LINGUIST List 22.4043 Mon Oct 17 2011 Review: Philosophy of Language: Malpas (2011) Editor for this issue: Rajiv Rao <rajivlinguistlist.org> This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the book review staff directly. Directory         1.     Pierre-Yves Modicom , Dialogues with Davidson Message 1: Dialogues with Davidson Date: 17-Oct-2011 From: Pierre-Yves Modicom <pymodicomlaposte.net> Subject: Dialogues with Davidson E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-2706.html EDITOR: Malpas, Jeff TITLE: Dialogues with Davidson SUBTITLE: Acting, Interpreting, Understanding PUBLISHER: MIT Press YEAR: 2011 Pierre-Yves Modicom, Université Paris IV – Sorbonne / Ecole Normale Supérieure. SUMMARY The volume is a collection of 20 essays grouped in three parts. Most of them are devoted to the comparison of Donald Davidson's philosophy with other tendencies of contemporary thought, especially other analytical philosophers and phenomenologists. The core Davidsonian topics of the volume are the rejection of the scheme-content distinction, Radical Interpretation, and anomalous monism. Some other papers present a direct discussion or critique of some aspects of Davidson's work. The first part, ''On language, mind and world'', is divided into eight chapters. The first one, by the late Richard Rorty, opposes Davidson's philosophy to the Cartesian tradition of representationalism. The primacy of enacted language over conceptual schemes is presented as the refutation of the dualistic ''theater''. The second paper, by David Hoy and Christoph Durt, introduces the line of authors with which Davidson's works are most often brought into comparison in this volume: Edmund Husserl and phenomenological hermeneutics. The authors defend a hermeneutic, anti-foundationalist reading of Husserl's late philosophy. They insist on the social nature of thought as a postulate common to both Davidson and phenomenological theories of interpretation. The other chapters are no longer devoted to great historical traditions, but to comparisons with specific authors or with contemporary thinkers. Samuel Wheeler chooses to focus on the critique of correspondence theories of truth. For him, this critique is shared by Davidson and Derrida, with some important differences; whereas Davidson holds truth to be a primary concept, Derrida is much more critical of the concept of truth per se. Both authors are then compared for their theories on metaphors. Wheeler shows how Derrida's concept of ''differance'' implies a preconceived hierarchy of entity types, which is excluded by Davidson's theory of radical interpretation. Next, Gordon Brittan concentrates on the problem of double-aspect ontology, a concept under which Davidson's theory of anomalous monism can be subsumed, as well as Kant's distinction of the noumenal and the phenomenal. The critical problem at stake here is the interpretation of causality in events, especially when they are related to deliberate actions. The comparison with Kant is also at the core of the following chapter, where Richard Manning discusses Davidson's place within the analytic philosophy of his time, among other critics of Cartesianism and Neo-Kantianism. Commenting on the Davidsonian use of Tarski-semantics, Manning's claim is that Davidson's anti-Kantianism might have been exaggerated by the commentators. Unlike anti-theoricists of that time promoting what Manning calls a ''domesticating vision'' based on ''flat ontology'', Davidson leaves room open for the inference of extra entities for the sake of providing philosophy with ''substantive truths'' about the world in constructing the Tarski-theories necessary for radical interpretation. Davidson's ambition and the method he followed made him much more similar to Kant than what is often believed. In Chapter Six, Mark Okrent concerns himself with the respective role of sapient beings in Donald Davidson's and Martin Heidegger's theories of truth. He compares Davidson's rejection of correspondence theories and compositionality with Heidegger's thesis on the primacy of assertion, and more precisely, on the role of copula. Yet, Heidegger is presented as more radical than Davidson; he states that assertions need not be uttered and that they are primarily the manifestation of the ''Dasein'''s intentionality, which leads him to ontological claims beyond the concept of truths, which Davidson, as a Quinean, basically refuses to do. Giancarlo Marchetti's and Bjoern Ramberg's essays are more focused on Davidson's place within analytical philosophy. In his contribution, Marchetti comments upon Davidson's critique of conceptual schemes; Davidson's reflection is shown to be embedded in the then-prevailing controversies on representationalism. The ''myth of the given'', as well as correspondence theories, are criticized along lines partly determined by the Fregean ''slingshot argument''. Finally, Marchetti explains how Davidson's theses have been radicalized by Rorty. Finally, Bjoern Ramberg, in the last chapter of this part, examines the dialectics of pragmaticism and metaphysics in Davidson's philosophy. The question of the link between linguistic behavior and objective knowledge, the refusal of conceptual schemes, and the proximity to Rorty seem to suggest that Davidson, in spite of what he seemed to think himself, was not primarily a metaphysician. The second part, ''Interpretation and understanding'', consists of six essays, four of which are directly devoted to the comparison with Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. Lee Braver first discusses the misunderstanding between both authors and relates it to a difference between their (basically similar) concepts of triangulation and ''Gespräch'' (“dialogue”). Whereas Gadamer's concept is open to dialogue between cultures as a whole, Davidson's theory is more concerned with individuals. Above