Donald Davidson

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Donald Davidson (disambiguation) .

Donald Herbert Davidson (born March 6, 1917 in Springfield , Massachusetts , † August 30, 2003 in Berkeley , California) was an American analytical philosopher and a student of Willard Van Orman Quine .

Life

Donald Davidson - son of Clarence Herbert Davidson and Grace Cordelia Anthony - grew up first in the Philippines and since 1921 in Amherst and Philadelphia . In 1926 the family moved to Staten Island , where Davidson began attending a public school in first grade and then moved to fourth grade at Staten Island Academy.

After graduating in 1939, Davidson moved to California, where he wrote scripts for several episodes of the detective radio play Big Town , in which Edward G. Robinson starred. At Harvard University Davidson first majored in English and comparative literature : he heard Theodore Spencer about Shakespeare and the Bible , Harry Levin about James Joyce . Davidson switched to classical philology and philosophy . His teachers were Alfred North Whitehead , CI Irving, and WVO Quine. Under the influence of Quine, whom Davidson called his mentor and to whom he devoted his anthology Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation in 1984 , he turned to the methods and problems of analytical philosophy. In 1941 he obtained his master's degree . He interrupted his studies during the Second World War from 1942 to 1945 for service in the US Navy , where he trained pilots in recognizing enemy aircraft and participated in the invasions of Sicily , Salerno and Anzio . In 1949 Davidson completed his Ph.D. -Philosophy from. He later described his dissertation on Plato's Dialogue Philebos as strange . It was released in 1990.

Following his first activity at Queens College , Donald Davidson taught from 1951 to 1967 as a professor at Stanford University , where he dealt with decision theory and music philosophy . Here, with Patrick Suppes , he developed an experimental approach to decision theory. They agreed that it was not possible to treat a person's views and preferences in isolation, so that a person's actions regarding their intentions should be analyzed or assessed through various methods. From this a theory of indeterminacy followed for translations .

From 1967 Davidson took over professorships at Princeton Universities (1967–1970), Rockefeller (1970–1976) and Chicago (1976–1981). In 1981 Donald Davidson was appointed a Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley . He kept the professorship until his death.

Donald Davidson was married twice - since 1984 to the philosopher Marcia Cavell. His anthology Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (2001) is dedicated to her; she took over the posthumous editions.

Davidson has served as president of both the Eastern and Western branches of the American Philosophical Association and has held numerous positions at Queens College , Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago, among others .

Awards and memberships

• 1975: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1981: Corresponding member of the British Academy
• 1985: Member of the American Philosophical Society
• 1991: Hegel Prize
• 1995: Jean Nicod Prize .

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Subject areas

Donald Davidson has not written and published a uniform work. His philosophy has been published in a large number of articles and congress reports, the subject areas of which can be divided into two groups using the key terms:

1. Philosophy of Mind : Action , Cause, Reason and Event.
2. Philosophy of Language : Truth, Meaning, Sentence and Semantics.

His essays influenced all philosophy including analytic meaning theory and post- analytic philosophy . A compilation of his work is available in the five volumes of collected essays . His philosophy is described as a homogeneous , methodical-rational and emphatically pragmatic philosophy. Her of original approach is a method of interpretation that Davidson with a formula as a principle of charity ( principle of charity ) Features: intelligibility is the goal. According to this, the first task of interpretation is communication , which is about the meaning and meaning of the linguistic statements of others.

Actions, Reasons, and Causes

Davidson was in 1963 with the essay Actions, Reasons, and Causes ( actions and reasons known), in which he tried to refute the prevailing view, according to the reasons an agent can not be the cause of his actions. At the time, this view was primarily attributed to Wittgenstein , but can already be found in Tolstoy's novel War and Peace . Davidson, on the other hand, assumed that rationalization - here understood as the creation of reasons to explain the agent's actions - was a kind of normal causal explanation: An action A is explained in Davidson's words by a primary reason , which is a purposeful attitude ( a strong desire or craving) to a goal G and then includes the instrumental belief that performing act A is a means to achieve G. For example, the primary reason for using an umbrella in inclement weather is the need to stay dry and the belief that you can achieve this under an umbrella.

