Publications

Publication details [#8881]

Pires de Oliveira, Roberta. 1996. Metaphor, logical form, and event: A linguist talking to the philosopher Donald Davidson. Critical Criminology 31 (July-Dec) : 91–107. 17 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English

Abstract

An informal interview with Donald Davidson explores aspects of Davidson's theory of interpretation, particularly metaphor and first meaning, intentions, conventionality, and logical form. The notions of radical interpreter, charity, and an extensionally adequate Tarskian theory of meaning are related to Davidson's holistic view of language and his rejection of both realist and antirealist accounts, the latter based on a conception of language as practice, not representation. Similarity is held to be relative to interest, and the claim that metaphors lack meaning is qualified by a notion of secondary meaning that applies to certain metaphors. Interpretation involves revision of early hypotheses as evidence of a "network of sentences and ideas" accumulates; a formal semantics is claimed to be an essential condition for an adequate theory of a language. (J. Hitchcock 1999, vol. 33, n. 4)