Does Conversation Need Shared Language? Davidson and Gadamer on Communicative Understanding (original) (raw)

2014, The Southern Journal of Philosophy

In a rare discussion of Gadamer’s work, Davidson takes issue with Gadamer’s claim that successful communication requires that interlocutors share a common language. While he is right to see an difference between his own views and Gadamer’s on this point, Davidson appears to have misunderstood what motivates Gadamer’s position, eliding it with that of his more familiar conventionalist interlocutors. This paper articulates Gadamer’s view of the role of language in communicative understanding as an alternative to both Davidson’s and that of the conventionalist writers Davidson critiques. It is argued, first, that Gadamer employs a conception of what individuates a language, and thus of what it means for two speakers to ‘share’ a language, that Davidson never considers. By emphasizing the role of ‘application’ in the historical development of languages, Gadamer develops a view in which languages are distinguished not by their particular semantic or syntactic rules, but by subtle differences between the concepts they express. Second, it is argued that the instances of ‘asymmetrical’ communication—communication between interlocutors who have different sets of concepts at their disposal—that motivate Gadamer’s position pose a challenge to Davidson’s account of interpretative charity.

The Principle of Charity and Intercultural Communication

International Journal of Communication, 2011

This article argues that the principle of “charity” and the debate over it in contemporary philosophy of language are of interest and importance for communication scholars in general, and for those interested in intercultural communication in particular. In support of this claim, I present in the first section of the paper an overview of “radical interpretation,” a notion used by Donald Davidson in order to account for linguistic communication. In the second section, I discuss the principle of charity (as it arises in radical interpretation), according to which interpreters must construe the beliefs and utterances of others as largely rational and true. In the third section, I begin to explore the ramifications the principle of charity holds for intercultural communication.

Journal of Dialogue Studies Volume 2 Number 1 Paper 3: ‘Just Send Me Word’: the Promise of Dialogue

This paper specifically concerns an aspect of the central place given to dialogue in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Though understanding is presented as the unquestioned achievement of dialogue, there is scant attention to a prior question: ‘What draws us into dialogue in the first place?’ Gadamer’s treatment of dialogical understanding as an event tends to obscure the necessary pre-conditions of its emergence. He correctly assumes that texts, artworks, literature speaks directly to us, even disarm us by their address. Yet, what disposes us to listen? Even if we hear nothing in a dialogical claim, what impels us to listen again or more closely to what might be being said? The paper attempts to answer this question and throw light on this, an obscurer aspect of Gadamer’s thinking. We will argue in the vein of philosophical hermeneutics and seek an answer to the question its approach to dialogical understanding supposes but seems neither to ask nor answer. Our central argument is that within the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, the importance of dialogical exchange lies not in what is transmitted between interlocutors but in the respective hermeneutic effects of that exchange. In dialogue there is no literal ex-change of ‘hermeneutic content’ between one speaker and another. We shall argue that it is not what is literally exchanged that matters but, rather, what participation in that exchange can unexpectedly bring about within the understanding of each speaker and often contrary to their willing and doing.

Gadamer's linguisticality of understanding

This is an attempt to analyse the linguisticality of understanding as expounded by Gadamer. Language indeed clothes and unveils our openness to the world. The paper shows the difference between understanding and linguisticality of understanding. It also argues in line with Heidegger that language is the house of being. This is neither ontology nor metaphysics but rather an exercise of hermeneutics. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has shown that language affects cognition. Can we reduce being to language? How does language affect our reasoning?

Davidson's Philosophy of Communication

Communication Theory, 2006

Donald Davidson, one of the main figures in 20th-century analytic philosophy, can be justifiably described as a philosopher of communication. In the first part of this paper, a key concept in Davidson’s philosophy—radical interpretation—is presented and explicated. Then, the second part shows how this notion bears upon key issues and problems in communication theory. It is argued that Davidson’s ideas provide support for a constitutive view of communication and that his account of the relation between communication and social convention promotes the unity of communication as a field of research. The final part of the paper discusses the ramifications of radical interpretation for the domain of intercultural communication.

No Need to Speak the Same Language?

2014

Bjorn T. Ramberg’s book focuses on Davidson’s work in the philosophy of language, published between 1984 and the appearance of the book. Recent papers provide the focus for an overview of Davidson’s philosophy of language and its relations to broader debates and influences. Still, the reader is warned: the author “cannot claim” that the book “is in every detail a faithful representation or development of Davidson’s own current theory.” Instead, what we have is a “reconstruction” of Davidson on language and meaning, an account “Davidsonian in spirit and in all its fundamental features.” The result is a projection of Davidson’s views, or important aspects of them, in a particular direction: Davidson and interpretation in process. The following critical discussion of main issues in Ramberg’s book should not distract potential readers from this useful and thoughtful overview of Davidson on interpretation and meaning. The book is an “introductory” reconstruction of Davidson on interpreta...

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