Davidson, Interpretation and First‐Person Constraints on MeaningFootnote¹

1 A version of this paper was first presented in 2003 to the Philosophy of Language Seminar of the Philosophy Programme in the University of London in honour of Donald Davidson. I am grateful to the audience on that occasion. I am also very grateful to Ophelia Deroy for incisive written comments and suggestions.The ideas developed here were discussed with Donald Davidson and Marcia Cavell on visits to Berkeley, These discussions were always a great source of pleasure and encouragement and I benefited greatly from them; though I never budged Davidson an inch in the direction I was recommending. I shall miss that fierce but admonishing stare Davidson would deliver when I had clearly gone too far in departing from his views. His strength of mind and the fundamental way he had of thinking about issues and seeing connections between them will be widely missed, but they will ensure his lasting impact on the subject.

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