as normally understood need be presupposed, not even a universal body language (except for the behavior of pointing).
•There is a partly shared Umwelt, even though the “shared” objects and events may be described very differently in the respective traditions.
•First contacts illustrate the underdetermination of interpretation. Numerous things are interpreted at the same time; each particular interpretation might be wrong, but many assumed quasi-universals have to be right for communicative interaction to be possible, at least right in the sense of family resemblance in the small and in the large.
•First (and other intercultural) contacts provide a glimpse of the wide range of mutually recognizable human practices.
Phrases such as “first contact” or “initial encounter” are problematic, because such terms suggest a meeting on equal terms, which in practice is never the case. However, it does not follow that nothing can be said about them and nothing can be learned from them.
As Salmond (1991: 89) points out, the local reactions to the arrival of Cook’s Endeavor at the coast of New Zealand “rested firmly on Māori assumptions about the world” and “Europeans and their behaviors were grasped (with some puzzlement) in the light of local experience and expectations.” Similarly, “the Endeavor party mirrored the society from which they came in their accounts of and reactions to the local people.”19 But this does not exclude some access to what happened at these first contacts. For example, Salmond quotes a source in which Te Horeta (Te Taniwha), who was a child when Cook’s Endeavor arrived on their shore in November 1769, recounted (much later in his life):20
We had not been long on board of the ship before this lord of these goblins [i.e., Cook] made a speech, and took some charcoal and made marks on the deck of the ship, and pointed to the shore and looked at our warriors. One of our aged men said to our people, “He is asking for an outline of this land;” and that old man stood up, took the charcoal, and marked the outline of the Ika-a-maui (the North Island of New Zealand).
There is no ground to disbelieve that the event Te Horeta remembers may well have actually happened in the brute sense that some human beings were drawing with charcoal on the deck of that particular ship. Te Horeta’s memory would have been influenced by later (re-)interpretations of the event. It might even be complete fantasy. The source Salmond is quoting may give a distorted report of what Te Horeta said or may be a complete fake. However, these are not reasonable doubts, if raised in a systematic way without providing support for such beliefs.21 Though every interpretation, whether historiographical, anthropological, postcolonial, or whatever, is underdetermined by the evidence,22 it makes little sense to overstate this case and reduce the events to mere texts, if only because of the enormous impact of colonial history that followed these first encounters. The violence that ensued from these first encounters is an unsayable wrong of enormous proportions that cannot be undone.23 Without some sort of nonethical transcendental violence, no encounter whatsoever seems to be possible. However, this does not mean that no communicative interaction is taking place. It does mean that the “relationship with the other is not an idyllic and harmonious relationship of communion” (Levinas 1987: 75).
Much can be said in general concerning how accounts of first contacts will be biased in terms of the dominant form(s) of life in which the event is primarily reported and discussed. Recorded contacts are never symmetrical. For example, although Dening (1994: 476–480) describes Cook as “a very ethnographic man,” he also points out that the “natives of the Pacific were possessed in the images made of them” through a process by which ways of seeing are made natural and culturally comfortable. Moreover, the “description of the Other never lost its instrumentality for the interests of self.”24
On a somewhat different track, Bourdieu (1991) is right that Habermas’ notion of an ideal speech situation is based on a fictitious elision of the social conditions of language use.25 This applies in particular to first contacts at the onset of colonial times. Meaning is subject to the forces of symbolic power, imperialism, regimentation, and processes of adjustment of the periphery to the center. This makes the actual negotiation of meanings the product of social, political, and ethical forces. For example, when Cook is writing in his diary or John Webber is sketching his famous panorama of Nootka Sound, they are addressing the British Royal Society and other European institutions and audiences. Bourdieu is also right to say “that ‘interpersonal’ relations are never, except in appearance, individual-to-individual relationships” (Bourdieu 1977: 81). However, like Bakhtin before him, Bourdieu focuses on symbolic power of linguistic exchanges in well-known speech communities.26
As far as first contacts are concerned, there are very few studies that address the issue of symbolic power in any other than a rather abstract manner. Notwithstanding good intentions, there is a tendency in the literature that focuses on issues of power relations or the embedment of recorded events in macro-processes like the spread of colonialism to use first contacts as exotic examples to illustrate whatever is “the latest” in Eurocentric postcolonialism (Moore-Gilbert 1997). For example, Tomas (1996) writes at length about the “transcultural space and transcultural beings” of the first encounters of the English and the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. When introducing the first encounter in January 1771 he describes it as “a fortuitous and well-documented encounter with some Andaman Islanders” (17), by which he means that he can consult one (rather detailed) journal by captain Richie of the ship Diligent. Tomas takes the recording of events by Richie at face value and then interprets the events in terms of transcultural spaces and beings. The author is not concerned how the Andaman Islanders might have described the events.
