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Davidson's Objective: Language & the Concept of Objectivity

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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. Dip. Ed. (Secondary) MA (Philosophy) ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0847-8044 Subject: PhD – Dept. of Philosophy (part-time) Course Code: 161-701 Submission: 14th February, 2018 Institution: The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AUSTRALIA 3010 Faculty: Arts School: The School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Sciences (SHAPS) Department: Philosophy Supervisors: Dr François Schroeter Dr Laura Schroeter Dr John Armstrong Publications: NA This is to certify that: – the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD; – due acknowledgement has been made to all other material used; and, – this thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length. __________________________ Ross Barham 4 In Loving Memory of Dr Grant Lester Barham MBBS (1946–2007) * * * Knowing how close we were Is how I find myself 5 Abstract * * * The thesis critically examines Donald Davidson’s claim that language plays a non-trivial role in explaining possession of the concept of objectivity. After showing that a priori arguments do not establish this claim, different versions of Davidson’s triangulation argument are developed and found wanting. Drawing on Michael Tomasello’s work on joint attention and Robert Brandom’s Inferentialist account of objectivity, the final chapter suggests how a naturalistic account of language and triangulation may nonetheless be essential to explaining possession of the concept of objectivity. 6 Preface * * * To help get our heads around what this thesis is about, permit me to tell a brief children’s story that most will likely already be familiar with in some guise or another: A child is entrusted to care for her neighbours’ goldfish while they are away. Unfortunately, the fish dies and so the girl surreptitiously replaces it with an identical looking substitute. The subterfuge is discovered and the child subsequently comes to appreciate the importance of honesty. The relevance of the above story to this thesis is how it so effortlessly and yet so strikingly conveys the idea of the concept of objectivity. For the reader to understand that the child is able to replace the original fish with an undetected surrogate, requires not only an appreciation of the neighbours’ susceptibility to not discern any difference between the two fish, but an understanding that the replacement fish is not the fish that the neighbours mistakenly presume it to be. The concept of objectivity is in play insofar as the story conveys a ‘disconnect’ between the way the neighbours take the world to be and the way the world actually is. To further emphasise what’s at stake here, let us compare the above story with another: here, a child is entrusted with a house key that she subsequently loses and replaces with an identical copy. In this new story, irrespective of whether the child does or does not confess the original key was lost, the replacement of the original key doesn’t have the same significance as it did in the case of the fish. It’s easy to see why this is so if we turn our attention to the lock to which both keys open. After all, the lock doesn’t know or care if it is 7 one key or the other that engages its mechanism; so long as whatever is inserted can open the lock, then that key is effectively ‘the key’ to the lock. With humans, however, things are different. The owners of a pet goldfish may care and, so, might want to know whether the fish in their bowl is the fish that they take it be. (Equally, the owners of a key may have some sentimental attachment to it, such that they would care if it were replaced, even if the lock remained indifferent.) Of course, as the story makes plain, humans are not immune to being mistaken with respect to what is objectively the case, but even so, the possibility of such a mistake arises only insofar as the concept of objectivity in play. That is to say, to have been tricked, the holiday- goers must think of the fish in the bowl as their fish in particular, regardless of whether it is in fact the fish they take it to be. We all do this – we readily apply the concept of objectivity to our possessions, relationships, values, beliefs and much more. We do so insofar as we are able to think as we do, that ‘This is my home’, ‘S/he’s “the one’’’, ‘Murder is wrong’, ‘Water is H2O’, etc., etc. In light of this capacity we share, a question arises: what is it that makes humans in this way different from locks and the like? This is, then, very broadly the issue I will be concerned with in this thesis. Putting it another way, I am interested in asking: How is it that we possess the concept of objectivity? Happily, numerous thinkers have already made substantial progress towards, both, better framing this question and exploring various ways it might eventually be answered. One philosopher in particular – namely, Donald Davidson (1917–2003) – has undertaken some of the most germinal (albeit not uncontentious) work in this regard, and it will be primarily his philosophy that I will look to in attempting to further develop our understanding of these matters. 8 Acknowledgements * * * My supervisors, Laura, François and John. For support, advice and criticism: Zach Weber, Vicki Macknight, Kemran Mestan, Tama Coutts, Tristram Oliver-Skuse, Dave Ripley, Larelle Bossie, Mike & Maria Ashcroft, Kai Tanter, Chloe Mackenzie, Kate Phelan, Shannon Brick, Michael Tomasello, Joseph Rouse, Endre Begby, Graham Priest, Brian Scarlett, Barry Taylor, Damon Young, Dylan E. Wittkower, Tim Chandler, Keith Windschuttle, Adrian Currie, Derek Turner, Raimond Gaita, Tamas Pataki, Peter Slezak, Greg Restall, Karen Jones, Dana Goswick, Richard Paul Hamilton, Gearoid Brinn & Georgina Butterfield, Paddy & Chrissy Leahy, Anna Welch, Ralph Pettman, Yeshe Colliver, Raffaele Rufo, Aaron Goldbird, Catherine Schnell, Blair Mahoney, Sam Crocket, Flip Rusden, Fran Neal, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Luke Thompson, Sam Bryant, Amanda Carroll, George Marotous, Dan Vine, Janet Prideaux, Monica Bini, Lenny Robinson-McCarthy, the UMMPG, various AAP audiences, and a handful of anonymous referees of papers published outside of the scope of this thesis. For employment and support: Melbourne High School and my ever-patient students. For proofreading: Elisa Webb. My family, especially Joy & Grant Barham, Jack Barham, Brenda & Graham Webb, Elisa Webb, and Coen & Orlo Barham. * * * I acknowledge the Wurundjeri of the Kulin nation as the traditional owners – past, present, and future – of the land on which the research and writing of this thesis took place. 9 Contents * * * Preface 7 Acknowledgements 9 Contents 10 Introduction 11 PART ONE ­– Thought & Talk 1. Surprise 33 2. Error 65 PART TWO –Word & World 3. Content 91 4. Interaction 125 PART THREE – Saying & Sharing 5. Cooperation 146 6. Inference 176 Conclusion 229 Bibliography 237 10 INTRODUCTION * * * … once we come to recognise the distinction between appearance and reality, and the existence of objective factual or practical truth that goes beyond what perception, appetite, and emotion tell us, the ability of creatures like us to arrive at such truth, or even to think about it, requires explanation. An important aspect of this explanation will be that we have acquired language and the possibilities of interpersonal communication, justification, and criticism that language makes possible. – Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions What’s in a name? I remember reading Jacques Derrida’s Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? and thinking that he had started with the book’s title but had somehow managed to work his way backwards from there. Although this thesis is not fashioned in the Deconstructionist mould (if indeed there can be such a thing), I, too, would like to start out by looking back to the title of this thesis so as to unpack its double meaning – albeit with the resolute aim of thereby moving the discussion forward. I. DAVIDSON’S AIM The most natural reading of the title, ‘Davidson’s Objective’, is of a goal or aim had by the late American philosopher, Donald Davidson (1917–2003). In this work I will indeed be 11 concerned to further the discussion of what Davidson dubbed the problem of objectivity, to which he devoted much time and thought.
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