The document discusses the philosopher Donald Davidson. It provides biographical details, including that he was born in 1917 and spent much of his career at Stanford, Princeton, Rockefeller, and the University of Chicago before moving to UC Berkeley. The document discusses Davidson's influential work across philosophy of language, semantics, epistemology, and other areas. It notes both criticism of and continued engagement with Davidson's ideas among philosophers. The document also discusses issues and arguments in Davidson's philosophy regarding theories of meaning and truth.

2. LANGUAGE
DAVIDSON ON
TRUTH AND
MEANING
DANICA V. TALABONG
DepEd – Division of Quezon
danica.talabong@deped.gov.ph
UNIVERSITY OF BATANGAS – CALAYAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INCORPORATED
PhD 705 – PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
MANUEL S. ENVERGA MEMORIAL SCHOOL OF ARTS AND TRADES MAUBAN, QUEZON

3. BIBLIOGRAPH
Y
DONALD DAVIDSON
1917-2003
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4.  Donald Herbert Davidson was born
on March 6th, 1917, in Springfield,
Massachusetts, USA. He died
suddenly, as a consequence of
cardiac arrest following knee
surgery, on Aug. 30, 2003, in
Berkeley, California.
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5.  Remaining both physically and
philosophically active up until his
death, Davidson left behind a
number of important and unfinished
projects including a major book on
the nature of predication. The latter
volume was published posthumously
(see Davidson 2005b), together with
two additional volumes of collected
essays (Davidson 2004, 2005a),
under the guidance of Marcia Cavell.
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6.  Davidson completed his undergraduate study at Harvard,
graduating in 1939. His early interests were in literature and
classics and, as an undergraduate, Davidson was strongly
influenced by A. N. Whitehead. After starting graduate work in
classical philosophy (completing a Master’s degree in 1941),
Davidson’s studies were interrupted by service with the US Navy in
the Mediterranean from 1942–45. He continued work in classical
philosophy after the war, graduating from Harvard in 1949 with a
dissertation on Plato’s ‘Philebus’ (1990b). By this time, however, the
direction of Davidson’s thinking had already, under Quine’s
influence, changed quite dramatically (the two having first met at
Harvard in 1939–40) and he had begun to move away from the
largely literary and historical concerns that had preoccupied him as
an undergraduate towards a more strongly analytical approach.
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7.  While his first position was at Queen’s College in New York,
Davidson spent much of the early part of his career (1951–1967) at
Stanford University. He subsequently held positions at Princeton
(1967–1970), Rockefeller (1970–1976), and the University of
Chicago (1976–1981). From 1981 until his death he worked at the
University of California, Berkeley. Davidson was the recipient of a
number of awards and fellowships and was a visitor at many
universities around the world. Davidson was married three times,
with his third marriage, in 1984, being to Marcia Cavell, who
undertook the editing of Davidson’s posthumously published
essays. For more on Davidson’s biography, as well as reminiscences
from those who knew him, see Baghramian 2013.
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8.  was one of the most
important philosophers of
the latter half of the
twentieth century and with
a reception and influence
that, of American
philosophers, is perhaps
matched only by that of W.
V. O. Quine.
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9.  Davidson’s ideas, presented in a
series of essays (and one
posthumous monograph) from the
1960s onwards, have had an
impact in a range of areas from
semantic theory through to
epistemology and ethics. His work
exhibits a breadth of approach, as
well as a unitary and systematic
character, that is unusual within
twentieth century analytic
philosophy.
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10.  Davidson’s ideas nevertheless
combine in such a way as to
provide a single integrated
approach to the problems of
knowledge, action, language and
mind. The breadth and unity of
his thought, in combination with
the sometimes-terse character of
his prose, means that Davidson is
not an easy writer to approach
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11. ISSUES
DONALD DAVIDSON
1917-2003
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12.  In a number of publications, Ernest
Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, in particular,
have advanced a critical interpretation
of Davidson’s philosophy that focuses
on his earlier work, especially his
contributions to the theory of meaning
and philosophy of action, but that is
largely negative in its assessment of
the cogency of Davidson’s arguments,
and the philosophical viability of the
positions he advances (see, for
instance, Lepore and Ludwig 2005).
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13.  At the same time, the re-publication of
Davidson’s later essays has
disseminated them to a wider, and
often newly-appreciative, audience,
while the work, not only of Richard
Rorty, but also of Robert Brandom,
and, to some extent, John McDowell, is
suggestive of a broader and more
positive engagement with Davidson’s
thinking.
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14.  In addition, Davidson’s work has also been
an important, if sometimes contentious,
point of focus for philosophical interaction
between analytic and so-called ‘continental’
thought (particularly in relation to
hermeneutic and literary theory – see, for
instance, Malpas 1992, and Dasenbrock
1993). Regardless of divergence in
interpretation, then, Davidson’s work still
attracts considerable philosophical
attention, and seems likely to have a
continuing influence and significance
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15. ARGUMENTS
DONALD DAVIDSON
1917-2003
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16.  Davidson takes the notion of a theory of meaning as
central, so it is important to be clear at the outset
what he means by the term. Starting with what he
does not mean, it is no part of his project to define the
concept of meaning in the sense in which Socrates
asks Euthyphro to define piety. Davidson writes that
it is folly to try to define the concept of truth
(Davidson, 1996), and the same holds for the closely
related concept of meaning: both belong to a cluster of
concepts so elementary that we should not expect
there to be simpler or more basic concepts in terms of
which they could be definitionally reduced. Nor does
Davidson ask about meaning in such a way that we
would expect his answer to take the form,
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17. RESOLUTIONS
DONALD DAVIDSON
1917-2003
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18.  To conclude, there are some interesting and thought-
provoking moments in this collection. But the take-home
message (no doubt unintended) is that Davidson's insights
and theorizing have far less currency in current analytical
philosophy than they did twenty or thirty years ago. It is
interesting to compare this volume with two very famous
and influential volumes: Truth and Interpretation:
Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited
by Lepore, and Actions and Events: Perspectives on the
Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by Lepore and
Brian McClaughlin. Those two volumes show how central
Davidson was at the time (1985 and 1986) to most of the
major areas of philosophy (language, epistemology,
metaphysics, and mind). In contrast, reading the present
volume brings home how much philosophy has moved away
(for better or for worse) from those Davidsonian themes
that captured the imagination of entire generations of
analytic philosophers.
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19. ANALYSIS &
REVIEWS
DONALD DAVIDSON
1917-2003
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MANUEL S. ENVERGA MEMORIAL SCHOOL OF ARTS AND TRADES MAUBAN, QUEZON

