Radical interpretation and decision theory

This paper takes issue with an influential interpretationist argument for physicalism about intentionality based on the possibility of radical interpretation. The interpretationist defends the physicalist thesis that the intentional truths supervene on the physical truths by arguing that it is possible for a radical interpreter, who knows all of the physical truths, to work out the intentional truths about what an arbitrary agent believes, desires, and means without recourse to any further empirical information. One of the most compelling arguments for the possibility of radical interpretation, associated most closely with David Lewis and Donald Davidson, gives a central role to decision theoretic representation theorems, which demonstrate that if an agent’s preferences satisfy certain constraints, it is possible to deduce probability and utility functions that represent her beliefs and desires. We argue that an interpretationist who wants to rely on existing representation theorems in defence of the possibility of radical interpretation faces a trilemma, each horn of which is incompatible with the possibility of radical interpretation.

INTERESTS, EVIDENCE AND GAMES

ABSTRACTPragmatic encroachment theories have a problem with evidence. On the one hand, the arguments that knowledge is interest-relative look like they will generalise to show that evidence too is interest-relative. On the other hand, our best story of how interests affect knowledge presupposes an interest-invariant notion of evidence. This paper sketches a theory of evidence that is interest-relative, but which allows that ‘best story’ to go through with minimal changes. The evidence someone has is just what evidence a radical interpreter says they have. And a radical interpreter is playing a kind of game with the person they are interpreting. The cases that pose problems for pragmatic encroachment theorists involve coordination games between the interpreter and the interpretee, and like most coordination games they have multiple equilibria. The best solution to these games involves the notion of risk-dominant equilibria. So the evidence the person has is the evidence the interpreter says they have in the risk-dominant equilibria. This will be interest-relative, but consistent with the ‘best story' about how interests usually affect knowledge.

Responding to the Radical in RIOT Bible

In response to the RIOT Bible articles by Sandford, Myles, and Wan, I consider what it means to be a ‘radical interpreter’ of the Bible. Reflecting in particular on the sense of ‘rootedness’ that the term ‘radical’ can convey, I explore how each author digs down to the roots of their subject, all the while pushing away from exegetical normativities to produce a reading that is both unconventional and ground-breaking.

What is interpretation? A dilemma for Davidson

The core idea of Davidson’s philosophy of language is that a theory of truth constructed as an empirical theory by a radical interpreter is a theory of meaning. I discuss an ambiguity that arises from Davidson's notion of interpretation: it can either be understood as the hypothetical process of constructing a theory of truth for a language or as a process that actually happens when speakers communicate. I argue that each disambiguation is problematic and does not result in a theory of meaning.

Verdade, interpretação e objetividade em Donald Davidson

Donald Davidson foi um dos filósofos mais influentes da tradição analítica da segunda metade do século. A unidade de sua obra é constituída pelo papel central que reflexão sobre como podemos interpretar os proferimentos de um outro falante desempenha para a compreensão da natureza do significado. Davidson adota o ponto de vista metodológico de um intérprete que não pode pressupor nada sobre o significado das palavras de um falante e que não possui nenhum conhecimento detalhado de suas atitudes proposicionais. Neste artigo, eu apresento inicialmente a estrutura e os pressupostos da filosofia da linguagem de Davidson; passo depois a uma discussão sobre a importância do princípio de caridade para seu projeto interpretativo e, por fim, procuro apontar as diferenças do projeto de Davidson com a hermenêutica filosófica. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Interpretação radical. Princípio de caridade. Hermenêutica. ABSTRACT Donald Davidson was one of the most influential philosophers in the analytic tradition in the last half of the twenthy century. The unity of his work lies in the central role that the reflection on how we are able to interpret the speech of another plays in undestanding the nature of meaning. Davidson adopts the standpoint of the interpreter of the speech of another whose evidence does not, at the outset, pressupose anything about what the speaker’s words mean or any datailed knowledge of his propositional attitudes. This is the position of the radical interpreter. In this paper, I begin with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson’s philosophy of language; after this I discuss the philosophical importance of the principle of charity for the theory of radical interpretation and, at the end, I compare Davidson’s interpretative project to the philosophical hermeneutic. KEY WORDS – Radical interpretation. Principle of charity. Hermeneutics.

Davidson and Indeterminacy of Meaning

According to Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation there are no facts of matter which could determine the choice between two or more incompatible translation schemes which are in accordance with all behavioral evidence. Donald Davidson agrees with Quine that an important degree of indeterminacy will remain after all the behavioral evidence is in, but he believes that this indeterminacy of meaning (IM) should not be seen as either mysterious or threatening. In this paper I argue that IM is not as innocuous as Davidson believes it to be and has consequences which do not sit easily with some core elements of the Davidsonian project. I argue that IM leads to the nontrivial thesis of the indeterminacy of language ascription which is not captured by the mundane examples of indeterminacy of measurement that Davidson frequently cites. Davidson makes a liberal use of the principle of charity in order to lessen the effect of IM. In recent years he has broadened the scope of the principle of charity by arguing that a radical interpreter, at least in some basic cases, should identify the object of a belief with the cause of that belief. Davidson agrees with Quine and Putnam that the concept of causality is applied to the world according to human interests. For Quine and Putnam, however, the interest-relativity of causal relations has relativistic consequences. Given Davidson. s long-standing opposition to all types of relativism this conclusion should not be welcome to him. Relativism may be avoided by imposing a great deal of social and biological homogeneity on all language-users which is an equally unwelcome view.