Interpretive Charity, Massive Disagreement, and Imagination

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 29 (1):49-74 (1999)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I argue that it is a main theme of Davidson's theory of interpretation that interpretive charity implies the impossibility of massive disagreement. There is clear textual support for that. I then argue that from the first-person point of view of a full-blooded interpreter, the theme must be accepted; and that is precisely why Davidson accepts it. If massive disagreement between speaker and interpreter seems to us easy to imagine, it is only because the imagination involved is third-personal and not full-blooded.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,349

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Charity Implies Meta‐Charity.Roy Sorensen - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2):290-315.
The nature of interpretative charity.Jeff Malpas - 1988 - Dialectica 42 (1):17-36.
The Principle of Charity, Transcendentalism and Relativism.María Rosario Hernández Borges - 2007 - The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 6:69-75.
The impossibility of massive error.L. S. Carrier - 1993 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (2):405-409.
Charity, Self-Interpretation, and Belief.Henry Jackman - 2003 - Journal of Philosophical Research 28:143-168.
The Principle of Charity.Nathaniel Goldberg - 2004 - Dialogue 43 (4):671-683.
The status of charity I: Conceptual truth or a posteriori necessity?Kathrin Glüer - 2006 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 (3):337 – 359.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-11-09

Downloads
89 (#187,426)

6 months
9 (#290,637)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Wai-hung Wong
California State University, Chico

References found in this work

Charity and Skepticism.Anthony L. Brueckner - 1986 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 67 (4):264-268.

Add more references