Truth and Interpretation

Regardless of its particular topic, each of Donald Davidson's essays is part of a comprehensive program to address questions about language, mind and action, and their interconnections. Themes from this larger program permeate and bind his work on semantics: on the notions of meaning and truth, on theories of truth, reference, logical form and inference, compositionality, 'intentional' operators, indeterminacy, conceptual relativism, skepticism and metaphor.

Twenty-eight critical essays, including a substantial introduction to Davidson's philosophy of language, and three essays by Davidson himself, make up this volume. the volume's six sections correspond to the major sections of Davidson's 'Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation.' Each contains critical essays addressing, interpreting and further developing his views. The first section, written by the editor, gives an overview of the whole volume; the second section focuses on truth and meaning; the third, applications of Davidson's semantic theory; the fourth, radical interpretation; the fifth, language and reality, and the sixth, limits of the literal.