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In this paper I shall be concerned with the relation between a particular account of linguistic meaning and the property of compositionality in natural language.1 The account, proposed by Donald Davidson, is that based on considerations about radical interpretation. I shall argue that there is a fundamental conflict between, on the one hand, the view that the meaning of expressions of natural languages is determined purely according to canons of radical interpretation, and, on the other hand, the view that natural languages exhibit compositional structure. I shall also argue that if there is such a conflict, this speaks against the proposed account.

In Davidson’s philosophy, one finds a wide variety of rich, provocative, and influential arguments concerning the nature of the mind—that mental states emerge only in the context of interpretation, that belief is “in its nature” veridical, that mental events are physical events, and so on. Most, if not all, of Davidson’s conclusions about the mind have their source in discussions about the project of “radical interpretation.” They rely upon arguments concerning the conditions on the successful interpretation of a speaker by an interpreter who knows nothing initially about the speaker’s language or mental states.

An investigation into what kind of knowledge is necessary for interpretation is an important research project for the two fields of the theory of meaning and epistemology, through which they are combined. By examining the two basic requirements for a theory on the interpretation of language drafted by Donald Davidson, this paper analyzes several kinds of knowledge which are necessary for interpretation. The goal is to explore the knowledge of radical interpretation and the distinctions and connections between this knowledge and radical translation and Convention-T, thus revealing its characteristics and possibility to interpretation. /// 追问语言诠释需要什么样的知识将意义理论和知识论结合起来，从而成为这 两个领域的重要研究课题。从戴维森为使语言诠释成为可能的理论所拟定的两个基 本要求入手，分析几种可能的知识，重点分析彻底诠释所需的知识及这种知识与彻 底翻译和约定一T 的联系和区别，可揭示彻底诠释的知识特点及其作为语言诠释所 需知识的可能性。.

Radical Interpretation and the Permutation Principle * Davidson has argued1 that there is no fact of the matter as to what any speaker's words refer to because, even holding truth conditions fixed, a radical interpreter will always be able to come up with many equally good interpretations of the interpretee’s language. This conclusion, which Davidson (following Quine) refers to as the "inscrutability of reference", has caused many to reject the radical interpretation methodology as fundamentally flawed.2 Nevertheless, it isn’t clear that such widespread inscrutability is a necessary consequence of the radical interpretation methodology. In particular, Davidson claims that the following assumption (which will hereafter be referred to as the "Permutation Principle") is "clearly needed if we are to conclude to the inscrutability of reference".

An investigation into what kind of knowledge is necessary for interpretation is an important research project for the two fields of the theory of meaning and epistemology, through which they are combined. By examining the two basic requirements for a theory on the interpretation of language drafted by Donald Davidson, this paper analyzes several kinds of knowledge which are necessary for interpretation. The goal is to explore the knowledge of radical interpretation and the distinctions and connections between this knowledge and radical translation and Convention-T, thus revealing its characteristics and possibility to interpretation.

Radical interpretation is used by Davison in his linguistic theory not only as an interesting thought experiment but also a general pattern that is believed to be able to give an essential and general account of linguistic interpretation. If the principle of charity is absolutely necessary to radical interpretation, it becomes, in this sense, a general methodological principle. However, radical interpretation is a local pattern that is proper only for exploring certain interpretation in a specific case, and consequently the principle of charity is an applicable principle in the limited scope. It is neither the case that every linguistic interpretation is in nature radical nor that the principle of charity is the primary and fundamental principle for all linguistic interpretation as Davidson believes. /// 在戴维森的理论中，彻底解释不仅是一个有趣的思想实验，而且是一个一般 的模式，他相信使用这个模式就可以对语言解释提供实质性的、一般的说明。如果 像戴维森所坚信的那样，善意原则于彻底解释来说是绝对必须的，那么，善意原则 也就成为一个一般的方法论原则。然而，彻底解释只是一种有限的模式，仅适用于 说明特殊情况下的某类语言解释。作为结果，善意原则就是在有限的范围内起作用 的原则。与戴维森所坚持的不同，既不能说每一种语言解释都是彻底解释，也不能 说善意原则是对所有语言解释都适用的、首要的，且基本的原则。.

Radical interpretation is used by Davison in his linguistic theory not only as an interesting thought experiment but also a general pattern that is believed to be able to give an essential and general account of linguistic interpretation. If the principle of charity is absolutely necessary to radical interpretation, it becomes, in this sense, a general methodological principle. However, radical interpretation is a local pattern that is proper only for exploring certain interpretation in a specific case, and consequently the principle of charity is an applicable principle in the limited scope. It is neither the case that every linguistic interpretation is in nature radical nor that the principle of charity is the primary and fundamental principle for all linguistic interpretation as Davidson believes.

McCarthy develops a theory of radical interpretation--the project of characterizing from scratch the language and attitudes of an agent or population--and applies it to the problems of indeterminacy of interpretation first described by Quine. The major theme in McCarthy's study is that a relatively modest set of interpretive principles, properly applied, can serve to resolve the major indeterminacies of interpretation.