Davidson on First-Person Authority

Abstract

Davidson’s explanation of first-person authority in utterance of sentences of the form ‘I V that p’ derives first-person authority from the requirements of interpretation of speech. His account is committed to the view that utterance sentences are truth-bearers, that believing that p is a matter of holding true an utterance sentence, and that a speaker’s knowledge of what he means gives him knowledge of what belief he expresses by his utterance. These claims are here faulted. His explanation of first-person authority by reference to the requirements of interpretability is committed to the view that all understanding involves interpretation. This is argued to be a misconception of understanding and of speaker’s meaning. Davidson’s account involves acceptance of the cognitive assumption that normally when a person Vs that p, he knows that he does. This assumption is challenged. Throughout, Davidson’s conception is compared and contrasted with Wittgenstein’s.