A Study Of Davidson And Dummett Debate On The Theories Of Meaning And Truth

The debate between Donald Davidson and Michael Dummett on the theories of meaning and truth occupies an important position and has a far-reaching influence on the contemporary philosophy of logic and philosophy of language.The study of this debate is not only beneficial for clarifying the relation between meaning and truth,but also for promoting research in the theory of meaning and the theory of truth.This dissertation systematically studies the long debate between Davidson and Dummet on theories of meaning and truth,and briefly explores their followers’ defenses and refutations.On these bases,this dissertation inquires methods and paths to solve their debate,employing the distinction of“Knowing How”and“Knowing That”by Gilbert Ryle and the distinction of the meaning of language and the meaning of thought by the methodology of logical actionism.This dissertation makes a multi-dimensional clarification and analysis of the aspect of the theory of meaning in the debate,making a specific comparison of the theoretical principles on which each side relies on and the development of their theories.Davidson creatively constructed truth-condition theory of meaning based on Tarski’s theory of truth,and proposed the theory of radical interpretation in order to empirically prove the theory of truth-conditional meaning.In order to criticize Davidson’s theory of truth-conditional meaning,Dummett put forward four principles of constructing reasonable theory of meaning including the principle of full-bloodedness,the principle of manifestation,the principle of molecularity and the principle of anti-bivalence.He queried and criticized Davidson’s truth-condition theory of meaning in these four principles.Dummett’s criticisms mainly include the following:(1)The truth-condition theory of meaning and epistemology are irrelevant to the speakers’ actual ability,and they are not theories of language understanding;(2)The truth-condition theory of meaning regards truth as known,but it does not clarify the concept of truth at all;(3)truth-condition theory of meaning holds a linguistic view point of holism,which violates the principle that a reasonable theory of meaning must insist on molecular;(4)A basic assumption of truth-condition theory of meaning is that any statement must be true or false,which is based on the principle of bivalence,making truth transcend human cognitive ability;but grasping the meaning of sentences through this principle is unable to manifest people’s ability of using sentences.Facing Dummett’s criticism,Davidson developed his theory of meaning in his later thoughts.He tried to defend the truth-conditional theory of meaning by putting forward triangulation and distinguishing between the prior theory and the passing theory.Their followers have had discussions in many dimensions:The followers of Dummett mainly criticized Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning by using conditions of assertion and denying that knowing a sentence’s meaning lies in knowing the truth-conditions of it;The followers of Davidson chiefly refuted Dummett’s anti-realism theory of meaning.In the aspect of the debate on the theory of truth,this dissertation systematically analyzes the historical process of the debate and its development in the interaction.Davidson’s early realism theory of truth was essentially the traditional correspondence theory of truth,and that why it was powerfully questioned and criticized by Dummett.In order to respond to Dummett’s criticism,Davidson later gave a new defense for his realism theory of truth through putting forward "without reference concept" theory of truth and "coherence lead to correspondence" theory of truth.At the same time,he responded to Dummett’s questions and criticisms by analyzing the origins of the concept of truth,investigating the objectivity of truth.He pointed out that the"Triangulation interaction" of interpreters,speakers and the world was the ultimate origins of the objectivity of truth,and therefore forming a new type of correspondence theory of truth.Their followers participated in the debate,trying to justify the argument of each side:The followers of Dummett mainly indicated that Davidson’s concept of truth was not a speaker-oriented concept but a world-oriented;The followers of Davidson chiefly argued that the concept of truth was objective,but it was not followed that truth was independent of human what was insisted by Dummett.Based on the crux of the debate presented above,the dissertation explores two approaches to solving the dispute between Davidson and Dummett on the theories of meaning and truth:One of the solutions uses the theory of Ryle that divides the knowledge iiito"Knowing How" and "Knowing That" to comment on the argument.It aims to indicate:Davidson’s theory of truth-conditional meaning is a kind of theory of"Knowing How" with understand of linguistic neaning,and it articulates that the interpreters who correctly interpret the speaker’s utterance meaning do not presuppose that the speaker has "Knowing That" with linguistic meaning.The interpreters know how to use the concept of truth to interpret the speaker’s utterance meaning in communicative action,therefore,they forms their own reasonable transformational theory;Meanwhile,the speaker also knows how to use the concept of truth to make h1s utterance to be interpreted correctly by interpreters,which makes the speaker form his own reasonable transformational theory.Thus,when the interpreters’transformational theory is consistent with that of the speaker,the interpreters correctly interpret the speaker’ utterance meaning.Therefore,in Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning,the meaning of language is formed in the communicative action between interpreters and speakers.It expresses a kind of ability to act or practice that does not presuppose that the speaker had "Knowing That" with linguistic meaning.While,Dummett’s anti-realism theory of meaning is a kind of the theory of "Knowing That" with linguistic meaning,which shows that people in advance possess "Knowing That" with understand of linguistic meaning,and then regarding it as guidance of understanding language or communication,it emphasizes a kind of cognition to linguistic meaning.The other solution uses the methodology of logical actionism to comment on the argument.This dissertation tries to show that the reason why Anti-realists represented by Dummett strongly questioned and criticized Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning is based on the following two points:First,a chief defect of Davidson’s theory is that it does not completely distinguish the meaning of language from the meaning of thought,the features of reports and the features of the things reported.As indicated by the methodology of logical actionism,the meaning of language and the meaning of thought substantially is a relationship between expressions and objects expressed,therefore,we should not confuse the meaning of language and the meaning of thought.Second,Davidson confused true sentences with true propositions,and he regarded true sentences as true propositions.In fact,the relation between true sentences and true propositions is a relation between expressions and objects expressed,therefore,true sentences and true propositions belong to different levels,while,Davidson confused reports and things reported.The dissertation further shows that although Davidson’s truth-conditional theory of meaning had some deficiencies,its rationality mainly lied in showing that publicity of meaning,certainty of meaning and objectivity of meaning must resort to the interactive actions of interpreters,speakers and the world,which was communicative actions of interpreters and speakers.What this theory in fact revealed is that publicity of meaning,certainty of meaning and objectivity of meaning must resort to subjective communicative actions.The main defect of Dummett’s anti-realism theory of meaning is:He didn’t realize that objective actions of subjects fundamentally effected thought and language,and that objective actions assured publicity of meaning,certainty of meaning and objectivity of meaning,which made it difficult to avoid falling into a vicious circle of relativism.Meanwhile,Dummett’s anti-realism theory of meaning did not distinguish semantic facts from pragmatic facts.What Dummett substantially emphasized were pragmatic fact and the cognitions of individuals to pragmatic facts,he did not realize the fundamental function of objective actions to pragmatic facts.The dissertation further points out that Dummett’s anti-realism theory of meaning had some deficiencies,but it is rational because it studied the theory of meaning from the perspective of the speaker’s speech actions and conscious actions.Based on the above discussion,the dissertation finally points out that Davidson’s later thoughts of realism was quite close to the situation realism.Situation realism should be an approach to develop Davidson’s thoughts of realism.