Abstract
Literal meaning is often identified with conventional meaning. In ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’ Donald Davidson argues (1) that literal meaning is distinct from conventional meaning, and (2) that literal meaning is identical to what he calls ‘first meaning’. In this paper it is argued that Davidson has established (1) but not (2), that he has succeeded in showing that there is a distinction between literal meaning and conventional meaning but has failed to see that literal meaning and first meaning are also distinct. This failure is somewhat surprising, since it is through a consideration of Davidson's notion of radical interpretation that the distinction between literal meaning and first meaning becomes apparent.
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References
Davidson, D.: 1967, ‘Truth and Meaning’, inInquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984, pp. 17–36.
Davidson, D.: 1982, ‘Communication and Convention’, inInquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984, pp. 265–280.
Davidson, D.: 1986, ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, in E. LePore (ed.),Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 433–446.
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I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial support, and to Mark Mercer, Tom Patton and Gary Wedeking for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank David Checkland, who discussed ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’ with me at length some years ago.
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Talmage, C.J.L. Literal meaning, conventional meaning and first meaning. Erkenntnis 40, 213–225 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01128593
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01128593