This view, which is largely consistent with popular psychology's common sense, rests in part on the idea that causal laws must be strict and deterministic, but explanation by giving reasons is not. A lack of precision in the formulation of reasons also does not mean that having such reasons cannot be a state of causally influencing behavior. Davidson elaborated this view in several essays.

Mental events

In the 1970 essay published Mental Events ( spiritual knowledge ) Davidson presented his identity theory of mind (at least) to the debate, after certain incidents or token mental events with specific incidents of physical events are identical. One difficulty with this view has always been the impossibility of establishing laws which would link mental states - such as the assumption of a blue sky - or the desire for a hamburger - with physical states (such as patterns of neurological activity in the brain). Davidson assumed that such a reduction would not be necessary for a token identity thesis: It is possible that every individual spiritual event is only the corresponding physical event, without there being any laws that define different types or types (in contrast to tokens) of spiritual events to connect the appropriate types of physical events. But Davidson made it clear that this impossibility does not mean a reduction that the mind ( at least was) something other than the brain. So Davidson is a monist for whom questions of mental and physical events are only one thing. Davidson called his position an abnormal monism ( AM ) because mental and physical event types could not be linked by strict laws (laws without exceptions).

Davidson suggested that an abnormal monism resulted from three compelling theses: First, from the rejection of epiphenomenalism , the view that mental events cannot cause physical events. The second thesis is the nomological conception of causation , according to which one event causes another if and only if a strict law without exceptions exists that determines this relationship. But at the same time Davidson thirdly presupposes the anomalism of the spiritual : Such strict laws do not apply to types of spiritual and physical events; only certain occurrences of these events are regulated; Types of mental events behave a-nomally. This confirms the token physicalism and the relationship of supervenience between mental and physical, and at the same time respects the autonomy of the spiritual.

Truth and meaning

Published in 1967 Davidson Truth and Meaning ( The Truth and Meaning ) and adopted the thesis that every-learn language in a finite form must be represented, even though it includes a theoretically unlimited number of expressions - what a natural language does in principle. If a language could not be represented in a finite way, it could not be learned using the limited empirical methods with which it is done. It follows from this that it must be possible to develop theoretical semantics for any natural language which gives the meanings of an unlimited number of sentences on the basis of a finite system of axioms. Following on from Rudolf Carnap's Introduction to Semantics (Harvard 1942, page 22), Davidson also assumed that the meaning of a sentence means to state its truth conditions . Davidson thus inspired modern truth-condition semantics . He suggested that a theory of meaning should show how, from a specification of a finite number of properties of a language, for each of the infinitely many sentences in that language, the circumstances under which it is true can be deduced. The truth condition of a sentence S is typically specified by a sentence of the form "S is true if and only if p". Davidson first introduced this idea in his Oxford John Locke Lecture (1969/70), The Structure of Truth . Several philosophers have tried to develop Davidson's semantic theories for natural languages . He worked elements of this theory in his essays on leadership ( quotation from), indirect speech and action descriptions.

Knowledge and belief

After 1970, Davidson took up the influences of Saul Kripke , Hilary Putnam and Keith Donellan in his Philosophy of Spirit , who criticized the descriptive theory of intellectual content. The descriptivism that on Bertrand Russell's labeling theory , his Theory of Descriptions and possibly also on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus back, stating that the object or person to which the name refers, by the ideas that the namesake of this person or has the object, is determined: Who is in the two statements Aristotle founded the grammar school and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great the question? Obviously by Aristotle, but why? According to Russell, such statements mean whoever fulfills most of the claims made about him. If two people taught Alexander but one started high school, Aristotle is the one who did both. Kripke and others assumed that this theory was untenable, and that the question of who our ideas and ideas apply to was practically dependent on the way in which our ideas and names were acquired, in particular on the possibility of using those names causally traced back from the original speaker to the current speaker.

