DOCSLIB.ORG

Donald Davidson on Truth, Meaning and the Mental

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Donald Davidson on Truth, Meaning and the Mental Introduction: Davidson’s philosophical project Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig Donald Davidson’s work has had a pervasive influence on analytic philosophy throughout the last half century. His contributions lie primarily in the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, and metaphysics. This volume focuses on themes connected with his work in the theory of meaning, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. The introduction first provides an overview of Davidson’s work. We pay special attention to his work on truth-theoretic semantics and its integration with the project of radical interpretation, his conception of the nature of mental states, and his account of our knowledge of things around us and of our own minds. This will set the stage for a brief overview of the more detailed examinations of particular themes connected with Davidson’s work that follow. 1 Truth-theoretic semantics In a series of papers in the 1960s and 1970s, beginning in 1965 with “Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages” (Davidson 2001a) and in 1967 with “Truth and Meaning” (Davidson 2001c), Davidson introduced and defended one of the few really novel approaches to the theory of meaning in the latter half of the twentieth century. Central to his proposal was the suggestion that an axiomatic truth theory modeled after the truth definitions that Tarski showed how to construct for formal languages could be used to give what he called “a constructive account of the meaning of the sentences” in a natural language (Davidson 2001a, p. 3). The exact import of David- son’s suggestion and whether he took himself to be pursuing a traditional project in a novel way, a reduction of meaning to truth conditions, or urging a reform of the aims of semantics, has been a matter of controversy. For example, the paper by Gary Ebbs in this volume takes issue with the interpretation offered in our 2005 book (Lepore and Ludwig 2005) over whether Davidson was pursuing a novel approach to illuminating what it is for words to mean what they do or engaging in a project of Carnapian explication (see also the exchange in (Soames 2008; Lepore and Ludwig 2011)). For 2 ERNIELEPOREANDKIRKLUDWIG purposes of initial orientation, we will sketch the account of Davidson’s project we offered in (Lepore and Ludwig 2005) and return later to the interpretive issues in discussion of contributions to the volume. Davidson’s starting point in the theory of meaning is the observation that natural languages must be compositional. By this we mean that they divide into semantically primitive expressions and semantically complex expressions that are understood on the basis of the semantical primitives and their mode of combination. Davidson argued that it was a condition on natural languages being learnable by finite speakers that they be compositional and have a finite number of semantical primitives (Davidson 2001a, pp. 8–9). This is perhaps a natural observation, but it is one which Davidson pointed out was often violated by extant proposals for analyzing various natural language locutions (ibid., pp. 9–13). The observation that natural languages are compositional gives rise to the requirement that any theory of a natural language should give an account of the roles of significant expressions in the larger expressions in which they are used. The question is how to present such an account. Prima facie, such an account should start with axioms for semantically primitive expressions a language L that (i) give their meanings and (ii) enable one to derive for each sentence s in L a theorem of the form (M). (M) s means that p A natural approach, looking back to Frege (Frege 1997), is to introduce entities to serve as the meanings of expressions with which they are associated. The meanings associated with complex expressions can then be treated as constructed out of the entities associated with primitive expressions, and expressions of the form “that p” would be taken to refer to the meanings of sentences. Davidson took a dim view of this, for reasons it would take us too far afield to detail (Davidson 2001c, pp. 17–22; Lepore and Ludwig 2005, ch. 3), and he suggested that formulating a logic to deal with substitu- tions into the position of “p” in “s means that p,” when it is treated intensionally, would require already solving the problem of giving a compositional meaning theory, since such substitutions would have to be licensed on the basis of judgments about sameness of meaning over a class that includes complex expressions. At this point, Davidson suggested a radical break with traditional approaches. As Davidson put it: Anxiety that we are enmeshed in the intensional springs from using the words “means that” as filling between description of sentence and sentence, but it may be that the success of our venture depends not on the filling, but on what it fills. The theory will have done its work if it provides, for every sentence s in the language under study, a matching sentence (to replace “p”) that, in some way yet to be made clear, “gives the meaning” of s. One obvious candidate is just s itself, if the object language is contained in the metalanguage; otherwise a translation of s in the metalanguage. As a final bold step, let us try treating the position occupied by “p” extensionally: to implement this, sweep away the obscure “means that,” provide the sentence that replaces “p” INTRODUCTION: DAVIDSON’ S PHILOSOPHICAL PROJECT 3 with a proper sentential connective, and supply the description that replaces “s” with its own