Donald Davidson
Reasons are the causes of our actions, and to understand what others say we must assume that most of what they believe is true.
Placement
Reasons are causes; every interpretation requires the principle of charity.
Key ideas
- Anomalous monism
- Radical interpretation
- Principle of charity
Teachers: W. V. O. Quine
Influence
Influenced by 2
Rudolf Carnap
influenced by ✓
Davidson worked through Carnap’s semantics of extension and intension (Schilpp volume, 1963) before replacing meanings with a Tarskian theory of truth (‘Truth and Meaning’, 1967). D. Davidson, “The Method of Extension and Intension”, in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (1963); “Truth and Meaning”, Synthese 17 (1967); SEP “Donald Davidson”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
Alfred Tarski
influenced by ✓
Davidson turned Tarski’s Convention T around: a theory that yields a T-sentence for every sentence of a language serves as a theory of meaning (‘Truth and Meaning’, 1967). D. Davidson, “Truth and Meaning”, Synthese 17 (1967); A. Tarski, “Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych” (1933; German 1935); SEP “Donald Davidson”
Alfred Tarski › 1901–1983
Influenced 1
Richard Rorty
influenced
Rorty read Davidson’s rejection of the scheme–content distinction and his account of truth as support for pragmatism (‘Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth’, 1986), though Davidson declined the label. R. Rorty, “Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth” (1986), in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991); D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974); SEP “Richard Rorty”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
Criticism
Criticized by 1
Michael Dummett
criticised by
Dummett objected that Davidson’s truth-conditional theory is merely ‘modest’: it does not explain what knowledge of meaning consists in (‘What is a Theory of Meaning?’, 1975). M. Dummett, “What is a Theory of Meaning?”, in S. Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language (1975); “What is a Theory of Meaning? (II)” (1976)
Evidence: AI draft
Michael Dummett › 1925–2011
Criticizes 4
Gilbert Ryle
criticised
Davidson rejected Ryle’s view that motives explain as dispositions, not as causes: a reason explains only if the agent acted because of it (‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, 1963). D. Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes”, Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963); G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (1949), ch. 4
Evidence: AI draft
Gilbert Ryle › 1900–1976
W. V. O. Quine studied with
studied with ✓
Davidson attended Quine’s courses as a Harvard student around 1939; his own dissertation (1949) was on Plato’s Philebus, and he later described Quine as the strongest influence on his philosophy. D. Davidson, “Intellectual Autobiography”, in L. E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson (1999)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised
Davidson rejected the dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content, which Quine kept, as a ‘third dogma of empiricism’ (‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’, 1974). D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974); “Meaning, Truth and Evidence”, in R. Barrett & R. Gibson (eds.), Perspectives on Quine (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
W. V. O. Quine › 1908–2000
G. E. M. Anscombe
criticised
Davidson rejected the view, associated with Anscombe’s Intention (1957), that reasons are not causes: rationalisation is a species of causal explanation (‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, 1963). D. Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes”, Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963), 685–700; G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (1957)
Evidence: AI draft
G. E. M. Anscombe › 1919–2001
Thomas S. Kuhn
criticised
Davidson rejected the incommensurable conceptual schemes he found in Kuhn: an untranslatable language could not be recognised as language (‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’, 1974). D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, Proceedings and Addresses of the APA 47 (1974), 5–20
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas S. Kuhn › 1922–1996
Works
Reasons are causes – against the Wittgensteinians.
Against the third dogma: scheme and content.
Position
Davidson connected the philosophy of action, mind and language in a remarkably unified way. Against the Wittgensteinians he argued that the reasons for which we act are also causes of our actions. In “Mental Events” he defended anomalous monism: every mental event is a physical event, yet there are no strict laws linking the mental and the physical. In the theory of meaning he asked how a “radical interpreter” could understand a completely foreign language – only by assuming that the speaker mostly holds true beliefs and is rational (the principle of charity). From this he concluded that the idea of radically different, untranslatable conceptual schemes makes no sense. His essays shaped philosophy of language and mind from the 1960s onward.
Life & context
Davidson was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1917 and studied literature, classics and philosophy at Harvard, where he wrote a dissertation on Plato’s Philebus. After serving in the navy during the Second World War he taught at Stanford, Princeton, Rockefeller University and Chicago, and finally at Berkeley. His influence spread mainly through sharply argued essays.
Further main works
- Truth and Meaning (1967)
- Mental Events (1970)
- Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984)
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