In his work in the 1980s, Davidson dealt with the problem of how we acquire our knowledge and how the knowledge of a self (a first person ) relates to the knowledge of others, second and third persons . First-person ideas ( I am hungry ) are acquired in a different way than other people's ideas of the same state. Do these statements ( is hungry ) have the same salary?

Davidson linked this problem with another and asked how two people can have the same idea of ​​an external object? And he solved the question of priority by bypassing it and postulating that all knowledge (of oneself, of other people, of the world) arises at the same time.

Many philosophers had tried to reduce the different types of knowledge in a fundamental way: René Descartes and David Hume assumed that the knowledge with which we start must be self-knowledge . Some logical positivists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein or Wilfrid Sellars assumed that knowledge of the external world was fundamental. Friedrich Schelling and Emmanuel Levinas saw the knowledge of other people in dialogue as the most important thing. According to Davidson, however, it is impossible to have only one form of knowledge: anyone who has knowledge in one of the three categories necessarily also has knowledge of the other two.

Radical interpretation

Truth value semantics as the core of the theory of meaning is a central point of Davidson's philosophy, including the part formulated in connection with Quine's radical theory of translation. The Radical Interpretation is a hypothetical point of view that Davidson considers essential to the study of language, mind, actions, and knowledge.

The core thesis of the model of a radical interpretation is the assumption that one is placed in a society whose language one does not understand. An understanding of language develops through a theory that generates a theorem of the form S means P for each sentence in the language, where S is the name of the sentence in the language and P is the sentence or a translation in the metalanguage in which the theory is is written. Davidson was generally critical of this model, as the term means that it relates not only to the extension of the term that follows it, but also to his intension. Davidson replaced means that by a connective word that only relates to the extensions of the sentence, since the extension of a sentence represents its actual meaning, a connective word of the truth function. Davidson chose the bi-conditional if and only if as the needed connecting word in a theory of meaning. This is the obvious choice, since an equivalence of the meaning of s and p is sought. S if and only if P is grammatically incorrect because the connective word must connect two propositions . S is the name of a proposition, but s is not itself a proposition. To make S a proposition, it has to be supported by the truth predicate called s. Davidson concluded that a theory of meaning for any sentence in the metalanguage produces a theorem of the form S if and only if P is generated. A theory of the truth of a language can also be used as a theory of meaning.

In his work on the theory of meaning, Davidson relied on Alfred Tarski's theory of the structure of artificial languages . From this, Davidson took three key questions about radical interpretation:

• First, whether a theory of truth can be developed for a natural language. (Davidson demonstrated that the first question can be answered in the affirmative.)
• Second, if evidence is available for the radical interpreter, can he develop and verify a theory of truth for a language he wishes to interpret?
• Third, whether a theory of truth is sufficient to enable the radical interpreter to understand the language.

Davidson allows a speaker to rationally determine that he thinks a sentence is true without the speaker knowing a particular meaning of the opinion. This enables the interpreter to build up hypotheses that summarize a speaker and a statement to a certain overall picture in a certain time. Davidson calls in the original English version as an example a German-speaking, which it rains says when it rains. Davidson assumed that even if the speaker is misunderstood in individual cases (for example if the German speaker states Es raining , even if it is not raining) the entire project would not be undermined: the belief of a speaker must be largely correct and coherent be. If it were not so, the speaker would not be identifiable as the speaker. This is the “principle of leniency” or “principle of charity”. The principle allows an interpreter that the evidence he obtained allows a theory of the truth of language to be verified.

At first glance, it seems that a theory of truth conditions is not enough to interpret a language. If truth conditions alone were decisive, then true, anomalous sentences such as “snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white and grass is green could appear acceptable. Davidson assumed that language is also holistic due to its composition : Sentences are based on the meaning of words, the meaning of a word depends at the same time on the sentence and thus on the entirety of the sentences in which it appears. This holistic restriction is sufficient, with the condition that the theory of truth is lawful, to reduce the indeterminacy (indeterminacy) so that communication can take place successfully.