predicate. The plausible result is (T) s is T if and only if p What we require of a theory of meaning for a language L is that without appeal to any (further) semantical notions it place enough restrictions on the predicate “is T” to entail all sentences got from schema T when “s” is replaced by a structural description of a sentence of L and “p” by that sentence. (Davidson 2001c, p. 23) Davidson notes that the condition placed on (T) “is in essence Tarski’s Convention T that tests the adequacy of a formal semantical definition of truth” (ibid.), and so the result of focusing on getting the right relation between the sentence s and the sentence that goes in the place of “p” in “s means that p,” but with an extensional “filling,” is to require that we have a truth theory for the language that meets Tarski’s requirement of adequacy. Davidson, as can be observed in the above passage, immediately goes on to suggest that one can put constraints on a truth theory that will ensure that it meets Convention T (or a suitable analog for a natural language) without appeal to any semantic concepts apart from concepts drawn from the theory of reference (truth, satisfaction, and reference). As we read Davidson, this is an extension of the project of providing a constructive account of natural languages, which looks beyond illuminating the relation between semantical primitives and complexes to showing something about how the concept of meaning is related to other concepts. On this account, Davidson hoped initially to show that an axiomatic truth theory adapted to a language with context sensitive elements would satisfy an appropriate analog of Convention T if it were merely true, because of the added sensitivity required for the theory to predict correctly the truth of sentences containing demonstratives, among other context sensitive elements, in such sentences as “This is grass,”“This is snow,”“This is white,” and “This is green.” This would rule out, for example, such spurious T-sentences as: “Snow is white” is true for a speaker at t iff grass is green at t. In (Lepore and Ludwig 2005, chs. 4, 5, and 9) we show that the initial and the extended project can be separated, and that it suffices to carry out the initial project to have a certain body of knowledge about a truth theory, roughly: (i) that its axioms use metalanguage expressions in giving satisfaction and truth conditions that interpret the object language terms for which they are used to give satisfaction conditions; (ii) what the axioms as given by the theory mean; (iii) a grammar for the language of the truth theory to be used in connection with (iv) a canonical proof procedure that draws only on the content of the axioms in proving T-sentences. 4 ERNIELEPOREANDKIRKLUDWIG If the axioms meet condition (i), we will call them and the theory they determine interpretive. (i)–(iv) do not involve the assertion of the axioms of the truth theory, and the language in which they are stated need not be the language of the truth theory. They are supposed to state knowledge that anyone could have about a truth theory that would suffice to use it to interpret object language sentences. This does require being in a position to understand the truth theory. (ii) and (iii) are supposed to secure this: knowing what the axioms mean and having a grammar for the language of the truth theory, we are in a position to come to know the language of the truth theory. Given this: if one knows (i)–(iv) about a truth theory, one is in position to derive a T-sentence, “s is true iff p” (ignoring context sensitivity for the sake of simplifying exposition) for any object language sentence s, which draws only on the content of the axioms. Knowing this, we know that “p” in the theorem translates s. Knowing this, we know that the corresponding instance of (M) is true. Understanding the language of the truth theory, we are then able to infer from (M) being true to its being the case that s means that p.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • David Lewis on Convention
    David Lewis on Convention Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone Center for Cognitive Science Rutgers University David Lewis’s landmark Convention starts its exploration of the notion of a convention with a brilliant insight: we need a distinctive social competence to solve coordination problems. Convention, for Lewis, is the canonical form that this social competence takes when it is grounded in agents’ knowledge and experience of one another’s self-consciously flexible behavior. Lewis meant for his theory to describe a wide range of cultural devices we use to act together effectively; but he was particularly concerned in applying this notion to make sense of our knowledge of meaning. In this chapter, we give an overview of Lewis’s theory of convention, and explore its implications for linguistic theory, and especially for problems at the interface of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language. In §1, we discuss Lewis’s understanding of coordination problems, emphasizing how coordination allows for a uniform characterization of practical activity and of signaling in communication. In §2, we introduce Lewis’s account of convention and show how he uses it to make sense of the idea that a linguistic expression can come to be associated with its meaning by a convention. Lewis’s account has come in for a lot of criticism, and we close in §3 by addressing some of the key difficulties in thinking of meaning as conventional in Lewis’s sense. The critical literature on Lewis’s account of convention is much wider than we can fully survey in this chapter, and so we recommend for a discussion of convention as a more general phenomenon Rescorla (2011).
