Abstract
According to Davidson, natural languages are “systematic in the sense that the interpreter can, on the basis of learning finitely many words and composition rules, come to understand novel sentences; and there is no clear upper limit to the number of utterances that can be interpreted” (Davidson 1986b, p. 437). Davidson thinks — as does almost everyone — that only a recursive theory with a finite basis can provide an adequate model of the interpreter’s ability in this respect. But Davidson has always stopped short of saying that the speakers know such a theory; rather, such a theory “explicitly states something knowledge of which would suffice for interpreting utterances of speakers of the language to which it applies” (Davidson 1976, p. 171; my emphasis); or, he asks
What could we know that would enable us [to interpret another’s words]... [This] is not the same as the question what do we know that enables us to interpret the words of others. For there may easily be something we could know and don’t, knowledge of which would suffice for interpreting, while on the other hand it is not altogether obvious that there is anything we actually know which plays an essential role in interpretation. (Davidson 1973, p. 125; my emphasis).
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Lepore, E. (1999). Davidson and Understanding Language. In: de Caro, M. (eds) Interpretations and Causes. Synthese Library, vol 285. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9227-7_3
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