Truth and Interpretation

Regardless of its particular topic, each of Donald Davidson's essays is part of a comprehensive progrqamme to address questions about language, mind and action, and their interconnections. Themes from this larger programme permeate and bind his work on semantics: on the notions of meaning and truth, on theories of truth, reference, logical form and inference, compositionality, 'intentional' operators, indeterminacy, conceptual relativism, skepticism and metaphor. Twenty-eight critical essays, including a substantial introduction to Davidson's philosophy of language, and three essays by Davidson himself, make up this volume. The volume's six sections corespond to the major section of Davidson's inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Each contains critical essays addressing, interpreting and further develoing his views. The first section, written by the editor, gives an overview of the whole volume, the second section focuses on truth and meaning; the third, applications of Davidson's semantic theory; the fourth, radical interpretation; the fifth, language and reality, and the sixth, limits of the literal.

Preface DONALD DAVIDSON ix Preface ERNEST LEPORE xi Part I Introduction 1 Truth in Meaning ERNEST LEPORE 3 Part Il Truth and Meaning 2 Linguistic Theory and Davidson's Program in Semantics JAMES HIGGINBOTHAM 29 3 Learnability of Semantic Theory ROBERT J. MATTHEWS 49 4 Why Intensionalists Ought Not Be Fregeans JERROLD J. KATZ 59 5 How to Turn the Tractatus Wittgenstein into (Almost) Donald Davidson J. J. C. SMART 92 6 Meaning, Holism and Use AKEEL BILGRAMI 101 Part III Applications 7 The Meanings of Logical Constants GILBERT HARMAN 125 8 Tenses, Temporal Quantifiers and Semantic Innocence BARRY RICHARDS 135 9 What a Truth Theory Need Not Tell Us RICHARD E. GRANDY 179 10 On Davidson's "Saying That" TYLER BURGE 190 Part IV Radical Interpretations 11 Translation Theories and the Decipherment of Linear B JOHN WALLACE 211 12 Testing Theories of Interpretation BRUCE VERMAZEN 235 13 Semantics and Methodological Solipsism WILLIAM G. LYCAN 245 14 Information and the Mental HILARY PUTNAM 262 15 Davidson and Social Science MICHAFI ROOT 272 Part V Language and Reality 16 A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge DONALD DAVIDSON 307 17 Empirical Content DONALD DAVIDSON 320 18 Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth RICHARD RORTY 333 19 Radical Interpretation and Epistemology COLIN MCGINN 356 20 Radical Interpretation and Global Skepticism PETER D. KLEIN 369 21 'Circular' Coherence and 'Absurd' Foundations ERNEST SOSA 387 22 The Third Dogmna ROBERT KRALT 398 23 The Metaphysics of Interpretation CAROL ROVANE 417 Part VI Limits of the Literal 24 A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs DONALD DAVIDSON 433 25 The Parody of Conversation IAN HACKING 447 26 'A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs': Some Comments on Davidson and Hacking MICHAEL DUMMETT 459 27 Indeterminacy of French Interpretation: Derrida and Davidson SAMUEL C. WHEELER III 477 28 Metaphor, Dreamwork and Irrationality MARCIA CAVELL 495 Index 508