Similarly, in postcolonial studies (for example, Young 2001), there is very little that applies to first contacts in a concrete way. Moreover, such research has not shown that no account whatsoever of intercultural events is possible. Rather it claims that better accounts can be given of “how it really was”; what is on offer is better knowledge, not a deconstruction of knowledge.27
Furthermore, one does not need postcolonial or subaltern studies to sense the impact of the onset of the colonial world. Already in 1726 Swift wrote:28
For instance, A Crew of Pyrates are driven by a Storm they know not whither; at length a Boy discovers Land from the Top-mast; they go on Shore to rob and plunder: they see an harmless People, are entertained with Kindness, they give the Country a new Name, they take formal Possession of it for the King, they set up a rotten Plank or a Stone for a Memorial, they murder two or three Dozen of the Natives, bring away a Couple more by Force for a Sample, return home, and get their Pardon. Here commences a new Domination acquired with a Title by Divine Right. Ships are sent with the first Opportunity; the Natives driven out or destroyed, their Princes tortured to discover their Gold; a free Licence given to all Acts of Inhumanity and Lust; the Earth reeking with the Blood of its Inhabitants: And this execrable Crew of Butchers employed in so pious an Expedition, is a modern Colony sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous People.
There are numerous concrete case studies that illustrate the tenor of Swift’s comments. Even when the amount of immediate violence was less, long-term effects were devastating. For example, the arrival of the Europeans at the West coast of Vancouver Island, starting with the arrival of Cook in 1778, brought about profound political and economic changes. Trade, primarily in sea otter firs, brought great wealth to some of the Nuu-chah-nulth chiefs, but the happenstance of Cook’s visit exacerbated the geopolitical unbalance in the Nootka region. The continuous power struggles between the various parties at Yuquot caused major political and economic disruption. Chief Maquinna had to abandon his village Yuquot three times in the late 1780s as a result of conflicts with Europeans. His village was occupied by the Spanish from 1789 to 1795. The benefits of the first contacts were even more elusive, because the ensuing scarcity of sea otter firs after the initial trade boom, together with imperial geopolitics, meant that the European traders already abandoned Nootka Sound in the late 1790s. As a result of conflicts with traders, settlers, and among themselves,29 and increasingly due to epidemics brought by Europeans, for which the Indians had no resistance (small pox, malaria, measles, influenza, typhoid fever), the estimated population at first contact was decimated by the end of the nineteenth century.30 Large-scale examples of Swift’s description include the occupation of Mexico by Hernán Cortès and the slave trade.
However, although accounts of first contacts are always biased in terms of the dominant form(s) of life in which the event is primarily recorded and discussed, they can still serve as a life heuristics for a hermeneutical understanding of communicative interaction and the range of human practices connected by family resemblances in the small and in the large. This is missing in imagined cases (Wittgenstein’s preference), thought experiments (Quine, Davidson), ideal speech situations (Habermas, Benhabib), or shared horizons (Gadamer, Taylor). The heuristics of these philosophers, easily promoted to transcendental certainties, have an even greater risk of ethnocentrism or chauvinism than imperialistic first contacts.
The first contact case studies we have discussed are all taken from the era of European exploration (1492–1933). It would certainly be worthwhile to consider other kinds of first contacts, for example between Chinese (or Arabic or Mongol) and other peoples. However, in the region between China and the Mediterranean and in the lands around the Indian Ocean, trade relations and dispatching envoys or embassies go back at least two millennia (Yule 1914). Moreover, from early on, interpreters were employed. There are already references to “interpreters-envoys” in the Han chronicles. From the Han to the Ming dynasties,31 the Chinese court included the “Chiefs of Interpreters” in the department of Eunuchs (“Yellow Gate”).32
It seems that first knowledge of the West “arrived” in China when in 126 BCE, Zhang Qian 张骞 returned from a journey to Bactria (Daxia 大夏, roughly present-day Afghanistan) and reported on the countries even farther west.33 His report might be seen as the “origin” of the silk routes (Hill 2009). According to Duyvendak (7) this is “the first real knowledge about Western countries” to reach China. It reveals the existence of many other countries, to which the Han emperor subsequently sent embassies, including one to the Parthian Empire (247 BCE–224 CE; roughly ancient Persia).
