Online research in philosophy

What role does translation play in philosophy of language? Recent development in the field has drawn parallels between theories of translation and theories of meaning, evident primarily in the work of Davidson and Quine. Communication has often been viewed as an act of translation or interpretation between speakers, particularly by Davidson in later writings. I think it is equally useful to view translation as an act of communication, and this approach is particularly valuable because it leads us to the conclusion that meaning is created through dialectic processes. Although translation studies has recently emerged as a new and promising academic field, it usually separates philosophical analysis from literary criticism. Quine’s work is typical of the philosophical approach, which concerns itself with hypothetical translation situations. What is of importance in these cases is the general process of translation, separate from any specific language. Quine’s radical translation thought experiment involves an imagined language of which we had no “prior understanding.” Davidson considers this situation as well, but does not restrict himself to it. He is also interested in the actual problems of interpretation that occur between speakers, even if they are speakers of the same language. However, neither Quine nor Davidson deal with actual translation techniques for literary works, which are usually discussed only within the context of literary criticism. It is my contention that the philo-sophical significance of literary translation has for the most part been overlooked, and I hope to show that literary translation has something to contribute to the more general discussion of translation and meaning within philosophy of language.

This paper defends the thesis that the mediaeval genre of logical treatises De obligatiombus contained a theoretical account of counterfacutal reasoning, perhaps the first such account in the history of philosophy. This interpretation helps to explain some of the theoretical disputes in the obligationes literature in the first half of the fourteenth century. Section 1 is introductory. Section 2 presents Walter Burley's theory, while section 3 argues for the counterfactual interpretation of obligationes and section 4 discusses difficulties with Burley's theory. Section 5 presents the textual basis for Richard Kilvington's theory, and section 6 outlines that theory. Section 7 discusses Roger Swyneshed's theory. Section 8 contains a summary and conclusion.

Davidson's principle of the anomalousness of the mental was instrumental in discrediting once-popular versions of mind-brain reductionism. In this essay I argue that a novel account of intertheoretic reduction, which does not require the sort of cross-theoretic bridge laws that Davidson's principle rules out, allows a version of mind-brain reductionism which is immune from Davidson's challenge. In the final section, I address a second worry about reductionism, also based on Davidson's principle, that survives this response. I argue that new reductionists should revise some significant details of the program, particularly the conception of theories, to circumvent this more potent Davidson-inspired worry.

Relativistic theories and arguments are fairly common in legal thinking. A case in point is Stanley Fish's theory of interpretation, which applies to statutes and constitutions as well as to novels and poems. Fish holds, inter alia, (i) that an interpretation of a statute, a poem, or some other text can be true or valid only in light of the interpretive strategies that define an interpretive community, and (ii) that no set of interpretive strategies (and therefore no interpretation) is truer or more valid than any other. In this article, I discuss these claims critically and argue that the very idea of an interpretive community is more or less unintelligible, and that in any case Fish's theory is self-refuting. I begin with a few words about the methods and techniques of statutory interpretation(Section 2). I proceed by introducing Fish's theory of interpretation, giving special consideration to some difficulties in Fish's account of the concept of an interpretive community (Sections 3-4). I then introduce two types of relativism, cognitive and moral (Section 5), and argue that Fish's theory asserts cognitive relativism in the shape of conceptual relativism and relativism about truth (Section 6). Having done that, I consider Donald Davidson's well-known objection to alternative conceptual schemes (Section 7) as well as the popular charge that relativism about truth is self-refuting (Section 8).

Formulating my comments I have had difficulties of three kinds. First, I am not at all sure that I have understood Davidson correctly at every point. Secondly, not being aware of how far I may take for granted that Davidson and I share what may be called the same background ...

In this article we aim to reconstruct some aspects of Davidson's idea of triangulation, and against this reconstruction, ask whether the idea is viciously circular. We begin by looking at the claim that without a triangularn setting, there is no saying what the cause of a being's responses is. In the first section we discuss the notion of relevant similarity, and what difference the presence of a second non?linguistic being could make for the individuation of a common focus of attention. In the second section we look at the role of a second person in language?acquisition. It is important that being corrected to ?go on as others do? does not yet presuppose thought, and similarity standards can be applied to a learner's reactions even before she is aware of these standards. We also show why Davidson is not committed to any consensus view of correctness. In the last section we discern three charges of circularity that can be levelled against the idea of triangulation. We argue that Davidson can respond to the first two charges, and point to a way of answering the third. But the response we propound raises a new question, namely, why does the second being have to be a speaker or thinker even before the learner is aware of the three points of the triangle?

Donald Davidson's account of interpretation purports to be a priori , though I argue that the empirical facts about interpretation, theory of mind, and autism must be considered when examining the merits of Davidson's view. Developmental psychologists have made plausible claims about the existence of some people with autism who use language but who are unable to interpret the minds of others. This empirical claim undermines Davidson's theoretical claims that all speakers must be interpreters of other speakers and that one need not be a speaker in order to be a thinker. The falsity of these theses has consequences for other parts of Davidson's world-view; for example, it undermines his argument against animal thought.

In this companion to ‘Charity, Interpretation, and Belief’, McGinn broadens his attack on Davidson's principle of charity, arguing that charity is no more required for the ascription of notional beliefs (i.e. shared concepts) than it is for the ascription of relational beliefs. His argument takes the form of a reductio: if Davidson were right that about the inherently charitable nature of interpretation, then, McGinn argues, traditional sceptical worries (e.g. concerning the external world, other minds) would not even arise. But that is absurd. In the concluding section, McGinn presents his preferred (Quinean) method of interpretation, according to which the ascription of beliefs and meanings proceeds only after the attribution of perceptual experiences.

My concern in this paper is with a simple question: Does Donald Davidson's case for an anti-foundationalist epistemology cohere well with his stance on conceptual schemes? After rehearsing Davidson's central anti-foundationalist argument in Section 2, I consider the objection that his argument rests on a premise which is defensible only if we invoke the so-called "dualism of scheme and content", Davidson's opposition to which is the subject of Section 3. Then, in Section 4, I explain why, despite appearances to the contrary, there is actually no incompatibility between the premise of Davidson's anti-foundationalist argument and his insistence that the scheme / content dualism is untenable. Finally, in Section 5, I discuss what this reveals about the basic unity and orientation of Davidson's theory of knowledge.

Davidson approaches the notions of meaning and interpretation with the aim of characterizing semantic competence in the syntactically characterized natural language. The objective is to provide a truth-theory for a language, generating T-sentences expressed in the semantic metalanguage, so that each sentence of the object language receives an appropriate interpretation. Proceeding within the constraints of referential semantics, I will argue for the viability of reconstructing the notion of linguistic meaning within the Tarskian theory of reference. However, the view proposed here involves a revision of Davidson’s con-ception of the object of semantic investigation. Taking (idealized) language-theories as the proper object of semantic characterization, provides solutions to outstanding problems in Davidson’s views, better approximates the practice in standard model-theoretic semantics, and incorporates the elements of semantic competence sought for in tradi¬tional theories of lexical analysis. Sources of evidence beyond those emphasized by Davidson will be invoked in order to allow for the selection of interpre¬tive T-sentences. In the final section, possible Quinean objections will be considered.