Davidson: "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge"

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

From the essay as a whole, I get an impression of what I might call "radical charity." Are Davidson's philosophical forays in general stabilized by a kind of radical charity?

What do you mean by "radical charity", in the context of Truth and Knowledge?

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

If anyone has access to a pdf link, that would be extremely helpful.

I'm not familiar with Donald Davidson, but a quick Google search found this link to a PDF :
https://epdf.pub/the-essential-davidson.html

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Later on he says: "...belief is in its nature veridical."

The word "veridical" strikes me as suspicious here.

He's right there, if using a certain sense of "truth"... The more I read Davidson, I think he struggled with what to think about truth. He seems to waffle between coherence and correspondence. Some other folk hereabout have the very same problem...

We can accept both uses all the while knowing that only one exists prior to language use, and it's not coherence.

Davidson's self-criticism may be the best place to start:

From "Afterthoughts" (1987)

Davidson:If it had not already been published, I would now change the title of `A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge', and I would not describe the project as showing how 'coherence yields correspondence'.

It's unfortunate that Davidson neglects to provide us with a revised title. He leaves us guessing.

Davidson:I would also now reject the point generally made against correspondence theories that there is no way we could ever tell whether our sentences or beliefs correspond to reality. This criticism is at best misleading, since no one has ever explained in what such a correspondence could consist; and, worse, it is predicated on the false assumption that truth is transparently epistemic.

Davidson:I also regret having called my view a 'coherence theory'. My emphasis on coherence was properly just a way of making a negative point, that 'all that counts as evidence or justification for a belief must come from the same totality of belief to which it belongs'.

The above appears to be the nuts and bolts of the paper.

Davidson:My emphasis on coherence was misplaced; calling my view a `theory' was a plain blunder. In his paper Rorty stressed a minimalist attitude towards truth that he correctly thought we shared. It could be put this way: truth is as clear and basic a concept as we have. Tarski has given us an idea of how to apply the general concept (or try to apply it) to particular languages on the assumption that we already understand it; but of course he didn't show how to define it in general (he proved, rather, that this couldn't be done). Any further attempt to explain, define, analyze, or explicate the concept will be empty or wrong...

Truth as basic, unanalyzable.

Quoting Gnomon

I'm not familiar with Donald Davidson, but a quick Google search found this link to a PDF :
https://epdf.pub/the-essential-davidson.html

Thanks.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Truth as basic, unanalyzable.

I connect with this Heidegger. We are being-in-a-world-with-others-in-language, a unitary phenomenon. Our language discloses or unveils a shared reality in a 'primordial' or sub-theoretical way. This is so close to us, so automatic, that it's hard to see. This shared space or [s]world[/s] or what even most self-consciously doubtful philosophers can't help talking about as they bring their thoughts forward to be recognized as rational and true.

A different critique is that of the assumption that assigning some sharp meaning to a decontextualized or 'unworlded' noun is a sensible project. The superstition here is that language is a nomenclature for a tidy system of atomic eternal concepts that snap together like tinkertoys.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Are Davidson's philosophical forays in general stabilized by a kind of radical charity?

I have mostly been exposed to Davidson through Rorty. That said, I think coherentist approaches are likely to be found among charitable conversationalists. A bad listener focuses on some disliked word and interprets it selfishly in anticipation of a retort. A good listener (so I opine) understands that a thinker is all of a piece and must be understood as a personality. No individual word choice is decisive. Each must be interpreted in context, and the total context is one's entire existence, loaded as it is with centuries of interpretation via an inherited language and culture.

Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm

Later on he says: "...belief is in its nature veridical."

Davidson is arguing that members of actual linguistic communities have mostly true beliefs about the world. It is relevant to his argument that disagreement about specific facts can only occur against a background of shared true beliefs. It is useful to compare this discussion to Wittgenstein's discussion of hinge propositions in On Certainty, although I suspect there would be disagreement between Davidson and Wittgenstein on certain technical points.

In other words, linguistic communities tend to converge on standard labels for various kinds of stimuli, standard ways of talking about those stimuli, and so forth. It follows that unless someone simply doesn't understand the language, that they will use those labels and ways of talking to communicate information about their environment. Because of this, their responsive dispositions (beliefs) will be mostly similar and mostly accurate, simply because they were developed in response to the kinds of things that elicit those responses. This explanation is derived from broadly Quinean arguments about the nature of belief rather than details about the principle of charity, anomalous monism, or whatever specific philosophical theses Davidson has proposed.

Quoting quickly

It is relevant to his argument that disagreement about specific facts can only occur against a background of shared true beliefs.

I like this, but skills is perhaps better than beliefs, in that 'beliefs' casts the whole thing as more explicit than I think it is. Have you looked into Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world? The 'form of life' is something like a set of norms that aren't explicit and can't plausibly be enumerated.

Quoting softwhere

I like this, but skills is perhaps better than beliefs, in that 'beliefs' casts the whole thing as more explicit than I think it is. Have you looked into Dreyfus's Being-in-the-world? The 'form of life' is something like a set of norms that aren't explicit and can't plausibly be enumerated.

I haven't read Dreyfus, but I'm familiar with Heidegger. In response to your question, I would argue that for Davidson beliefs are behavioral dispositions, as are skills. For a subject to believe that [math]p[/math] is simply to be disposed to say [math]p[/math] in response to the appropriate simuli. You can't differentiate someone who believes that [math]p[/math] from someome who is simply disposed to say that [math]p[/math] is true in the appropriate circumstances. In your terminology, beliefs are skills.

EDIT: I said for Davidson, but I'm really reading him through Quine.

Quoting quickly

In response to your question, I would argue that for Davidson beliefs are behavioral dispositions, as are skills....In your terminology, beliefs are skills.

OK, thanks. I've mostly read the continentals, though I had a long Rorty phase.

I'm glad you joined the forum. Your posts have been illuminating.