Page 134 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Truth and Meaning
4.2 Davidson on the Appeal to Meaning Conventions
Davidson (1984) has provided a different argument. Even if the notion of a semantic rule, or meaning convention, is tolerably clear, it does not have any explanatory value. A shared meaning convention is not necessary—by adherence to which we all mean the same with our linguistic expressions—in order to communicate, simply for the reason that we do not have to mean the same. It suffices that I know what you mean and you know what I mean. Neither do I need any convention in order to know what you mean. We can indeed be said to have, within a community, the convention of interpreting each other as meaning the same, even though from time to time, the assump- tion of sameness of meaning, mostly concerning indi- vidual words, must be revised. Without that convention, linguistic communication would be cum-
bersome. Conventions could be essential only if I needed to know, before your utterance, what you would mean by the sentence you uttered. But, accord- ing to Davidson, it suffices for communication that I can find out afterwards, drawing on all kinds of contextual clues. I could, in fact, start from scratch, without any assumptions about or any knowledge of the meaning of your words, and, in a process of what Davidson calls 'radical interpretation,' acquire that knowledge. There are principles governing radical interpretation, principles which rule out unacceptable interpretations, and although these principles are nor- mative, in Davidson's view, they are not conventions but well-motivated methodological principles. Since the concept of meaning is to be explained, to the extent that it can be, by appeal to the principles of radical interpretation, the notion of convention is not needed in such an explanation. It is not necessary to make any assumption about a speaker's knowledge of linguistic rules or conventions, only find out what he means.
Michael Dummett (1986; 1991; 1994) has objected to Davidson's criticism of the conventionality of lan- guage. According to Dummett, the notion of a com- mon language, a language shared by a speech community, is conceptually prior to that of an idiolect, i.e. the language, or ways of speaking, of the individual speaker. One of his arguments is based on the obser- vation that speakers hold themselves responsible to socially accepted ways of speaking. On Dummett's view, the goal of successful communication requires adherence to the socially accepted ways, and because of this, that responsibility is essential to the speaker's linguistic practice. Davidson acknowledges that such adherence does further successful communication, but denies that responsibility adds anything of theoretical interest to the adherence itself.
Dummett also argues, in a Wittgensteinian manner, that meaningful speech requires the speaker to be a
member of a speech community.This, too, is accepted by Davidson, but he denies that it requires the exis- tence of a common language in the community. And indeed, the idea of the priority of the common lan- guage is hard to make good theoretical sense of, unless the conventionality, or normativity, of the common language is assumed at the outset.
In Davidson's mind the appeal to conventions is misguided for a further reason. One cannot attribute the observing of conventions to creatures to whom one cannot attribute beliefs and desires, and one cannot attribute beliefs and desires to creatures to whom one cannot attribute a language. Thus, having a language is a precondition of having a convention, but, as the earlier argumentshows, not vice-versa.
See also: Analyticity; Meaning: Philosophical The- ories; Radical Interpretation; Rules.
Bibliography
Burge T 1975 On knowledge and convention. Philosophical Review 84:249-55
Davidson D 1984 Communication and convention. In: Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Davidson D 1986 A nice derangement of epitaphs. In: LePore (ed.) Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives of the Phil- osophyofDonaldDavidson.BasilBlackwell, Oxford
Davidson D 1994 The social aspect of language. In: McGuinness, Oliveri (eds.) The Philosophy of Michael Dummett. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Dummett M 1986 A nice derangement of epitaphs: Some comments on Davidson and Hacking. In LePore (ed.) Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives of the Philosophy of DonaldDavidson.BasilBlackwell, Oxford
Dummett M 1991 The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. Duck- worth, London
Dummett M 1994 Reply to Davidson. In: Mcguinness, Oli- veri (eds.) The Philosophy of Michael Dummett. KJuwer, Dordrecht
Gilbert M 1983 Agreements, conventions and language. Syn- these 54:375-407
Lewis D K. 1969 Convention: A Philosophical Study. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Lewis D K. 1975 Languages and language. In: Gunderson K (ed.) Language, Mind and Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN
Quine W V O 1976 Truth by convention. In: The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, 2nd edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Quine W V O 1980 Two dogmas of empiricism. In: From a Logical Point of View, 2nd edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Schelling T C 1960 The Strategy of Conflict. Harvard Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, MA
Shwayder D 1965 The Stratification of Behavior. Humanities Press, New York
Ullman-Margalit E 1977 The Emergence of Norms. Clar- endon Press, Oxford
112