Lexicon of Arguments

 

McDowell I 211
Communication/Language/Davidson: there is no "medium" here. Except in the sense of "smoke signals", sounds, etc. Language is at best a match of idiolects.
All understanding is a special case of radical interpretation.
>Radical interpretation/Davidson.
"Common Language" is nothing more than the tool of cognitive activity, which could also do without it.
- - -
Glüer II 58
Language/communication/meaning/Davidson/Glüer: there are two possible interpretations of the thesis of "communication without regularity": a strong one and a weak one.
1. strong demand: always use the word "capacity" in the way you want to be understood. Comprehensibility would be bound to following lexical norms.
Davidson: is right: even if Mrs. X uses the word only once in the wrong way, we understand it perfectly. Comprehensibility may be difficult in practice, but theoretically it is not at risk. We cannot formulate a single lexical norm that the speaker must necessarily adhere to.
2. weak: as long as the radical interpretation should ensure the accessibility of the foreign idiolect, it must show a certain weak regularity internally. >Idiolect.
DavidsonVs: the radical reading of "A nice derangement", however, denies this weak regularity.
II 59
Problem: the theory of interpretation would lose its empirical character, the concept of statement intention would also remain puzzling. For it is still true that the interpreter has no other data for the determination of intentions than for meanings. They result from the same original interpretation process. "This characterization of linguistic competence is circular enough not to be wrong".(1986⁽¹⁾, p. 445).

1. Davidson, D. "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs" in: LePore, E. (ed.) Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, New York 1986.