all, Davidson's ''principle of charity'' would be rejected by strict Gadamerian thinkers because it apparently tends to the appropriation of the partner's otherness by the speaker, which Gadamer dismisses as a great danger for interpretation. Robert Dostal insists on what he considers the similarities between Gadamer and Davidson: first, their mutual rejection of conceptual schemes and world views, which prevents relativism; and second, the status of the object referred to as ''no thing'' for Davidson, and a ''Sache'' (roughly ''matter in question'') rather than a Ding (''thing'') for Gadamer. The main differences are Davidson's insistence on semantics rather than ontology, Gadamer's care of ''a common language'', and the fact that he focuses on the ''We''-kind of interpretative relation rather than on the ''I-Thou''-kind privileged by Davidson's concept of triangulation. This concept is at the heart of Jonathan Ellis's paper, which is more a direct discussion of Davidson rather than a comparison. Ellis shows that there is a circularity in Davidson's positions; the postulate that there needs to be a possible interpreter for any assertion made is both the necessary premise for the relevance of radical interpretation in knowledge philosophy and a consequence of that relevance. Next, Barbara Fultner comes back to the question of relativism and incommensurability in the works of Gadamer and Davidson. She compares the principle of charity to the notion of ''fusion of horizons'' in conversation, which is supposed to give birth to a ''shared world''. She focuses on the way both authors deal with literary texts to discuss rests of relativism in Gadamer's account of the individualization process within every linguistic utterance (culminating in untranslatability), whereas Davidson sees the confrontation with the text as a solitary struggle. David Vessey also deals with Gadamer and presents some key concepts of his philosophy (''world'', ''horizon'') in order to connect them with Davidson's rejection of the ''Third Dogma of Empiricism''. The main difference between both authors is the fact that for Gadamer, the relation between thought and the world is purely linguistic, whereas for Davidson, such a relation is causal, based on his framework of externalist ontology. Finally, Jeff Malpas discusses the role of agreement in Davidson's philosophy. The social nature of thought is highlighted and compared to Gadamer's conceptions, but here, once again, Gadamer emphasizes topics such as the role of tradition and common language much more than Davidson. Davidson's theory can be summarized as an exposition of the interconnection of speakers jointly engaged within one and the same world. The six papers of the third and last part, ''On action, reason, and knowledge'', concentrate less on issues related to language philosophy. Both Giuseppina d'Oro and Frederick Stoutland discuss the relationship between reasons and cause and embed Davidson's account in the debates of the analytic philosophy of that time. Whereas D'Oro addresses the question of the autonomy of human sciences in this framework, Stoutland is more concerned with the ontological status of causality. Gerhard Preyer deals with evaluative attitudes and the way Davidson tends to treat them as epistemic attitudes. He criticizes some problems of that treatment but praises Davidson for showing how evaluative attitudes are compatible with objective truth, an issue relevant for the problem of the value-ladenness of social sciences. Stephen Turner is concerned with the normative status of rationality made necessary by the concept of triangulation. He addresses different concepts of normativity defended by sociologists in order to show how normative rationality, in Davidson's work, is a social simulation without any fixed a priori pattern. Louise Röska-Hary, in her paper ''Davidson and the Source of Self-Knowledge'', comes back to a much more linguistic theme, namely, the interaction between self-knowledge and linguistic self-ascription of thoughts. She shows how the structure of predicates such as ''I presently believe that p'' makes triangulation impossible and yields first-person authority on the basis of Tarskian semantics. She draws a parallel with language acquisition in order to show the social dimension of this assumption of correctness for self-ascriptions, which is only true for present propositional attitudes. Finally, Sharyn Clough discusses how Davidson's rejection of conceptual schemes can provide feminist science studies with interesting concepts protecting them from the risk of relativism. His account for value-ladenness can also explain the objective relevance of feminist studies, as well as provide a useful reference for genealogical critiques of evaluative predicates in a social context. EVALUATION In his introduction to the volume (''Davidson and contemporary philosophy''), Jeff Malpas justifies the focus given to other (so-called) analytical philosophers and to phenomenology in the collected comparative studies. This cannot be made clear enough; in spite of what is announced on the cover, this volume is relevant mainly for those who are concerned with the dialogue of the two main traditions of contemporary philosophy. For instance, the papers dealing with (Neo-)Kantism hardly quote Kant themselves. Moreover, no passage from Descartes' first-hand texts is to be found in the book, even though “Cartesianism” is often mentioned as the main tradition that Davidson opposes. What is at stake is the reception of classical philosophy of knowledge within contemporary rational thought. For this reason, it is not surprising to see that the few allusions to Hegel are never as developed as they could have been. Once the reader has accepted this editorial choice, it is possible for him/her to appreciate the great overall quality of the papers