Hence, silk and other trade became operative between the Han and the Roman empire, but no trader covered the whole distance. This trade took place both over land and over sea. The latter would follow the coast line: coming from China to the area of Siam and the Malay peninsula, then the coast of India and eventually the Arabic Gulf, and vice versa. It has been suggested that the basic organization of East-West trade was more or less the same from the Han to the Ming dynasty (Duyvendak: 9).
From the time of the Roman empire until the end of the Mongol occupation of China, East-West trade involved a number of transshipments. At that time, “double translation” (Dryer: 195) was a common phrase in different languages (which means communication via two interpreters via an intermediate language). Speculations about China in the Roman Empire and beyond, and speculations about the Roman Empire in Chinese chronicles were highly speculative until about the Tang dynasty (618–907). During the Tang dynasty, we also find the first reports in China of countries in Africa on the Somali coast, where the Arabs often came to raid slaves; African slaves also ended up in China. During the Song dynasty (960–1279), trade was growing very rapidly (tenfold compared with before). Already in the eighth century, there existed in Canton a maritime customs service. By the tenth century the trade had become so valuable that it was made a government monopoly, which became an important avenue for financial gain for the court (by levying 30 percent import duties).
Most of the time (or: most sources say), East-West trade was in the hands of the Arabs and the Persians. Already during the Tang dynasty there was a large settlement of the Arabs in Canton and a Persian colony on Hainan. These developments are reported in both Chinese and Arabic sources. However, there are also reports that Arab traders went as far as the Malay peninsula, where they met Chinese merchants. By the time of the Song dynasty, Chinese ships had improved, carrying several hundred men, including Arabic and Persian traders, who preferred to travel with Chinese ships (18). These ships, upon leaving China, before turning West, would first go to Sumatra and traded there for some time, before continuing to India and the Persian gulf.
In the thirteenth century, travel across Asia (and to some extent Africa and Europe) intensified.34 There had already been the spread of the Mohammedan faith across India and as far as Sumatra and South-East Africa. Buddhist priests traveled widely. Nestorian priests were present in large parts of Asia (including China). When in 1253 Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck (Rubruquis) visited the court of Möngke Khan in Karakorum (in present-day Mongolia) and stayed for half a year, he came across, among others, Tibetan lama’s, Nestorian Christians, Muslim scholars, their temples, churches, and mosques, as well as an Armenian priest (coming from Jerusalem), a silver smith from Paris (formerly a slave), who made the famous tree-shape fountain entwined with a silver serpent and crowned with an angel (at the entrance of the palace of the Great Khan), a nephew of an English bishop, a German woman (originally from the Lorraine, who was made a slave in Hungary), and envoys from numerous peoples living along one or the other side of the borders of the already enormous Mongol empire held together by the imperial family (Jackson: 172–253).
In the West, the most famous early traveler to China is Marco Polo at the end of the thirteenth century. It seems that earlier doubts concerning whether Polo had actually been in China have been put to rest (Vogel 2013). However, it remains possible that Marco Polo and his ghostwriter (Rustichello da Pisa) took reliable information from an earlier (now lost) superb handbook for traders or from a book on world history in Arabic or Persian.35
The explorations by sea of the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English are somewhat comparable to the travels of Zheng He 郑和,36 who headed seven expeditions between 1405 and 1433, visiting more than thirty places around the Indian ocean (Dreyer 2007).37 With the downfall of the Mongol empire, trade routes had become blocked and were only taken up again in the beginning of the Ming dynasty (during the reign of emperor Yongle 永乐). It is in this period that the impressive journeys under the leadership of the eunuch-admiral Zheng He took place. Not much is known about the first contacts of Chinese with other peoples during these expeditions.38 However, it may be speculated that Arabic interpreters might often have sufficed, because all places visited were in the Arabic sphere of influence. Still, significantly, at the time of Zheng He’s first expedition, “a school was founded for the study of the languages of the barbarians” (Duyvendak: 30). On three occasions, Zheng He had to engage in a fight (and he won). Usually, under the spell of the illustrious appearance of the enormous fleet,39 local rulers were happy to come under the protection of the Chinese emperor (and to pay tribute).40
Animals constituted a significant part of presents or tributaries. Already in 2 CE, a live rhinoceros arrived at the Chinese court (probably from India). As was common in these days, among Chinese and Mongol emperors alike, every arriving envoy bringing presents was understood to pay tribute to the emperor (as a sign of acknowledgment of submission). Duyvendak (32–33) tells an amusing story concerning the significance of giraffes arriving at the Chinese court. Zheng He had visited Bengal on his second expedition. As a result, a giraffe was presented by a Bengal embassy to the Chinese emperor in 1414. The next year, another giraffe was presented to the emperor by an envoy form Melinda (located in current Kenya). The ambassadors had to be conducted to their homeland; hence Zheng He’s fifth voyage (1417–1419). As the giraffe, unknown in China, was associated with the mythical beast K’i-lin (qilin 麒麟, kylin, chi-lin), the emperor’s flatterers kept on emphasizing that the appearance of giraffes was confirmation of the “abundant virtue” of the emperor and his late father.