    [Show full text]
  • Duns Scotus on the Common Nature and the Individual Differentia
    c Peter King, Philosophical Topics 20 (1992), 50–76 DUNS SCOTUS ON THE COMMON NATURE* Introduction COTUS holds that in each individual there is a principle that accounts for its being the very thing it is and a formally S distinct principle that accounts for its being the kind of thing it is; the former is its individual differentia, the latter its common nature.1 These two principles are not on a par: the common nature is prior to the individual differentia, both independent of it and indifferent to it. When the individual differentia is combined with the common nature, the result is a concrete individual that really differs from all else and really agrees with others of the same kind. The individual differentia and the common nature thereby explain what Scotus takes to stand in need of explanation: the indi- viduality of Socrates on the one hand, the commonalities between Socrates * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 26th International Congress on Medieval Studies, sponsored by the Medieval Institute, held at Western Michigan University 9–12 May 1991. All translations are my own. Scotus’s writings may be found in the following editions: (1) Vaticana: Iohannis Duns Scoti Doctoris Subtilis et Mariani opera omnia, ed. P. Carolus Bali¸cet alii, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanae 1950– Vols. I–VII, XVI–XVIII. (2) Wadding-Viv`es: Joannis Duns Scoti Doctoris Subtilis Ordinis Minorum opera omnia, ed. Luke Wadding, Lyon 1639; republished, with only slight alterations, by L. Viv`es,Paris 1891–1895. Vols. I–XXVI. References are to the Vatican edition wherever possible, to the Wadding-Viv`esedition otherwise.
    [Show full text]
  • 2. Aristotle's Concept of the State
    Page No.13 2. Aristotle's concept of the state Olivera Z. Mijuskovic Full Member International Association of Greek Philosophy University of Athens, Greece ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5950-7146 URL: http://worldphilosophynetwork.weebly.com E-Mail: [email protected] Abstract: In contrast to a little bit utopian standpoint offered by Plato in his teachings about the state or politeia where rulers aren`t “in love with power but in virtue”, Aristotle's teaching on the same subject seems very realistic and pragmatic. In his most important writing in this field called "Politics", Aristotle classified authority in the form of two main parts: the correct authority and moose authority. In this sense, correct forms of government are 1.basileus, 2.aristocracy and 3.politeia. These forms of government are based on the common good. Bad or moose forms of government are those that are based on the property of an individual or small governmental structures and they are: 1.tiranny, 2.oligarchy and 3.democracy. Also, Aristotle's political thinking is not separate from the ethical principles so he states that the government should be reflected in the true virtue that is "law" or the "golden mean". Keywords: Government; stat; , virtue; democracy; authority; politeia; golden mean. Vol. 4 No. 4 (2016) Issue- December ISSN 2347-6869 (E) & ISSN 2347-2146 (P) Aristotle's concept of the state by Olivera Z. Mijuskovic Page no. 13-20 Page No.14 Aristotle's concept of the state 1.1. Aristotle`s “Politics” Politics in its defined form becomes affirmed by the ancient Greek world.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristotle and the Productive Class: Did Aristotle Argue
    ARISTOTLE AND THE PRODUCTIVE CLASS: DID ARISTOTLE ARGUE IN FAVOR OF EDUCATION FOR ALL? by DEANNA M. HACKWORTH, B.A. A THESIS IN PHILOSOPHY Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Pardal Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved August, 2003 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to many people who offered criticism, support, and comments during the writing of this paper, without whom, it is doubtful this thesis would have ever been completed. First and foremost, I must thank the chair of my committee, Howard Curzer, whose support, encouragement, and vast knowledge of Aristotle were both enlightening and infinitely helpfijl. For his continuous help in my attempt to understand the capabilities approach first developed by Sen, and his unwavering commitment to keep my interpretation of Aristotle truthful and correct, I am indebted to Walter Schaller. An earUer and much different version of this paper sparked conversations between myself and Eric Carter, which helped to shape my thinking on Nussbaum, and to whom I would like to offer sincere thanks. LaKrisha Mauldin and Stiv Fleishman edited and provided comments on several drafts, allowing me to see errors that I would not have been able to see otherwise, and proving invaluable in the final hours before the defense of this paper. Several unpublished articles written and sent to me by Dr. Fred Miller proved fertile ground to shape my thinking of objections to my project, and I am forever gratefial. Last but certainly not least, I would like to offer thanks to my family, for giving me large amounts of uninterrupted time which allowed me to work on this project, and supported me to the extent they were able as I endeavored to become a philosopher.
