Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 11
Acknowledgements......Page 13
Books......Page 15
Other items......Page 16
Other items......Page 17
Introduction......Page 19
1 The impact of logical positivism......Page 31
2 The legacy of American pragmatism......Page 36
3 Quine’s naturalism......Page 41
4 Davidson on reason’s place in nature......Page 48
5 A philosophical anthropology......Page 54
2 Ontology......Page 58
1 Ontological commitment and ontological parsimony......Page 59
2 Intensions and criteria of identity......Page 65
3 Ontology and singular terms......Page 70
4 Ontology and quantification......Page 74
5 Ontological deflationism......Page 78
6 Linguistic frameworks and logical paraphrase......Page 81
3 Analyticity, apriority and necessity......Page 89
1 The circularity charge......Page 90
2 Holism and truth by virtue of meaning......Page 95
3 A linguistic account of analyticity......Page 99
4 Holism and the a priori......Page 104
5 The deep need for the convention......Page 110
6 Modal logic and essentialism......Page 113
1 The legacy of Tarski......Page 120
2 Has Tarski defined truth?......Page 128
3 Unbearable truth-bearers......Page 136
4 Epistemic and correspondence theories......Page 144
5 Deflationism and minimalism......Page 149
1 Quine on reference, meaning and use......Page 155
2 Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning......Page 160
3 Meaning and truth-conditions......Page 169
4 The immanence of meaning......Page 172
5 The notion of a truth-condition......Page 173
6 The individuation problem......Page 174
7 Truth-conditional semantics and natural languages......Page 175
6 Radical translation and radical interpretation......Page 184
1 Translation runs amok......Page 188
2 Quine’s closet hermeneutics......Page 193
3 On safari with Davidson......Page 200
4 Charity is not enough......Page 212
7 Indeterminacies......Page 218
1 Does radical translation start at home?......Page 219
2 Unsuccessful objections to indeterminacy......Page 225
3 Scrutinizing reference I: gavagai......Page 232
4 Scrutinizing reference II: proxy functions......Page 237
5 Indeterminacy and underdetermination......Page 242
8 Meaning and understanding......Page 251
1 The extensionality problem......Page 252
2 The privations of modesty......Page 257
3 Psychological modesty......Page 262
4 Language, norms and conventions......Page 268
5 Thought, causation and first-person authority......Page 277
9 Thought and language......Page 286
1 The intensional nature of thought......Page 288
2 Animals, thoughts and concepts......Page 292
3 The holistic nature of thought......Page 299
4 Belief and the concept of belief......Page 304
References......Page 312
Index......Page 319