Lexicon of Arguments

 

Rorty II 21
Davidson/Rorty: There is no such thing as language, there is nothing one can learn or master. (There are rather provisional theories). There are no conventions how we communicate.
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Davidson I (a) 10
Stimulus/reaction/learning/Davidson: Thesis: would some selection mechanisms not be innate, nothing could be learned - stimulus is not perceptible in itself, it cannot be explained in a noncircular manner. Instead of one, two classes of events or objects: a) tables which are similar in a relevant manner b) responses that are also seen in a similar way - this relevant stimuli can be identified by triangulation: lines intersect. >Triangulation.
I 16
In order for the reactions of a person to be considered thoughts, they must have the concept of an object - the concept of the stimulus. So that one of the bell or the table - identification: since the bell or the table is identified only by means of the average of two (or more) sets of similarity reactions (lines of thought), having a bell-concept consists in recognizing the presence of the triangle, of one whose vertex is oneself.
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Frank I 669ff
Burge/Davidson/Putnam: historical learning situation. But no social community uses "twin earth water" in the evironment. The language usage is always "water". - Authority/Putnam/Burge: is thereby threatened - Davidson: one can learn "moon" correctly without ever having seen it.


Donald Davidson (1987): Knowing One's Own Mind, in: Proceedings and
Adresses of the American Philosophical Association LX (1987),441-4 58