    [Show full text]
  • René Descartes: Father of Modern Philosophy and Scholasticism
    René Descartes: Father of Modern Philosophy and Scholasticism Sarah Venable Course: Philosophy 301 Instructor: Dr. Barbara Forrest Assignment: Research Paper For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church completely dominated European thought. It had become the most powerful ruling force, leaving monarchs susceptible to its control through the threat of excommunication. For the everyday European, contradicting or questioning any aspect of Church doctrine could result in imprisonment, or even death. Scholars were bound by fear to avoid appearing too radical. However, the modern academic need not fear such retribution today. Learning has moved from the control of the Church and has become secularized due in part to the work of such thinkers as Descartes. René Descartes, who was interested in both science and philosophy, introduced his readers to the idea of separating academic knowledge from religious doctrine. He claimed science filled with uncertainty and myth could never promote learning or the advancement of society. Descartes responded to the growing conflict between these two forces with an attempt to bring clarity. He was willing to challenge the accepted ideas of his day and introduce change. Religion had not been separate from science in the past. By philosophy and science using reason as its cornerstone, science effected a substantial increase in knowledge. After a period of widespread illiteracy, Europe began to move forward in education by rediscovering Greek and Roman texts filled with science, mathematics, and philosophy. As time progressed and learning increased, the Church began to loosen its iron grip over the people. Church officials recognized a need to educate people as long as subject material was well controlled.
    [Show full text]
  • And Aristotle's Concept of Education in 'Politics' Plato'nun 'Cumhur
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Eğitim ve Bilim Education and Science 2011, Cilt 36, Sayı 162 2011, Vol. 36, No 162 Plato’s Concept of Education in ‘Republic’ and Aristotle’s Concept of Education in ‘Politics’ Plato’nun ‘Cumhuriyet’ ve Aristo’nun ‘Politika‘ Adlı Eserlerinde Eğitim Kavramı Selahattin TURAN* Osmangazi Üniversitesi Abstract The purpose of this study was to analyze Plato’s and Aristotle’s concepts of education. The study focuses on Plato’s educational thoughts in Republic and Aristotle’s theory of education in Politics. Since Plato’s thoughts are rather philosophical in a way that they do not involve many practical applications to schooling, Aristotle’s thoughts on education are emphasized within the scope of this study. The results of the study indicate that virtue plays an important role in creating a virtuous society. In order to create a virtuous society, we need to educate the body, desires, soul and reason of the individual. Keywords: Philosophy of education, concept of education, history of thought. Öz Bu araştırmanın amacı, Plato’nun ‘Cumhuriyet’ ve Aristo’nun ‘Politika’ adlı eserlerinde yer alan eğitim ile ilgili temel kavramları ve görüşleri incelemektir. Teorik ve tarihsel karşılaştırmaya dayalı bu araştırmada, Aristo’nun ‘Politika’ adlı eserine vurgu yapılmış ve eğitim kavramı ana hatlarıyla irdelenmiştir. Çalışmada, erdemli bir toplum oluşturabilmek için erdemli insanlar yetiştirmek gerektiği ve bunu gerçekleştirmek için kişinin akıl, beden ve arzularının eğitilebileceği fikri tartışılmıştır. Anahtar Sözcükler: Eğitim felsefesi, eğitim kavramı, düşünce tarihi. Introduction The meaning and philosophical foundations of education have been analyzed from different perspectives over the years (Barrow, 1975; Chambliss, 1971; Ebenstein, 1969; Lodge, 1947; McClintock; Williams, 1903).