Hence, we conclude that, unfortunately, it will be difficult to find records of first contacts of Chinese people with other peoples.41 Knowledge of what happens at first contacts will be primarily based on first contacts European explorers made in the more isolated parts of the world.
The overview of first contacts shows that for communicative interaction to be successful across very different traditions, it is necessary to assume that the other is a human being and engages in practices many of which are mutually recognizable, in particular the practice of exchange. The notion of “mutually recognizable human practices” is grounded in Wittgenstein’s observation,42
My attitude [Einstellung; also meaning: approach] toward him is an attitude toward a soul [zur Seele]. I am not of the opinion [Meinung] that he has a soul. (PPF §22)
The human body is the best picture of the human soul. (PPF §25)
Hence, we can call this most fundamental necessary precondition the “attitude-toward-a-soul principle.” The encounter with the other face-to-face is a fundamental immediate experience of humans, whether one adds a sense of responsibility or generosity or not.43 There is reciprocity in X seeing Y being like X, and Y seeing X being like Y. The point of Wittgenstein’s remark comes across best in first contact situations. The following is what allegedly happened at the Coast of Papua New Guinea, September 20, 1871:
As I was approaching the other hut I heard a rustle and, on a glance round in the direction from which it came, some paces away I saw a man standing as if rooted to the ground. He glanced for a second in my direction and then dashed into the bushes. I went after him, almost at a run, waving a piece of red cloth that I found in my pocket. Looking back, seeing that I was alone and completely unarmed, and that I was making signs to him to approach, he stopped. I slowly approached the savage, silently offering him the red cloth, which he took with obvious pleasure and bound round his head. (Miklouho-Maclay: 17–18)
With few exceptions, the attitude of treating others as human beings cannot be doubted. It comes before any interpretation. Peter Winch is no doubt right in explaining Wittgenstein’s Einstellung zur Seele (attitude-toward-a-soul) by saying:
The situation is not that I first recognize my common humanity with others and that this recognition then provides the intellectual justification for my response to certain modalities in my dealings with them. On the contrary it is a recognition which is itself a function of those responses. (1987: 165)
Our unreflective reasons are part of the primitive material out of which our concept of a human person is formed and which makes more sophisticated reflections possible. (147)
Before cultural differences comes the acknowledgement of a common humanity. Sheila Benhabib writes:
In order to understand how different the other really is from us, we must first respect that the other is a human being in some sense like us; we must begin with the attempt to understand and to converse. The recognition of cultural difference is predicated upon the recognition of a common humanity. (1992: 252)
Human beings belong to a community, entailing:44
To think of a person is to think of a being with which one is bound up in a network of rights and duties. To recognize a featherless biped or dolphin or Martian as a person is to think of oneself and it as belonging to a community. (Sellars 1963: 39)
Philosophers often hope to find something good in the encounter of human beings as “souls.”
Recognizing another as fellow human being is in a certain way inseparable from behaving toward him as a fellow human being. … We entertain the idea, unless we are irremediably conceited or colonialist in mentality, that there may be something we ourselves can learn from strangers about the true, the good and the rational (though there is no need to push this process of mutual accommodation any farther than it will go). (Wiggins 1980: 222)
Why not say that our first gesture of recognition of another person promises a universal solidarity of human beings? (Giddens 1985: 117)
However, one can imagine situations in which the attitude-toward-a-soul principle is put to the test. An example can be found in Swift’s writings. Winch comments: “the upshot of the combined influence of Yahoos and Houyhnhnms on Gulliver was years of madness. Swift knew what he was doing” (165).
Although first impressions and attitudes are crucial, one should not put too much emphasis on the momentary event of being confronted with a human face or soul. The explicit recognition of the other as a human being may involve opinions. It is a process that has duration and crucially involves the actions of the other and often involves extensive deliberations. This is illustrated in the following citation:45
“One of the people hid,” recalls Kirupano, “and watched them going to excrete. He came back and said, ‘Those men from heaven went to excrete over there.’ Once they had left many men went to take a look. When they saw that it smelt bad, they said, ‘Their skin might be different, but their shit smells bad like ours.’”