collected in this volume. The attempt to bring traditions that have often ignored each other deserves praise in and of itself. What is even more valuable is the accessibility of this volume to non-specialists; anyone with minimal memories of Davidson's best-known theses (e.g. the triangulation of knowledge, Radical Interpretation, or the rejection of the scheme-content distinction) will be able to take advantage of this collection to refresh their knowledge. The reader does not need to be acquainted with Tarski's semantics or even with Quine in order to understand the discussion, which, however, is by no means vulgarization. Such a balance between deep analysis and accessibility is rarely obtained, and it is one of the great merits of this volume. The papers concerned with phenomenology and hermeneutics are also very clear and do not presuppose the reading of quoted works, such as Gadamer's ''Truth and Method'' (1960). A first regret concerning the pedagogical qualities of this volume has to do with the order of the papers. For instance, it might have been possible to group all papers on hermeneutics together, and to first present the article by David Vessey, which includes a synthetic presentation of Gadamer's thought, so that even readers who may not have background knowledge of hermeneutics could better appreciate the very fine-grained analysis by Braver and Dostal with less effort. Moreover, the text by Vessey, because it appears after those two, seems to repeat facts already presupposed by what has just been read. In the very Gadamerian second part, the paper by Jonathan Ellis also looks isolated. Unlike most of the other articles (with the exception of some in part 3), it is much more a dialogue between the author and Davidson than the presentation of a (possible) dialogue or confrontation between Davidson and a third party. If the editor refused to organize his collection alongside too narrow thematic or historical lines (which can very well be understood), then it would have been better to be more radical and to prevent impressions of failed thematic coherence such as the almost-completely Gadamerian tropism of the second part. People interested in the philosophy of language will be very interested in this book, which exhaustively presents the highly stimulating thoughts of a crucial author and addresses the parallels and differences between his philosophy and other considerable thinkers. The communication gap between philosophical schools is all too often a problem, and any effort to bridge it can only be approved. Beyond the articles dealing with interpretation theory and hermeneutics, the most interesting essays on philosophy of language are those written by Mark Okrent and Louise Röska-Hardy. Both are concerned with issues directly related to pregnant questions of contemporary semantics and pragmatics. The essay by Mark Okrent, especially, provides the reader with a very useful introduction to anti-correspondentist semantics (i.e. ''slingshot argument'', of which there is also a good description by Giancarlo Marchetti in the following paper) and theories rejecting semantic compositionality (i.e. ''the problem of predication''). Linguists interested in such questions will be highly stimulated by the very fine-grained and historically rich discussion of this topic. It is all the more regrettable that the phrase ''compositionality of meaning'' is not even mentioned, even though this concept is at the heart of what is being contested in the so-called problem of predication (pp. 99-100). This case is typical of the general usefulness linguists will find in this book; it is highly interesting but requires extra effort to draw parallels and see connections with linguistic topics. Those connections and echoes are real, but they are not directly dealt with, mainly because the volume is directed toward philosophers. Yet, such an effort on the reader's side proves highly rewarding. Of course, a third important school of thought could have received more attention (or simply some attention) in the comparison with Davidson's consistent, well-structured linguistic externalism: pragmatics. Cases in point are that Austin is named only once, in the middle of an enumeration of philosophers (p. 61), and Grice (p. 383) is only mentioned in one sentence. None of these short allusions is listed in the index, unlike the two short passages where the name of Searle is dropped. This might seem very short and one would expect more fruitful works comparing Davidson's thoughts to those of Searle, or the principle of charity to Grice's conversational rules (Grice 1975); the considerable differences between their premises and intentions should not prevent one from examining some surprising convergences – on the contrary. In other words, people interested in language, when reading this excellent collection of papers, will not lack ideas for further works and further parallels, nor for conceptual questioning. The idea that Davidson does not really belong to the classical philosophical curriculum of linguists has to change, and this book provides a good occasion to stimulate intellectual transfers from that perspective within philosophy. REFERENCES Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1960: Wahrheit und Methode. Tübingen. Grice, Henry Paul. 1975: Logic and Conversation, in P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (Eds) Syntax and semantics: Speech acts. Vol. 3. New York: Academic. 41-58. ABOUT THE REVIEWER Pierre-Yves Modicom is a graduate student in Paris. He holds a B.A. in Germanic studies and an M.A. in Linguistics from U. Paris-Sorbonne. He currently studies German Literature and Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and Linguistics at U. Paris-Sorbonne. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 17-Oct-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.