    [Show full text]
  • Ibn Rushd and the Enlightenment Project in the Islamic World
    Religions 2015, 6, 1082–1106; doi:10.3390/rel6031082 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Article Qur’anic Interpretation and the Problem of Literalism: Ibn Rushd and the Enlightenment Project in the Islamic World Chryssi Sidiropoulou Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Boğaziçi University, TB 350, Bebek 343 42, Istanbul, Turkey; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +90-212-3595400 (ext. 7210); Fax: +90-212-2872469 Academic Editor: Jonathan Hill Received: 4 May 2015 / Accepted: 26 August 2015 / Published: 11 September 2015 Abstract: This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12th century B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman Rushdie, and highlights the problem of literalism in Qur’anic interpretation. Based on Ibn Rushd’s Decisive Treatise (Fasl al-maqāl), the paper investigates Ibn Rushd’s proposed division of (Muslim) society into three distinct classes. The main question here is whether there is a substantial link between the people of the Muslim community, given the three distinct kinds of assent (tasdīq) introduced by Ibn Rushd. I argue that if such a link cannot be supplied, then it is hard to see in Ibn Rushd an enlightened social model for today’s Muslim societies. Furthermore, that the great majority of people are prevented from having any contact with non-literal interpretation of the Scripture and non-revealed ways of thinking.
    [Show full text]
  • Two Problems for Resemblance Nominalism
    Two Problems for Resemblance Nominalism Andrea C. Bottani, Università di Bergamo [email protected] I. Nominalisms Just as ‘being’ according to Aristotle, ‘nominalism’ can be said in many ways, being currently used to refer to a number of non equivalent theses, each denying the existence of entities of a certain sort. In a Quinean largely shared sense, nominalism is the thesis that abstract entities do not exist. In other senses, some of which also are broadly shared, nominalism is the thesis that universals do not exist; the thesis that neither universals nor tropes exist; the thesis that properties do not exist. These theses seem to be independent, at least to some degree: some ontologies incorporate all of them, some none, some just one and some more than one but not all. This makes the taxonomy of nominalisms very complex. Armstrong 1978 distinguishes six varieties of nominalism according to which neither universals nor tropes exist, called respectively ‘ostrich nominalism’, ‘predicate nominalism’, ‘concept nominalism’, ‘mereological nominalism’, ‘class nominalism’ and ‘resemblance nominalism’, which Armstrong criticizes but considers superior to any other version. According to resemblance nominalism, properties depend on primitive resemblance relations among particulars, while there are neither universals nor tropes. Rodriguez-Pereyra 2002 contains a systematic formulation and defence of a version of resemblance nominalism according to which properties exist, conceived of as maximal classes of exactly resembling particulars. An exact resemblance is one that two particulars can bear to each other just in case there is some ‘lowest determinate’ property - for example, being of an absolutely precise nuance of red – that both have just in virtue of precisely resembling certain particulars (so that chromatic resemblance can only be chromatic indiscernibility).