There is some similarity between Wittgenstein’s metaphor of attitude-toward-a-soul and the notion of empathy, to which such diverse thinkers as Heidegger and Quine, and numerous others, pay attention.
The ideas of empathy and projection always already presuppose being-with the other and the being of the other with me. Both already presuppose that one has already understood the other as another human being. … Being absorbed in the same world-with-one-another makes possible communication (Heidegger 2001: 161, 162)
Perception of another’s unspoken thought—up to a point—is older than language. Empathy is instinctive. (Quine 1995: 89)
Empathy has often been mentioned as a precondition or aspect of face-to-face interaction. But it is equally important in the process of interpreting texts. Empathy should not be understood as the projection of one’s own state of mind onto somebody else, or the capacity to feel what the other feels, or to place oneself in the position of everyone else (as is the case with Kant’s sensus communis). We take empathy to refer to the capacity to guess (rightly or wrongly) what the other human being says, writes, feels, wants, thinks, or does. In this sense, empathy is not “to feel with” or “to feel like,” but “to be with.” It allows wide varieties of human practices and of ways humans express themselves. Empathy includes the capacity to imagine oneself in the place of the other human being, but does not prove that there are universals. Being-with another soul is basic, but no concrete universals follow from this. The attitude toward the other as a soul is part of being-with, but does not presuppose literally shared feelings or a body language of behavioral universals.
First and other interhuman contacts provide abundant empirical and transcendental evidence for the attitude-toward-a-soul principle. Exceptions exist, but they can only be identified as exceptions relative to the background of the attitude-toward-a-soul principle. How much universality the attitude-toward-a-soul principle entails is addressed in subsequent chapters.
From the perspective of political philosophy, in particular as far as the so-called politics of recognition is concerned, the catch phrase “no need to speak the same language” resonates with Tully’s idea of an intercultural dialogue in which participants speak their own language, keep in accordance with their own customary ways, and with their own diverse terms, traditions, aims, and demands.46 He argues:47
Only a dialogue in which different ways of participating in the dialogue are mutually recognized would be just. (53)
Such an endless dialogue of humankind will correct my tendency to write as if all the world is America, and the analogous tendencies of the other participants. In this dialogical way, the citizens of such a republic of words, speaking and listening in turn, could gradually become mutually aware of the cultural diversity that ought to be recognized and accommodated in the global family of constitutions and cultures. (24)
Note that this sounds very much like the public space theories concerning multicultural societies. The public space consists of multiple histories and perspectives irreducible to a single common denominator. Meaning is constituted by the interpretative contest. But it is doubtful whether this idea of intercultural dialogue in the public space can be applied to the relation between modernity and aboriginal people.48 Tully writes: “Aboriginal peoples strive for recognition … as ‘peoples’ and ‘nations,’ with ‘sovereignty’ or a ‘right of self-determination,’ even though these terms may distort or misdescribe the claim they would wish to make if it were expressed in their own languages” (39). However, he does not really address the different notions of government expressed in different languages, let alone the more difficult issue of how to listen “to the voices of the others in their own terms” (24). Tully writes: “They do not wish either to be silenced or to be recognized and constrained to speak within the institutions and traditions of interpretation of the imperial constitutions that have been imposed over them” (24). This may be correct as a matter of fact. But which discourse should replace it?
Tully offers the following example of an intercultural dialogue in which the conditions he stipulates were met according to him:
The “partnership” constitution of Aoretera-New Zealand, the Waitangi treaty, is written in Māori, the language of the tangata whenua (the original inhabitants) and in English, the language of the newcomers. Both are authoritative and have distinct traditions of interpretation, with different concepts of history, evidence, argument and government. (135)
Tully suggests that such a treaty system is a living practice in which, by great effort, the battle by arms for recognition is transformed into the conflict of words (138). Though he says little about what is precisely presupposed in his proposals and about the actual events that led to the Waitangi treaty,49 still the heuristic aspect of his ideas is clear. He suggests that in cases like the encounter of the Māori and the English, a just dialogue is possible in principle, provided that both sides respect the authority of the concepts of the others and accept that agreements will be understood differently on either side.