20. Reviewed by José Luis Bermúdez, Texas A&M University
This is an unusual book. Its title suggests that it is a collection of essays about
Donald Davidson's views on truth, meaning, and the mental. But the focus is really
much more on Davidson as refracted through the lens of Ernie Lepore and Kirk
Ludwig's two volumes, Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language, and Reality (OUP
2005) and Davidson: Truth-theoretic Semantics (OUP 2007)). The Lepore/Ludwig
interpretation is, by my count, the direct focus of seven of the twelve papers.
Moreover, the editor does not contribute an introduction to the volume, leaving the
task instead to Lepore and Ludwig. The overall result is the sense of participating
in an ongoing debate whose parameters are never made clear and that is taking
place in something of a vacuum. We are told in the brief Preface that Lepore and
Ludwig have provided "a new systematization of his philosophy of language,
meaning, and thought" (vii), and Lepore and Ludwig themselves provide an
overview of Davidson's work, but at no point is it explained just what Lepore and
Ludwig are proposing, how it differs from standard interpretations of Davidson,
and, most importantly, why getting Davidson right should matter to us.

21. MARAMING SALAMAT
SA INYONG PAKIKINIG!
MANUEL S. ENVERGA MEMORIAL SCHOOL OF ARTS AND TRADES MAUBAN, QUEZON
UNIVERSITY OF BATANGAS – CALAYAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INCORPORATED
PhDF 705 – PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
DANICA V. TALABONG
JHS TEACHER III
DepEd – Division of Quezon
danica.talabong@deped.gov.ph