Donald Davidson: Philosophy of Language - Hardcover

Ramberg, Bjorn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631164588 ISBN 13: 9780631164586

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 1991

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Bjorn Ramberg is the author of Donald Davidson: Philosophy of Language, published by Wiley.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0631164588
• ISBN 13: 9780631164586
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160