Tully’s ideal is that of a negotiation process (always between unequals) who have different modes of speaking and of reaching agreement and yet finally reach “agreement.” But this is surely not what happened in the actual negotiations that led to a signed Waitangi treaty. The actual events were rather different from the way Tully describes them. Some historical “facts” are as follows (Ross 1972): There exist at least five different English “originals.” The Māori text was the result of translating an English draft by a missionary. Māori chiefs were persuaded by this missionary to sign this document. Only one Māori text was signed (also by the English negotiators, who presumably thought, on the authority of the missionary, that the content of the Māori and English text was the same). However, until quite recently, the signed (Māori) version was not taken very seriously by the British and later New Zealand government, partly because the Māori text differed from the English drafts in that it was more favorable to the Māori, in particular with respect to the notions of government and the right to sell property.50
Some critics have described Tully’s view as: “all is sweetness and light,” because there is a strong longing for an “intercultural ‘common’ ground.”51 For example: “By listening to the different stories others tell, and giving their own in exchange, the participants come to see their common and interwoven histories together from a multiplicity of paths” (Tully: 25). However, strictly speaking, there is nothing common, except as seen from the mistaken point of view of a third party. Lampert (1997: 353) comments that apart from performing actions together, they can engage in “offering one another their chronicles,” as if the chronicles are expressed in a universally shared language.
In connection with the relation of “modernity” with aboriginal peoples, Tully criticizes Habermas’ model for intercultural dialogue:
To treat the candidates for admission “just like all the rest of us” is not to treat them justly at all. It is to treat them within the imperial conventions and institutions that have been constructed to exclude, dominate, assimilate or exterminate them, thereby ignoring the question the politics of recognition raises concerning the universality of the guardians and the institutions they guard. (97)
Although Tully stresses that what is at issue is not a matter of constructing perspicuous translations across continental divides and should be thought of more as a plurality of conversations that are crisscrossing and irreconcilable (referring to Bakhtin and Wittgenstein), nevertheless, the possibility is canvassed of “one common mode of conversation in which their differences could be reconciled” (Tully and Weinstock 1994: xv),52 which seems to be falling back on Gadamer’s notion of fusion of horizons as applied to the “conversational dialogue” between modernity and aboriginals.
The case study of the Waitangi Treaty illustrates how difficult it is for a discourse of modernity to participate in a discourse with aboriginal societies “on equal terms.” Classical Chinese traditions are very different from a so-called aboriginal societies. Nevertheless there may be similar difficulties for modernity’s encounters with classical Chinese texts, although less noticeable because of the intrinsic one-sidedness of interpreting classical Chinese texts.
In the context of the philosophy of language, the catch phrase “no need to speak the same language” reverberates with some of Davidson’s ideas (2005: 89–107 [1986]). For Davidson, language is an empirical phenomenon. There is no a priori theory of truth or meaning for a language.53 Occasions of language use do not obey strict rules to which speakers must conform.54
According to the received view in linguistics and the philosophy of language, the question “Why does language work?” is typically answered as follows (says Davidson): meanings are [i] systematic, [ii] shared, and [iii] governed by learned conventions or regularities. Davidson objects to the received view by discussing mistakes, malapropisms, and other “anomalous” language use. In such situations, the speaker or writer expects to be and often is interpreted as he or she intended. For example, Mrs. Malaprop says (Davidson’s example):55
A nice derangement of epitaphs
But means to say:
A nice arrangement of epithets
She is understood as she intended.56 Davidson’s example shows that learned conventions and regularities have pragmatic value, but are not a necessary requirement to interpret the utterances of someone else. The received view (originating from the ideal language assumption) can only tell one that Mrs. Malaprop utters nonsense. Davidson’s conclusion is that, in order to engage in linguistic interaction, there is no need to speak the same language. This conclusion is less dramatic than it may seem. It simply means that, in principle, and given enough time and interaction, two monolingual speakers of, say, English and Chinese respectively could learn to understand (interpret) one another without speaking one another’s language.
An important consequence is that a distinction has to be made between what Davidson calls the prior and the passing theory of interpretation; that is to say, the meanings ascribed to utterances before and after a particular utterance is made. Only a passing theory needs to be shared.57 The idea that for communication to work there has to be a shared language is rejected. Language understood as governed by conventions and regularities does not exist. Therefore, Davidson concludes:
There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. (107)
Davidson’s argument, if accepted, has far-reaching consequences, which is perhaps the reason why few commentators have followed him and he himself does not often mention his 1986 article in later writings. Making the distinction between prior and passing theory entails that the ideal language assumption is exorcized.58 Even the traditional notion of idiolect is discredited. Theories of meaning (for what is colloquially assumed to be the same language) are not the same for different speakers and writers and are in constant flux for each user of “the” language. In addition, Davidson himself may have been influenced by critics, who pointed out that his focus on passing theories may conflict with other notions of his theory of interpretation, in particular radical interpretation and triangulation.59
Natural language is full of ambiguities, malapropisms and hybridities,60 but this does not obstruct communication or interpretation in a principled way. A language is not governed by just one theory of meaning. At best, there are dynamic “momentary” passing theories of interpretation. Speaking the same language is not a necessary condition for communicative interaction and conventions of use are not strict rules. Furthermore, both prior and passing theories of interpretation are incomplete and are underdetermined by data and context. When interpreting ancient texts there are a number of options for the prior theory as well as for the passing theory. This adds to the underdetermination of interpretation.
