使用Player FM应用程序离线!
3 for the Price of 1 - Donald Davidson's Principle of Charity Slays Empiricism, Conceptual Schemes & The Cartesian Skeptic (Maybe)
Manage episode 326314050 series 2778461
Apologies for the Buzzfeedesque title - In this final episode of a two-part series on the work of Donald Davidson, I look at Davidson’s work on a theory of meaning, his principle of charity, and, what he believed were his arguments that put the final nail in the coffin of empiricism. Davidson claims that we should develop a theory of meaning by imagining interpreting the utterances of others. In order to make a program of interpretation, we must kindly assume that the subjects of interpretation are at least largely correct by our own standards - they must share the majority of our background beliefs. We must interpret with this principle of charity. But when we acknowledge the necessity of a principle of charity to arrive at shared meaning, we see that the interpretation of other speakers cannot involve direct 'word to world' or 'sentence to stuff' relations. Here, in interpretation, empiricism is false and a holism of massive shared background beliefs is necessary. Meaning and interpretation between speakers can only be mediated through a whole heap of background beliefs that are assumed to be shared between interpreter and interpretee. This mass of shared beliefs undermines any workable notion of people having differing conceptual schemes and, funnily enough, provides us with a somewhat janky answer to the Cartesian skeptic.
61集单集
Manage episode 326314050 series 2778461
Apologies for the Buzzfeedesque title - In this final episode of a two-part series on the work of Donald Davidson, I look at Davidson’s work on a theory of meaning, his principle of charity, and, what he believed were his arguments that put the final nail in the coffin of empiricism. Davidson claims that we should develop a theory of meaning by imagining interpreting the utterances of others. In order to make a program of interpretation, we must kindly assume that the subjects of interpretation are at least largely correct by our own standards - they must share the majority of our background beliefs. We must interpret with this principle of charity. But when we acknowledge the necessity of a principle of charity to arrive at shared meaning, we see that the interpretation of other speakers cannot involve direct 'word to world' or 'sentence to stuff' relations. Here, in interpretation, empiricism is false and a holism of massive shared background beliefs is necessary. Meaning and interpretation between speakers can only be mediated through a whole heap of background beliefs that are assumed to be shared between interpreter and interpretee. This mass of shared beliefs undermines any workable notion of people having differing conceptual schemes and, funnily enough, provides us with a somewhat janky answer to the Cartesian skeptic.
61集单集
Усі епізоди
×欢迎使用Player FM
Player FM正在网上搜索高质量的播客,以便您现在享受。它是最好的播客应用程序,适用于安卓、iPhone和网络。注册以跨设备同步订阅。