Informal Logic 32 (4):403-439 (2012)
Abstract |
The principle of charity is used in philosophy of language and argumentation theory as an important principle of interpretation which credits speakers with “the best” plausible interpretation of their discourse. I contend that the argumentation account, while broadly advocated, misses the basic point of a dialectical conception which approaches argumentation as discussion between two parties who disagree over the issue discussed. Therefore, paradoxically, an analyst who is charitable to one discussion party easily becomes uncharitable to the other. To overcome this paradox, I suggest to significantly limit the application of the principle of charity depending on contextual factors
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Keywords | Davidson, dialectics, interpretation, paradoxes, principle of charity, strategic maneuvering |
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References found in this work BETA
Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature.Stephen C. Levinson - 2000 - MIT Press.
Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning.Douglas Neil Walton & Erik C. W. Krabbe - 1995 - Albany, NY, USA: State University of New York Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Experimental Ordinary Language Philosophy: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Defeasible Default Inferences.Eugen Fischer, Paul E. Engelhardt, Joachim Horvath & Hiroshi Ohtani - 2019 - Synthese 198 (2):1029-1070.
Denying Antecedents and Affirming Consequents: The State of the Art.David Godden & Frank Zenker - 2015 - Informal Logic 35 (1):88-134.
Wittgensteinian 'Therapy', Experimental Philosophy, and Metaphilosophical Naturalism.Eugen Fischer - 2018 - In Kevin Cahill & Thomas Raleigh (eds.), Wittgenstein and Naturalism. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 260-286.
Managing Disagreement Through Yes, but… Constructions: An Argumentative Analysis.Paula Castro, Marcin Lewiński, Dima Mohammed & Mehmet Ali Uzelgun - 2015 - Discourse Studies 17 (4):467-484.
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