In connection with Davidson’s conclusion that there is no such thing as a language, at least not as “a language” is usually understood, we argue in this section that there is no need for a shared world either, at least not as the word world is usually understood. When communicative interaction takes place (including miscommunication), there is always a partly shared Umwelt. However, when one describes the local world and its inhabitants, there is no need to appeal to such cross-cultural universals as one shared “universal” world as a precondition for communication and objectivity.
No practical worries about living in radically incommensurable worlds need to creep in. Objects and events may receive divergent descriptions in the respective languages, so as to make true “incommensurable” sentences without upsetting communicative interaction. Graham gives the following simple example. The sentences “the cat sat on the mat” and mao zai xizi shang 猫在席子上 (a translation of the former sentence) are incommensurable. Why? One may assume that mao is the correct translation of cat, because “cat” or mao is a quasi-universal for the pair Chinese/English. But, contrary to “the cat sat on the mat,” mao zai xizi shang is “true even if the cat has never before now sit on the mat, false if it sat on a cloth mat” (1992a: 65). But it is easy to see that bilingual speakers would agree on the truth or falsity of both the English and Chinese sentence. It is not the case “that there are … atomic divisions in nature and culture which will impose themselves on the speakers of all languages” (66).
According to Davidson, the “possibility of thought as well as communication,” “the objectivity which thought and language demand,” as well as “the conditions necessary for the concept of truth to have application,” all depend “on the mutual and simultaneous responses of two or more creatures to common distal stimuli and to one another’s responses.”61 The latter interactive event Davidson calls triangulation.
When describing what is happening in the process of triangulation “in the simplest and most basic cases,” Davidson adds to the notion of triangulation a notion of salience, defined in terms of “innate similarity responses” and “the objects or events we naturally find similar.”62 His view can be summarized as follows:63
The interpreter’s verbal responses class together or identify the same objects and events that the speaker’s verbal responses class together. He must find [the] speaker believing in most of the same centrally important sorts of objects that he believes in. … It is we, because of the way we are constructed (evolution had something to do with this), who find these responses natural and easy to class together.
The problem with Davidson’s picture of objectivity that is grounded in shared similarity responses in the most basic cases is that more than necessary is assumed as a precondition for thinking, language, and communicative interaction. Davidson’s holistic and normative theory of interpretation has no need for semantic or cognitive universals of the nonholistic sort as suggested by his talk of salience and innate similarity responses.
In his defense of triangulation, Davidson uses simple interlinguistic examples such as “Creature B … associates cows with A’s utterances of ‘Vache’” to support his view that in the simplest and most basic situations we “class together the same distal stimuli.”64 Now contrast Davidson’s example with the following example that has much more distance from English than French from English: the word vovetas of the Native American people Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), which includes most vultures, some hawks, swarms of two types of insects, as well as tornado’s.65 When confronted with such an extension of vovetas, it would probably strike the reader as an utterly weird grouping of things. However, if told that what all the vovetas share (along with more culturally embedded features) is the form or gestalt of whirling movements (typically associated with local meteorological conditions that impose similar gestalts on the movements of certain birds, certain swarms of insects, as well as tornado’s), one may be inclined to accept the Tsistsistas’ view that vovetas is one “of the ways of grouping things they are born with.” Whether it is cows or vultures or vovetas, these words need to be learned—as acknowledged by Davidson in regard to cows.66 One is able to group hawks under vovetas, not because one sees some similarity between vovetas and Western biological classifications, but because one can see the resemblance of the movements of the hawk with that of a tornado (in the area where the Tsistsistas live). The extension of vovetas is learned by being presented with samples and learning to see analogies and similarities.67 In such a case one has learned a new FR-concept that does not have a translation that can approximate an existing word in English. However, we can add the word “vovetas” to the English language, with the provisional explanation just given. Because the Tsistsistas’ word vovetas has more layers of meaning than those just given, the English vovetas and the Tsistsistas vovetas are not tokens of the same concept, although there is a family resemblance.
In Davidson’s exchange with Dummett about dictionary conventions or groups of people setting the standard for meaning, he thus comments on Dummett’s view: “It imports into the theory of meaning an elitist norm by implying that people not in the right social swim don’t really know what they mean” (2005: 121), which has an implicit reference to Mrs. Malaprop. But something similar might be said if Davidson imports into the theory of interpretation an appeal to interpreter and speaker “believing in most of the same centrally important sorts of objects … and operating with much the same ways of classifying them” (1993: 55).
