A Companion to Donald Davidson by Lepore, Ernest -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Blackwell Companions to Philosophy Title page Copyright page Notes on Contributors Introduction: Life and Work

Life, Early Career, and the First Phrase of Davidson's Work through 1969 Second Phrase of Davidson's Work, 1970–1981 Third Phase of Davidson's Work from the 1980s On Organization and Contents of the Volume

Part I: Action Theory

1: Action Explanation

1. Introduction 2. Actions and Their Rationalization 3. Davidson's Challenge and the Problem of Wayward Causal Chains 4. The Logical Connection Argument 5. Reasons as Causes? 6. The Role of Laws in Action Explanations and the Causal Relevance of Mental Properties 7. Singular Causal Statements and Causal Explanations 8. Strict Laws, Generalizations, and Causal Concepts 9. Causal Powers 10. Propositional Attitudes as Causal Powers 11. The Explanatory Value of Action Explanations Acknowledgements

2: Practical Reason

1. Three Degrees of Complexity 2. The Partitioned Model 3. Davidson's View 4. Final Thoughts: Why Not Partition?

3: Action Individuation

1. Modifiers and Multiple Things Done 2. Primitive Actions 3. The Competition: Actions as Fine Grained 4. Preliminary Objections 5. “By,” Cause, and Time 6. Deeper Problems 7. Actions as Extended Processes 8. Conclusion

4: Freedom to Act

1. Introduction 2. Davidson's Interest in His Work on Freedom 3. Davidson's Project and Its Relationship to Moore and Austin 4. Methodological Problems for Conditional Analyses 5. The Analysis of Freedom to Act and Abilities to Do x 6. Subjective Conditions and the Thinness of Davidson's Analysis 7. Concluding Discussion: The Challenge for a Causal Theory of Action

5: Intention

1. The Initial Account 2. Agency 3. Weakness of Will 4. Intending

Part II: Metaphysics

6: Event Variables and Their Values

1. Quantifying over Events 2. Events to Quantify Over 3. Logical Form and Grammatical Form

7: Causation

1. Actions, Reasons, and Causes 2. Mental Causes 3. Difficulties With This Account 4. Another Look at Davidson 5. Causation and Mental Causation 6. Concluding Remarks

8: Davidson's “Method of Truth” in Metaphysics 9: The Concept of Truth

1. Tarski, Truth, and Meaning 2. Satisfaction and Correspondence 3. Radical Interpretation and Coherence 4. Defining Truth and Deflationism 5. Objectivity and Truth

Part III: Philosophy of Language

10: Truth in the Theory of Meaning

1. Introduction 2. Compositionality 3. Criticism of Traditional Approaches 4. The Positive Proposal 5. Problematic Passages? 6. Later Work 7. Conclusion

11: Parataxis

1. Indirect Discourse 2. Mood and Mood-Setting 3. Quotation 4. A Parting Shot

12: Logical Form

1. The Idea of Logical Form and Its Philosophical Significance 2. Constraints on Accounts of Logical Form 3. Davidson's Account of Logical Form 4. Criticisms Acknowledgment

13: Radical Interpretation and the Principle of Charity

1. What Is Radical Interpretation? 2. The Role of Radical Interpretation for Meaning Theory 3. The Principle of Charity 4. The Power of Charity 5. The Justification of Charity

14: Davidson's Measurement-Theoretic Analogy

1. Introduction 2. Radical Interpretation and Indeterminacy 3. The Inscrutability of Reference 4. The General Case 5. Instrumentalism or Realism?

15: Reference

1. Reference in T-Theories 2. The Inscrutability of Reference 3. Explanations and Reference

16: Language and Thought

1. Davidson's View and Two Others 2. Davidson and the View that Thought Precedes Language 3. Conclusion Acknowledgments

17: Conceptual Schemes 18: Interpretation and Value

Interpretation and Value 1. The Interpretation Argument 2. The Application to Desires and Normative Beliefs 3. The Application to Values and Normative Truths 4. The Triangulation Argument

19: Predication 20: Convention and Meaning

1. Introduction 2. The Public Nature of Meaning 3. Semantics and Ulterior Purposes 4. Word Meaning and Speaker Meaning 5. Is There Such a Thing as a Language? 6. Radically Interpreting Mrs. Malaprop

21: Metaphor and Varieties of Meaning

Davidson on Metaphor 1. “What Metaphors Mean” 2. “A Nice Derangement of Metaphors” 3. Evaluating a Hybrid Davidsonian View of Metaphor Acknowledgment

22: Davidson and Literary Theory

Davidson and Literary Theory 1. Locating Literary Language 2. Convention 3. Davidson's Influence on Literary Theory 4. Texts 5. Sketch of a Davidsonian Account of Texts

Part IV: Philosophy of Mind

23: The Larger Philosophical Significance of Holism

The Larger Philosophical Significance of Holism 1. Holism and Charity Defended 2. How to Formulate Relativism 3. The Davidsonian Strategy Against Relativism 4. Two Further Issues

24: Anomalous Monism

1. Three Principles 2. Event Individuation 3. An Argument for Monism 4. Strict Laws 5. Anomalism 6. Irreducibility 7. Supervenience 8. Mental Causation

25: Triangular Externalism

1. Outlines of Triangular Externalism 2. Externalism, Interpretation, and Holism 3. Davidson on Other Forms of Externalism 4. Triangulation and the Determination of Thought Content 5. Triangulation and the Objectivity of Thought

26: Triangulation

1. Introduction 2. The Triangulation Argument 3. Objections to the Triangulation Argument 4. Conclusion

27: Rationality as a Constitutive Ideal

1. Kant, Carnap, and Quine 2. Davidsonian Interpretation Theory 3. Charity as a Constraint on Interpretation 4. Realism, Instrumentalism, and Eliminativism 5. Cognitive Science and Radical Interpretation 6. Representation and Rationality in Nonlinguistic Creatures 7. Davidson's Contributions to the Study of Rationality

28: Irrationality 29: The Rationality of the Emotions

1. Introduction 2. Emotions and Cognition 3. Emotions and their Causes 4. Objections 5. Privileged Access to Emotions 6. Emotions and Irrationality 7. Animal Affects Acknowledgments

Part V: Epistemology

30: Davidson and Radical Skepticism

1. Introduction 2. Davidson on Radical Interpretation and the Principle of Charity 3. Davidson's Route to Antiskepticism I: The Omniscient Interpreter 4. Davidson's Route to Antiskepticism II: Triangulation and Content Externalism 5. Contra Davidson's Transcendental Antiskepticism Acknowledgments

31: First-Person Authority

1. The Phenomenon of First-Person Authority 2. Davidson's Explanation of First-Person Authority 3. First-Person Authority and Semantic Externalism

32: Knowledge of Other Minds in Davidson's Philosophy

1. The Measure of All Things 2. Understanding Others

Part VI: Influences and Influence

33: Quine and Davidson

1. Logical Pragmatism 2. Naturalism 3. Language, Meaning, and Use 4. Truth 5. Meaning and Radical Interpretation 6. Assent, Distal versus Proximal Meaning, and the “Third Dogma” 7. Farewell to Empiricism?

34: Davidson and Contemporary Philosophy

1. Introduction 2. Meaning and Truth Conditions 3. Mind and Action 4. Truth, Knowledge, and Reality 5. Normativity and Rationality 6. Conclusion

Name Index General Index

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