In summary, what the radical interpretation emphasizes is necessary and sufficient to enable communication. The conditions are that in order for a speaker to be recognized as a speaker, his belief must be largely coherent and correct; and uncertainty must allow communication.

Event semantics

He coined the term event semantics (Engl. Event semantics ) as a theory within the formal semantics for natural languages with which to give a lecture on The Logical Form of Action Sentences (1966) (in German translation " The logical form of action sentences back") . There an independent event variable is assumed that is implicit in every event record.

Publications

Articles and lectures

• Actions, Reasons, and Causes . In: The Journal of Philosophy , LX 1963, pp. 685-700.
  • German edition: Actions, Reasons and Causes . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• The Method for Extension and Intension . In: The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap . Edited by Paul Schilpp. La Salle / Illinois 1963, pp. 311-350.
• The Logical Form of Action Sentences . (Lecture 1966). In: The Logic of Decision and Action. Edited by Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh, 1967, pp. 81-120.
  • German edition: The logical form of action sentences . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• Truth and Meaning . In: Synthesis 17 1967, pp. 304-323.
  • German edition: Truth and Meaning . In: Suhrkamp 1986.
• Causal relations . (Lecture 1967). In: The Journal of Philosophy LXIV 1967, pp. 691-703.
  • German edition: causal relationships . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• True to the facts . (Lecture 1969). In: The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 66, No. 21, Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Nov. 6, 1969), pp. 748-764
  • German edition: True to the facts . In: Suhrkamp 1986.
• On saying that . In: Words and Objections. Essays on the Work of WV Quine . Edited with Jaakko Hintikka . Dordrecht 1969, pp. 158-174.
  • German edition: Sagen that (sic!). In: Suhrkamp 1986.
• Events as Particulars . In: Nous , IV 1970, pp. 25-32.
  • German edition: Events as individual things. In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• Eternal vs. Ephemeral events . In: Noûs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov., 1971), pp. 335-349.
  • German edition: Timeless versus fleeting events . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• The Individuation of Events . In: Essays in Honor of Carl Hempel . Edited by Nicholas Rescher . Reidel, Dordrecht 1970, pp. 216-234.
  • German edition: On the individuation of events . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• Agency. (Lecture 1968). In: Agent, Action and Reason . Edited by Robert Binkley, Richard Bronaugh and Ausonio Marras, Toronto 1971, pp. 3-25.
  • German Edition: action . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• Mental events . (Lecture series 1968/69). In: Experience and Theory . Edited by Lawrence Foster et al. JW Swanson. Boston 1971, pp. 79-101.
  • German edition: Spiritual knowledge . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• The Material Mind . (Lecture 1971). In: Congress files for the 4th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science in Bucharest , 1973.
  • German edition: The material spirit . In: Suhrkamp 1985.
• In Defense of Convention T In: Truth, Syntax and Modality . Edited by H. Leblanc. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 76-85.
  • German edition: In defense of convention W In: Suhrkamp 1986.
• What Metaphors Mean . (Lecture 1978). In: Critical Inquiry No. 5/1978, pp. 31-47.
  • German edition: What metaphors mean . In: Suhrkamp 1986.
• Epistemology and Truth . (Lecture 1987). In: Congress files of the University of Cordoba, 1988.
  • German edition: Epistemology and Truth . In: Suhrkamp 2004.
• Three Varieties of Knowledge . In: A. Phillips Griffiths (Ed.): AJ Ayer Memorial Essays . Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement No. 30, Cambridge University Press 1991.
  • German edition: Three varieties of knowledge. In: Suhrkamp 2004.
• The Emergence of Thought . (Lecture 1993). In: Knowledge No. 51/1999, pp. 7-17.
  • German edition: The emergence of thinking . In: Suhrkamp 2004.

