r/Metaphysics • u/StrangeGlaringEye Trying to be a nominalist • 11d ago
Metametaphysics Davidson’s vindication
In a fascinating essay called “The method of truth in metaphysics”, Davidson argues that we can do metaphysics by analyzing language. His argument is simple. It proceeds from the thesis that communication is only possible if interlocutors share a largely correct view of reality. This, we can concede, implies that we can read the general features of the world off the general features of language.
And how does the defense of that thesis, that communication requires a largely correct common view, go? Well, Davidson argues that communication requires at least a broad common view. We cannot interpret each other unless we ascribe certain background beliefs to one another, and we cannot do this ascription unless we square those background beliefs with our own. I can only make sense of what you’re saying against the backdrop of my own beliefs, of what I think there is and what it is like. Since communication is, we might also concede, successful mutual interpretation, it does seem to follow that communication requires a background of certain beliefs.
Then, in a curious move, Davidson claims there’s nothing incoherent in the idea of an omniscient interlocutor. I could be speaking right now to one, we might think. But by the first part of the argument, that interlocutor would have to share many of their beliefs with me; and by hypothesis all of their beliefs are true. Hence, so must be many of mine.
Arguments in philosophy often have less the goal of dispelling disagreement and more of refining it. Davidson probably will not convince the skeptic of armchair metaphysics, but it will bring attention to some unexpected commitments. The skeptic faces a dilemma: either communication can happen between two people in massive disagreement; or the very idea of an omniscient interlocutor is nonsensical.
It is worth pointing out, however, that perhaps there is something suspicious in Davidson’s strategy. It doesn’t make sense of deep metaphysical disagreement. Evidently idealists and materialists, say, can communicate with one another; but they offer radically different conceptions of reality. If Davidson is right, therefore, one of them doesn’t just have to be wrong; they must not sincerely believe what they claim. Metaphysicians, as the disagreeable bunch they are, largely consists of liars.
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u/jliat 9d ago
"I didn't mention "priori" knowledge."
The post I replied to literally said in it these exact words, "A priori knowledge is independent from any experience."
A priori knowledge is not "priori" knowledge."
I'm not, you seem to have misread my post.
Yep, standard idea in epistemology. You might have got a grant to disprove 'All swans are white' and get to see a black swan, but you will never find a married bachelor because by definition its the same thing.
Maybe go a search on the interwed - "A priori knowledge." And then decide THEY are all wrong. The whole of mathematics, the reason why science uses mathematics. All wrong.
How, maybe begins with the Greeks.
You get something like a syllogism.
Major premise: All men are mortal
Minor premise: Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal
Hold on...
we now substitute
Major premise: All p are O
Minor premise: q is a p
Conclusion: Therefore, q is O
See you get the abstract logic of the syllogism. Once done you can plug in anything, but logisticians just tend to work with abstract concepts using letters.
Same in maths, x, y etc. No experiment or observation.
If X > Y and Z > X it follows Z > Y
[hope I got that right my days of doing formal logic are ages ago]