When Davidson talks about “the direct exposures that anchor thought and language to the world” (2001: 197), then this is a local world. Relative to this local world—a partly shared Umwelt—there are (partly) shared interests and saliences, but these interests and saliences are not unilaterally tied to human beings’ native apparatus and/or to the salient objects and events out there, not even in the most basic cases. The Dani people (of New Guinea) employed more than seventy terms for sweet potatoes. The anthropologist Heider (1970) asked a group of women to name and classify sweet potatoes with which he presented them. Heider failed to discover any taxonomy in the seventy plus relevant words he collected. There is no doubt that “lines of thought” (Davidson 2001: 120) were going between the Dani speakers, Heider, and the sweet potatoes. Salient causes were shared, but that does not turn them into the relevant causes under basic descriptions that provide the contents of thought for everyone present. The triangulation and other interactions are tied to a shared local world, but it is not the same world in the sense that Heider and the women were using different conceptual schemes for ordering their Umwelt. Therefore, it is not the case that, as Davidson suggests, “mutual understanding requires a world shared both causally and conceptually” (2005: 176).
As a further elaboration of the notion of a shared local world, consider once more what happened when Cook’s ship arrived at Nootka Sound in March 1778. There is a shared local world (according to the interpreters of the event) in which triangulation and attunement of mutual interpretation is operative, but the situation is different from Davidson’s universalist model in at least two respects. First, both sides will (have to) assume that the other is having “a largely correct picture of the common world” (Davidson 1990: 325). However, from the retroactive vantage point of having learned each other’s language, it will transpire that these two largely correct pictures of the common world are not the same, not even in the most basic cases. Second, there will be a rapid succession of numerous fuzzy triangles between objects, events, and actors. There will be some (necessary) overlap of shared causes and saliences, but there will also be vast differences in how these causes and saliences are described at the conceptual level (including identification conditions of objects and events).
In describing what happened at Nootka Sound, one can point to shared saliences. It is evening, the sun is going down, there are two groups of people within eyesight of one another; first it is silent, then someone starts to sing. There is salience. There is triangulation. There are lines of thought pointing to where the singing is: “Where the lines … converge, ‘the’ stimulus is located” (2001: 119). There is communicative interaction simply by being there, by moving (parts of) bodies, by making sounds, and so on. But for this communicative interaction to make some sense, there is no need to share any concept in particular (such as a prototypical notion of singing or whatever).
There is no context and conceptual scheme independent answer to the question in what sense two people are seeing the same (thing(s)). This is in line with van Fraassen saying concerning the word “world”: that it is “a context-dependent term which indicates the domain of discourse of the sentence in which it occurs, on the occasion of utterance” (1995: 24).68 A domain of discourse is not neutral with respect to the sortals it admits. If people of different backgrounds start taking part in a partly shared Umwelt (as judged from a third perspective) they will, at least initially, pick up and display different invariants and affordances of this local world.69 There is no universal domain of discourse (concerning the “real” world), which refers to the very same things every observer will “see” when faced with them.
As Davidson has pointed out, knowledge of the external world, knowledge of other minds, and knowledge of one’s own mind are interdependent (2001: 205–220). Language, communication, thought, and objectivity are interconnected terms. So Davidson is right that one needs at least two to know and communicate.70 For Davidson two is enough because of his appeal to shared saliences. If it is correct that there are no universal saliences (putting aside saliences at the biological level of instinct and reflex), Hacking (1986) would be correct in suggesting that one needs at least three to communicate. What the salient causes are, on any occasion, is as fleeting as the passing theory of language ascribed to the partner-in-a-dialogue (or, in a learner and teacher situation, as idiosyncratic as the secure attunements the teacher happens to have). Just as there is no need to share a language, there is no need to share the same “natural” ways of grouping things together, apart from the trivial fact that the discriminatory (biological) capacities of most humans are similar.
Hence, for communication to work, one does not have to share either a prior language or a prior world as the words language and world are understood by most philosophers and most other people. What human beings share, is similar responses to a diversity of forms of life. When communicative interaction is taking place, participants in the endeavor will exploit whatever common ground they can find. But different participants may see and experience divergent apparent common grounds and in particular will give variegated descriptions of these “common” grounds. First contacts show that there can be a shared world with shared objects and events, not only if these objects and events are described very differently, but also if these objects and events themselves are taken to be different.