Skepticism and Interpretation

Abstract

Donald Davidson has argued in a number of recent papers that attention to the necessarily public character of language shows that we cannot be massively mistaken about the world around us, and that consequently skeptical doubts about empirical knowledge are misplaced. arguments Davidson advances rely on taking as the fundamental methodological standpoint for investigating meaning and related concepts the standpoint of the interpreter of another speaker, on the grounds that it is from the interpreter's standpoint that we discover what constraints are placed on meaning by the public character of language. In this paper, I argue that although Davidson's arguments reveal important conceptual connections between meaning and belief on the one hand, and truth and interpretation on the other, they do not show that it is impossible that we are massively mistaken about the external world. essays I will be concentrating on are Davidson's The Method of Truth in Metaphysics, and A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge.' In part I, I advance and briefly defend an account of the assumptions underlying skepticism. In parts II and III, I examine the argument for the unintelligibility of massive error Davidson advances in The Method of Truth in Metaphysics. In parts IV and V, I examine the argument against skepticism in A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge. I conclude in part VI with a criticism of the central argument for a coherence theory of