本文是一篇英语毕业论文，笔者认为在所有构建意义理论的努力中，唐纳德·戴维森提供了一个独特的思路。然而，戴维森没有足够的时间用一本书来详细说明他的理论，他的观点都散落在他的论文里。而善意原则是能够串联起戴维森意义理论研究的主题之一。因此，本研究重点关注戴维森善意原则及其意义理论之间的关系。
CHAPTER ONEGENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Foundational Questions/Motivations
Being one of the twentieth century greatest philosophers,Donald Davidson madeimportant and even profound contributions to most of the core areas of philosophy.AsKathrin Glüer(2011:3)indicates,Davidson is one of those unique figures whosimply could not enter any discussion without significantly reshaping it;contemporary philosophy of mind and language in particular would not at all be thesame without him.Davidson’s philosophical project is centered on two interconnectedinquiries,one into the nature of human action,and the other into the nature oflinguistic meaning,and these two inquiries have gradually integrated as his researchesproceeded(Lepore&Ludwing 2013:1).To understand human’s ability ofcommunicating with others,Davidson seeks to understand the nexus of mind andworld.At the center of his attempt is,on the one hand,the project of constructing atheory of truth for a natural language,and on the other hand,an investigation into theconditions on confirming such a theory for a speaker from the standpoint of aninterpreter(the radical interpreter)who has not mastered a correct theory,on the basisof evidence distant enough from what is to be confirmed to yield illumination of theconcepts deployed in the theory.
Davidson,like Chomsky,looks to certain features of natural languages todecipher what makes them learnable(Haack 1978:230).Through the decipherment oflearnability of natural languages,he establishes his meaning theory of naturallanguages.In“Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages”(1984a:3)publishedin 1966,Davidson indicates that the learnability of natural languages means that itmust be possible to give a constructive account of meaning of sentences in thelanguage.
1.2 Rationale and significance of the research
As Michael Dummett indicates,the most fundamental problem of philosophy is theproblem of truth and meaning(Zhang 2006).Since its establishment,philosophy oflanguage has been advancing along the path created by Frege(Sun 2010:1).In“Sense and Reference”(1948),Frege distinguishes the sense and reference of alinguistic expression,and especially discusses the sense of proposition.Frege’s theoryof sense and reference set the agenda for philosophy of language in the twentiethcentury(Baghramian 1999:5).Wittgenstein directly believes that the problems ofphilosophy are caused by the misuse of language and as long as the meaning oflanguage is clarified,many traditional philosophical problems will be solved(Sun2010:1).Therefore,the study of meaning has always been the core theme ofanalytical philosophy.
However,there has been no unified theory on the issue of meaning.Furthermore,the theory of meaning,like the problem of reference,is full of controversy.Numerousphilosophers and linguists have dedicated themselves to the construction of meaningtheories including Davidson.Davidson has started to construct a theory of meaningfor natural languages since the publication of his Theories of Meaning and LearnableLanguages and he has continued to improve his theory for over twenty years(Sun2010:1).Unfortunately,Davidson has no enough time to complete his construction ina book and all his theoretical proposals are scattered on his theses.In order to finishDavidson’s work,the academic circle has never stopped the investigation ofDavidson’s theory of meaning but no consensus has been achieved.
CHAPTER TWOLITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
In one way or another,the principle of charity,the foundation for Davidson’sconstruction of his theory of meaning,has been studied in the analysis of Davidson’sphilosophy of language.The principle of charity has experienced differentinterpretations and remarks,among which there are compliments,misunderstandings,and even challenges.
Consequently,to investigate the relationship between the principle of charity andDavidson’s construction of meaning theory,it is of great necessity to get a generalidea of various influential studies on Davidson’s philosophy of language and theprinciple of charity.In Section 2.2,studies on Davidson’s philosophy of language arereviewed from the perspectives of truth-based studies and interpretation-based studies.Section 2.3 is a review of studies on the principle of charity from the perspectives ofthe principle of charity before Davidson and the principle of charity after Davidson.Section 2.4 is a summary of the whole review.This chapter aims at laying afoundation for studying the relationship between the principle of charity andDavidson’s construction of meaning theory.
2.2 Studies on Davidson’s theory of meaning
Davidson’s theory of meaning is a formal semantic theory which is testableempirically in radical interpretation.For him,this formal semantic theory has to becompositional,that is,the meanings of complex linguistic expressions such as wholesentences can be derived from the meanings of their parts and the way they arecombined.To be compositional,the formal semantic theory should be truth-conditional for the meanings of sentences are the conditions under which sentences could be held as true.Tarski’s Convention-T could be the form of the formal semantictheory.To be a semantic theory for natural languages,the theory should be testableempirically.Hence,Davidson proposes the idea of radical interpretation.Equippedwith Davidson’s theory of meaning,a radical interpreter who does not know anythingabout a radically alien language in advance can understand and interpret any utterancea speaker of this language might take.The data of the interpreter,consisting ofnothing but the observable behavior of the speakers and its observable circumstances,are precisely the facts that determine meaning.These facts provide the radicalinterpreter with empirical evidence for the semantic theory.However,the radicalinterpreter cannot merely interpret linguistic utterances.Whatever he interprets analien speaker as saying,he at the same time necessarily ascribes a belief to the speaker.
CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................... 17
3.1 Introduction ............................ 17
3.2 A learnable language:Compositionality .......................... 17
3.3 Truth and meaning ................................ 20
CHAPTER FOUR THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY IN DAVIDSON’S THEORY OF MEANING ....................... 33
4.1 Introduction ................................... 33
4.2 Davidson’s theory of meaning ................................ 33
4.3 The principle of charity as an attitude of holding true ..................... 34
CHAPTER FIVE THE OPERATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY IN DAVIDSON’STHEORY OF MEANING ....................... 39
5.1 Introduction .............................. 39
5.2 The principle of charity as an unavoidable condition for understanding ............. 39
CHAPTER SIXTHE REASON FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY IN DAVIDSON’STHEORY OF MEANING
6.1 Introduction
As presented in chapter 4 and chapter 5,the principle of charity counsels theinterpreter to maximize or optimize the agreement between him and the speaker of analien language and to take the speaker as rational as possible.Thus,the interpreter canuse the attitude of holding true as evidence to understand the utterance of the speakerand to test the interpretation theory that is constructed in the Tarskian style.In thismanner,the principle of charity works as an unavoidable condition of understandingbetween the interpreter and the speaker and as necessity for a workable theory ofinterpretation.
This chapter intends to clarify why Davidson adopts the principle of charity inthe construction of his theory of meaning.The reason is that the principle of charityoriginates from the rationality of human beings.Being rational,human beings canhave thoughts(propositional attitudes)and can communicate thoughts with others vialanguage.In turn,having propositional attitudes and the usage of languagessubstantiate the rationality of human beings.In 6.2,the relation between rationality,propositional attitudes,and language will be clarified.6.3 indicates that being rationalis the only way of being intelligible in interpretation.
CHAPTER SEVENSUMMARY AND FINDINGS
7.1 Introduction
To clarify the relation between the principle of charity and Davidson’s theory ofmeaning,the present research summarizes the meaning of the principle of charity,theoperation of the principle of charity,and the reason for the principle of charity.Theprinciple of charity is unavoidable in Davidson’s theory of meaning.For Davidson,without this principle,there will be no understanding by language at all.Section 7.2concludes the findings of the research.Section 7.3 suggests some contributions andpractical implications of the research.Section 7.4 indicates the limitations of theresearch and provides some suggestions for the future studies on in the relevant fields.