Author: Bjorn Ramberg Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell ISBN: 9780631164586 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
This book is an introduction to and interpretation of the philosophy of language devised by Donald Davidson over the past 25 years. The guiding intuition is that Davidson's work is best understood as an ongoing attempt to purge semantics of theoretical reifications. Seen in this light the recent attack on the notion of language itself emerges as a natural development of his Quinian scepticism towards "meanings" and his rejections of reference-based semantic theories. Linguistic understanding is, for Davidson, essentially dynamic, arising only through a continuous process of theory construction and reconstruction. The result is a conception of semantics in which the notion of interpretation and not the notion of knowing a language is fundamental. In the course of his book Bjorn Ramberg provides a critical discussion of reference-based semantic theories, challenging the standard accounts of the principle of charity and elucidating the notion of radical interpretation. The final chapter on incommensurability ties in with the discussions of Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science and suggests certain links between Davidson's analytic semantics and hermeneutic theory.
Author: Donald Davidson Publisher: Clarendon Press ISBN: 0191519235 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 300
Book Description
Problems of Rationality is the eagerly awaited fourth volume of Donald Davidson's philosophical writings. From the 1960s until his death in August 2003 Davidson was perhaps the most influential figure in English-language philosophy, and his work has had a profound effect upon the discipline. His unified theory of the interpretation of thought, meaning, and action holds that rationality is a necessary condition for both mind and interpretation. Davidson here develops this theory to illuminate value judgements and how we understand them; to investigate what the conditions are for attributing mental states to an object or creature; and to grapple with the problems presented by thoughts and actions which seem to be irrational. Anyone working on knowledge, mind, and language will find these essays essential reading.
Author: Lewis Edwin Hahn Publisher: Library of Living Philosophers ISBN: Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 808
Book Description
This volume in the series celebrates the philosophy of American Donald Davidson, whose process covers different types of philosophy. Admired for developing a system based on his theory of mind and language, he considers two of his most central interests to be the concepts of truth and objectivity.
Author: Donald Davidson Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674030220 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
This brief book takes readers to the very heart of what it is that philosophy can do well. Completed shortly before Donald Davidson's death at 85, Truth and Predication brings full circle a journey moving from the insights of Plato and Aristotle to the problems of contemporary philosophy. In particular, Davidson, countering many of his contemporaries, argues that the concept of truth is not ambiguous, and that we need an effective theory of truth in order to live well. Davidson begins by harking back to an early interest in the classics, and an even earlier engagement with the workings of grammar; in the pleasures of diagramming sentences in grade school, he locates his first glimpse into the mechanics of how we conduct the most important activities in our life--such as declaring love, asking directions, issuing orders, and telling stories. Davidson connects these essential questions with the most basic and yet hard to understand mysteries of language use--how we connect noun to verb. This is a problem that Plato and Aristotle wrestled with, and Davidson draws on their thinking to show how an understanding of linguistic behavior is critical to the formulating of a workable concept of truth. Anchored in classical philosophy, Truth and Predication nonetheless makes telling use of the work of a great number of modern philosophers from Tarski and Dewey to Quine and Rorty. Representing the very best of Western thought, it reopens the most difficult and pressing of ancient philosophical problems, and reveals them to be very much of our day.
Author: Maria Cristina Amoretti Publisher: Walter de Gruyter ISBN: 3110322528 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
Thanks to their heterogeneity, the nine essays in this volume offer a clear testimony of Donald Davidson's authority, and they undoubtedly show how much his work - even if it has raised many doubts and criticisms - has been, and still is, highly influential and significant in contemporary analytical philosophy for a wide range of subjects. Moreover, the various articles not only critically and carefully analyze Davidson's theses and arguments (in particular those concerning language and knowledge), but they also illustrate how such theories and ideas, despite their unavoidable difficulties, are still alive and potentially fruitful. Davidon's work is indeed an important and provocative starting point for discussing the future progress of philosophy.
Author: Robert H. Myers Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 113464129X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
According to many commentators, Davidson’s earlier work on philosophy of action and truth-theoretic semantics is the basis for his reputation, and his later forays into broader metaphysical and epistemological issues, and eventually into what became known as the triangulation argument, are much less successful. This book by two of his former students aims to change that perception. In Part One, Verheggen begins by providing an explanation and defense of the triangulation argument, then explores its implications for questions concerning semantic normativity and reductionism, the social character of language and thought, and skepticism about the external world. In Part Two, Myers considers what the argument can tell us about reasons for action, and whether it can overcome skeptical worries based on claims about the nature of motivation, the sources of normativity and the demands of morality. The book reveals Davidson’s later writings to be full of innovative and important ideas that deserve much more attention than they are currently receiving.
Author: Marc Joseph Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317489950 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
Donald Davidson's work has been of seminal importance in the development of analytic philosophy and his views on the nature of language, mind and action remain the starting point for many of the central debates in the analytic tradition. His ideas, however, are complex, often technical, and interconnected in ways that can make them difficult to understand. This introduction to Davidson's philosophy examines the full range of his writings to provide a clear succinct overview of his ideas. The book begins with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson's philosophy of language, introducing his compositionalism, extensionalism and commitment to a Tarski-style theory of truth as the model for theories of meaning. It goes on to show how that philosophical framework is to be applied and how it challenges the traditional picture. Marc Joseph examines Davidson's influential work on action theory and events and discusses the commonly made charge that his theory of action and mind leaves the mental as a mere 'epiphenomenon' of the physical. The final section explores Davidson's philosophy of mind, some of its consequences for traditional views of subjectivity and objectivity and, more generally, the relation between minded beings and the physical and mental world they occupy.
Author: Gerhard Preyer Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199697515 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 299
Book Description
This volume offers a reappraisal of Donald Davidson's influential philosophy of thought, meaning, and language, Twelve specially written essays by leading philosophers in the field illuminate a range of themes and problems relating to these subjects, and engage in particular with Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig's interpretation of Davidson's thought.
Author: Donald Davidson Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199288852 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
This volume compiles the most celebrated papers of Donald Davidson, one of the 20th century's greatest philosophers. There are essays about our understanding of language, the mind, action, and knowledge, which are thematically organised.
Author: Bjorn Ramberg
Author: Kirk Ludwig
Author: Donald Davidson
Author: Lewis Edwin Hahn
Author: Donald Davidson
Author: Maria Cristina Amoretti
Author: Robert H. Myers
Author: Marc Joseph
Author: Gerhard Preyer
Author: Donald Davidson