    [Show full text]
  • Sum, Ergo Cogito: Nietzsche Re-Orders Descartes
    Aporia vol. 25 no. 2—2015 Sum, Ergo Cogito: Nietzsche Re-orders Descartes JONAS MONTE I. Introduction ietzsche’s aphorism 276 in The Gay Science addresses Descartes’ epistemological scheme: “I still live, I still think: NI still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum” (GS 223). Ironically, Nietzsche inverts the logic in Descartes’ famous statement “Cogito, ergo sum” as a caustic way, yet poetic and stylish, of creating his own statement.1 He then delivers his critique by putting his own version prior to that of Descartes. Here, Nietzsche’s critique can be interpreted as a twofold overlap- ping argument. First, by reversing Descartes’ axiom into “Sum, ergo cogito,” Nietzsche stresses that in fact a social ontology (which includes metaphysical, logical, linguistic, and conceptual elements) has been a condition that makes possible Descartes’ inference of human existence from such pre-established values. Here, Descartes seems not to have applied his methodical doubt completely, since to arrive 1 In light of Nietzsche’s inversion, this paper seeks to analyse Descartes’ Meditation Project, in effect, the cogito as a device in itself. It does not consider the project’s metaphysical background, including the issue of Descartes’ substance dualism. For an introduction to Cartesian dualism, see Justin Skirry, “René Descartes: The Mind-Body Distinction,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Jonas Monte is a senior currently studying in a joint honors program in philosophy and political science at the University of Ottawa, Canada. His primary philosophical interests are ethics, political philosophy, Nietzsche, and early modern philosophy. After graduation, Jonas plans to pursue a PhD in philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • INTUITION .THE PHILOSOPHY of HENRI BERGSON By
    THE RHYTHM OF PHILOSOPHY: INTUITION ·ANI? PHILOSO~IDC METHOD IN .THE PHILOSOPHY OF HENRI BERGSON By CAROLE TABOR FlSHER Bachelor Of Arts Taylor University Upland, Indiana .. 1983 Submitted ~o the Faculty of the Graduate College of the · Oklahoma State University in partial fulfi11ment of the requirements for . the Degree of . Master of Arts May, 1990 Oklahoma State. Univ. Library THE RHY1HM OF PlllLOSOPHY: INTUITION ' AND PfnLoSOPlllC METHOD IN .THE PHILOSOPHY OF HENRI BERGSON Thesis Approved: vt4;;. e ·~lu .. ·~ests AdVIsor /l4.t--OZ. ·~ ,£__ '', 13~6350' ii · ,. PREFACE The writing of this thesis has bee~ a tiring, enjoyable, :Qustrating and challenging experience. M.,Bergson has introduced me to ·a whole new way of doing . philosophy which has put vitality into the process. I have caught a Bergson bug. His vision of a collaboration of philosophers using his intuitional m~thod to correct, each others' work and patiently compile a body of philosophic know: ledge is inspiring. I hope I have done him justice in my description of that vision. If I have succeeded and that vision catches your imagination I hope you Will make the effort to apply it. Please let me know of your effort, your successes and your failures. With the current challenges to rationalist epistemology, I believe the time has come to give Bergson's method a try. My discovery of Bergson is. the culmination of a development of my thought, one that started long before I began my work at Oklahoma State. However, there are some people there who deserv~. special thanks for awakening me from my ' "''' analytic slumber.
    [Show full text]
  • Davidson's Objective: Language & the Concept of Objectivity
    Davidson’s Objective A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until– ‘My God,’ says a second man, ‘I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.’ At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... ‘Look, look!’ recites the crowd. ‘A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.’ – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead “The horse who knows he is a horse, is not. Man’s major task is to learn that he is not a horse.” – Elie Wiesel, Souls on Fire 2 Davidson’s Objective LANGUAGE & THE CONCEPT OF OBJECTIVITY * * * Ross Barham Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Social Studies The University of Melbourne, Australia 3 Thesis Title: Davidson’s Objective: Language and The Concept of Objectivity Student Name: Ross Campbell Barham Student No: 57399 Qualifications: BA (Hons) Grad.
    [Show full text]
  • Ludwig.Wittgenstein.-.Philosophical.Investigations.Pdf
    PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS By LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN Translated by G. E. M. ANSCOMBE BASIL BLACKWELL TRANSLATOR'S NOTE Copyright © Basil Blackwell Ltd 1958 MY acknowledgments are due to the following, who either checked First published 1953 Second edition 1958 the translation or allowed me to consult them about German and Reprint of English text alone 1963 Austrian usage or read the translation through and helped me to Third edition of English and German text with index 1967 improve the English: Mr. R. Rhees, Professor G. H. von Wright, Reprint of English text with index 1968, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, Mr. P. Geach, Mr. G. Kreisel, Miss L. Labowsky, Mr. D. Paul, Miss I. 1981, 1986 Murdoch. Basil Blackwell Ltd 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be NOTE TO SECOND EDITION reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or THE text has been revised for the new edition. A large number of otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. small changes have been made in the English text. The following passages have been significantly altered: Except in the United States of America, this book is sold to the In Part I: §§ 108, 109, 116, 189, 193, 251, 284, 352, 360, 393,418, condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re- 426, 442, 456, 493, 520, 556, 582, 591, 644, 690, 692.
    [Show full text]