Donald Davidson holds that intentional concepts are not reducible to physical or dispositional ones. This is due, he claims, to the constitutive role of normativity in the principles that govern the application of intentional concepts. According to Davidson, the specific way in which norms of rationality and coherence are mobilised by our interpretative principles sets mental concepts off from those of the natural sciences. I agree with Davidson on the irreducibility of the mental. However, I show that irreducibility is due (...) not to the normative character of intentional concepts, but to holism and the flexibility of interpretative principles. I then consider three arguments that Davidson has put forth to support the irreducibility of intentional properties on the basis of their normative character, and show that none of them goes through. (shrink)

Donald Davidson holds that intentional concepts are not reducible to physical or dispositional ones. This is due, he claims, to the constitutive role of normativity in the principles that govern the application of intentional concepts. According to Davidson, the specific way in which norms of rationality and coherence are mobilised by our interpretative principles sets mental concepts off from those of the natural sciences. I agree with Davidson on the irreducibility of the mental. However, I show that irreducibility is due (...) not to the normative character of intentional concepts, but to holism and the flexibility of interpretative principles. I then consider three arguments that Davidson has put forth to support the irreducibility of intentional properties on the basis of their normative character, and show that none of them goes through. (shrink)

The solution to the paradox which Kripke attibutes to Wittgenstein is supposed to lead to the conclusion that there is a sense in which thought and language are essentially social phenomena. In the following, I argue that both the and the character of this solution can be questioned, though without having to agree with Davidson, according to whom the solution to this paradox does not depend on any notion of a common language.

The “sceptical” solution to the paradox which Kripke attibutes to Wittgenstein is supposed to lead to the conclusion that there is a sense in which thought and language are essentially social phenomena. In the following, I argue that both the “sceptical” and the “communautarian” character of this solution can be questioned, though without having to agree with Davidson, according to whom the solution to this paradox does not depend on any notion of a common language.