The Davidson's Philosophy On The Theory Of Meaning

The dissertation primarily analyses the Davidsonian theory of meaning based on the relation between the concept of meaning and the concept of truth. It will discuss, for Davidson, how to construct his theory of meaning on the ground of the Tarskiian semantic concept of truth. The dissertation will show how to modify the Tarskiian semantic concept of truth and what will be added to the Tarskiian theory of truth in order to construct the theory of the nature language's meaning. The dissertation will discuss the difficulty of the Davidsonian theory of meaning and how to improve it in he idea of the radical interpretation. In the end of the dissertation, it will illuminate the problems of the Davidsonian theory of meaning and show how to improve it.In chapter one, the dissertation will discuss four typical theories of meaning in the history of philosophy: the referential theory of meaning, the ideational theory of meaning, the use theory of meaning and the behaviorism theory of meaning. Davidson identifies as criterion of adequacy for the theory of natural language's meaning that they exhibit the language as compositional(it is called “the compositionality requirement”) and Davidson advocates a certain holistic of meaning.In chapter two, the dissertation will elaborate on the Davidson's positive proposal to use the Tarskian truth theory to serve for the compositional meaning theory and we will discuss what constraints will be added to the Tarskian truth theory in order to use it as a vehicle of the theory of nature language's meaning. Davidson criticizes different theories of meaning and the different attempts and purse the aim of the compositional meaning theory. After that, Davidson advocates his famous proposal that a truth theory meeting Tarskian Convention T can do all the work of the meaning theory. Davidson does not simply say that a truth theory meeting Tarskian Convention T is a theory of meaning, he says that if we place enough restrictions on the predicate “is T”, we can entail all sentences got from schema T without appealing to any(further) semantic notions, every schema T gives the truth condition of the sentence of the object language and interpret the meaning of it. Based on the Tarski's theory of truth, this theory of meaning has additional advantages over other theories of meaning.At first, Davidson regards the Tarskian truth theory as an elaborate the corresponding theory of truth, he don't think so later. Because the corresponding theory of truth can't show what are the things which the sentences correspond to clearly. Some philosophers say that the Tarskian semantical concept of truth is a concept of the redundancy truth, other authors say the Tarski's theory of truth belongs to the coherence theory of truth. Davidson regards the Tarskian truth theory neither as the the redundancy truth nor as the coherence theory of truth. In order to construct the theory of the nature language, what will be added to the Tarski's theory of truth is put the concept of truth connection with the particular speech acts.In chapter three, the dissertation will elaborate how to construct the truth theory of the nature language and the problems of the Davidsonian theory of meaning. Davidson thinks that it is possible to construct the truth theory of the nature language and we can work out the difficulties within it. In order to construct the formal truth theory of the nature language, Davidson modifies the Tarski's Convention T, which is called the Convention D, that it is the particular speech acts that have truth values and its truth values is a relation that holds between a sentence, a speaker and a time. Davidson makes use of the Tarskian theory of truth to interpret the meaning of the language. The Tarskian theory of truth is an important vehicle for the Davidsonian theory of meaning. But we need to understand the meaning of the language before we can construct a truth theory meeting Tarskian Convention T, so Davidson interpret the meaning of the object language in the form of the Convention T, it is interpret the meaning of the object language that we already known. Davidson says that to know extensionally adequate conditions for the truth of a sentence is to know its meaning, at least in the sense that it allows one to understand it. Many philosophers don't think so, they think Davidson's project rest mostly on a failure to elucidate correctly how a truth theory can relate to a meaning theory. Among these criticisms, the Foster's theory is the most famous one. The extensionality problem is also an important problem of Davidsonian theory of meaning. As a response, Davidson improves its theory of meaning and expresses the theory of meaning in the idea of the radical interpretation.In chapter four, the dissertation will discuss the Davidsonian theory of meaning in the idea of the radical interpretation. The project of radical interpretation is the project of interpreting another speaker from evidence that does not presuppose any knowledge of the meanings of his terms or any detailed knowledge of his propositional attitudes. We can interpret the meaning of another's sentence from its schema T without knowing its meaning. It is the principle of charity and the hold-true attitudes which are necessary presuppositions that make the radical interpretation possible. Until now, Davidson works out almost the all problems of his former theory of meaning.In chapter five, the dissertation will elaborate on the problems of the Davidsonian theory of meaning. Accord to the truth theory, every schema T gives the truth condition of the sentence of the object language and interprets the meaning of it. But there are some sentences which we can not give their truth condition and the Davidsonian theory of meaning can't interpret their meaning. The nature language is developing all the time, it lacks a precisely defined scope that it can be unclear exactly what the vocabulary of a natural language is. This is another problem that the Davidson's theory of meaning can not deal with.