Abstract
The primary purpose of this paper is to trace the intellectual effects of an encounter between two very different philosophers working in two seemingly unconnected areas. As will be seen, Stig Kanger’s meeting with Donald Davidson led the latter to modify his influential theory of radical interpretation and gave the former an inspiration to set up a rather striking paradox in preference logic. While the paradox can be dissolved, radical interpretation confronts some serious difficulties.
This paper is a revised version of Rabinowicz (1998). I wish to thank several people who have helped me with comments, references and suggestions: John Broome, Thorild Dahlquist, Sven Danielsson, Sören Hallden, Paul Needham, Jan Odelstad, Rysiek Sliwinski, Howard Sobel, Fredrik Stjernberg, Fredrick Stoutland, Göran Sundholm, and Folke Tersman. I am especially grateful to Donald Davidson, who has kindly supplied historical information, and to Sten Lindström, who has proved a theorem I needed for my argument, apart from being supportive in many other ways.
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Rabinowicz, W. (2001). Preference Logic and Radical Interpretation Kanger Meets Davidson. In: Holmström-Hintikka, G., Lindström, S., Sliwinski, R. (eds) Collected Papers of Stig Kanger with Essays on His Life and Work. Synthese Library, vol 304. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0630-9_13
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