Anthologies

• Essays on Actions and Events . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1980.
  • German edition: plot and event . Translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985 ISBN 3-518-06428-2 (Suhrkamp 1985).
• Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation , Oxford University Press, Oxford 1984.
  • German edition: Truth and Interpretation . Translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986 ISBN 3-518-06040-6 (Suhrkamp 1986).
• The myth of the subjective. Philosophical essays . Reclam, Stuttgart 1993 ISBN 3-15-008845-3 .
• Subjective, intersubjective, objective . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.
  • German edition: Subjective, intersubjective, objective . Translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004 ISBN 3-518-58387-5 (Suhrkamp 2004).
• Problems of Rationality: Philosophical Essays Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.
  • German edition: Problems of Rationality . Translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006 ISBN 3-518-58471-5 .
• Truth, Language, and History. Philosophical essays . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005.
  • German edition: Truth, Language and History . Translated by Joachim Schulte. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008 ISBN 3-518-58506-1 )
• Why truth? A debate. Donald Davidson et al. Richard Rorty . Edited by Mike Sandbothe . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2005 ISBN 978-3-518-29291-4 .

Monographs

• Plato's Philebus . (Dissertation). Garland Publishing, New York 1990.
• Truth and Predication . Harvard University Press, Harvard 2005 ISBN 0-674-01525-8 .

literature

• Reed Way Dasenbrock (Ed.): Literary Theory After Davidson. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 1993, ISBN 978-0-271-02327-4 .
• Simon Evnine: Donald Davidson . Stanford University Press, Stanford 1991, ISBN 0-8047-1853-9 .
• Kathrin Glüer: Donald Davidson as an introduction . Junius, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-88506-889-3 .
• LE Hahn (Ed.): The Philosophy of Donald Davidson . Open Court, Peru (Illinois) 1999, ISBN 0-8126-9399-X .
• Ernest Lepore (Ed.): Truth and Interpretation - Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson . Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1986, ISBN 0-631-14811-6 .
• Kirk Ludwig: Donald Davidson . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 0-521-79043-3 .
• Jeff E. Malpas: Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992.
• Eva Picardi et al. Joachim Schulte (Hrsg.): The truth of the interpretation. Contributions to Donald Davidson's philosophy . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990.
• Gerhard Preyer, Frank Siebelt a. Alexander Ulfig (Ed.): Language, Mind and Epistemology. On Donald Davidson's philosophy . Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 1994, ISBN 0-7923-2811-6 .
• Gerhard Preyer ed .: Donald Davidson on Truth, Meaning, and the Mental . Oxford University Press, Oxford GB 2012. ISBN 978-0-19-969751-9 .
• Björn T. Ramberg: Donald Davidson's Philosophy of Language . Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1989.
• Matthias Schirn: Donald Davidson . In: Julian Nida-Rümelin : Philosophy in Individual Representations from Adorno to v. Wright . Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, pp. 126-131 ISBN 3-520-42301-4 .
• Karsten R. Stüber: Donald Davidson's theory of linguistic understanding. The hermeneutic dimension of truth. Beltz Athenaeum, Weinheim 1993 ISBN 3-89547-928-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Donald Davidson in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jeff Malpas:  Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Vladimir Kalugin:  Entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Portrait of Donald Davidson (Wikipedia)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brockhaus: Philosophy . Mannheim / Leipzig 2004, Lemma Donald Davidson.
2. ↑ Donald Davidson: Plato's Philebus . Garland Publishing, New York, 1990.
3. ^ Matthias Schirn: Donald Davidson . In: Julian Nida-Rümelin: Philosophy in Individual Representations from Adorno to v. Wright . Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, p. 126.
4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 19, 2020 . 
5. ^ Member History: Donald Davidson. American Philosophical Society, accessed July 7, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Ian Hacking: The Importance of Language for Philosophy . Hain, Königstein 1984, p. 119.
7. ↑ Donald Davidson: Collected Essays , Oxford University Press, 5 volumes. A total of approx. 80 works.
8. ↑ Malpas, 2005, §2
9. ↑ 1963, p. 685
10. ↑ See Donald Davidson: Three varieties of knowledge. In: Subjective, intersubjective, objective . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 339–363.