Product Description

Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective is the long-awaited third volume of philosophical writings by Donald Davidson, whose influence on philosophy since the 1960s has been deep and broad. His first two collections, published by OUP in the early 1980s, are recognized as contemporary classics. Now Davidson presents a selection of his work on knowledge, mind, and language from the 1980s and the 1990s. We all have knowledge of our own minds, knowledge of the contents of other minds, and knowledge of the shared environment. Davidson examines the nature and status of each of these three sorts of knowledge, and the connections and differences among them. Along the way he has illuminating things to say about truth, human rationality, and the relations among language, thought, and the world. This new volume offers a rich and rewarding feast for anyone interested in philosophy today, and is essential reading for anyone working on its central topics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #493025 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Pascal Engel, Revue Philosophique
"Réconcilier, comme ce volume s'en donne le programme, connaissance de soi, connaissance d'autrui, et connaissance du monde commun, n'est pas un programme aisé..."

Review
Davidson's philosophical project is one of the most remarkable and productive of the twentieth century. (Kirk Ludwig, Mind Journal )

There is a wealth of fascinating ideas here ... Davidson's project is ambitious, but his vision is immensely powerful and its execution highly ingenious. It is a very considerable achievement at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. (Philosophical Investigations )

Davidson writes philosophy like Wagner wrote operas: nothing less than everything is ever at stake. (Jerry Fodor, London Review of Books )

Ces essais contiennent les principes de sa théorie de la connaissance. Réconcilier, comme ce volume s'en donne le programme, connaissance de soi, connaissance d'autrui, et connaissance du monde commun, n'est pas un programme aisé. Quoi qu'il en soit, l'ambition est là, et la constance, la profondeur de la recherche de Davidson depuis une vingtaine d'années sont manifestes. A peu près tous les thèmes classiques de la philosophie analytique sont ici retravaillés, approfondis, et modifiés, dans une prose extrêmement travaillée. Peu de philosophes ont eu une influence si forte sur la philosophie de ces derniè res dé cennies, aussi bien dans les pays anglophones qu'en Europe. Qu'on suive ou non Davidson dans son ambitieux projet, qui ne vise rien moins qu'à concilier naturalisme et normativité, la lecture de ce volume est un must. (Pascal Engel, Revue Philosophique )

Jerry Fodor, London Review of Books
"Davidson writes philosophy like Wagner wrote operas: nothing less than everything is ever at stake."

Customer Reviews

SAFETY OF IGNORANCE OR IGNORANCE OF SAFETY
SAFETY OF IGNORANCE OR IGNORANCE OF SAFETY
"Subjective, Intresubjective, Objective" ("SIO") is the title of the third book of five volume collection of Donald Davidson's essays.
The order of the subsections of the book, SIO, does not follow direction of Davidsons revision of the Cartesian or empircists epistemology (CEE). According to Davidson CEE at first stept assumes raw experience. At second step, one finds out what is in his own mind, then he finds out what is in the outside world, and finally he finds what is in other's mind, therefore the CEE order is SOI.
Davidson revision is reverse, it is IOS. So why are subsections of the book ordered SIO? It is because "SIO" is continuation of attack on subjective/objective dualism in "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", and I think that one may read the title "SIO" as: intersubjective is a basis of objective. Such fuzzy concept of intersubjective objectivity is comprehesively elaborated in the terms of triangulation,esspecially in the last section of the book titled Objective.
However, although you anchor knowledge of the world in the realm of intersubjectivity it does not entail that you do not have a problem of first person knowledge to cope with it. One reason is that the very presumption of objectivity being intersubjective is commited to language, or more specifically, to interpretaion. Davidson's line of reasonig is the following: if it is true that a speaker means what he intends, it is necessary for the speaker to know his own mind, otherwise there will be nothing to interpret.
So far so good, but Davidson must solve the puzzle that the contents of our minds are detremined by external factors and we know our minds without appealing to evidence. There is always something that we are ignorant of, and this is the problem both for Davidson and for CEE. Davidson is to solve that puzzle if he does not want to retreat his theory back to CEE.
Davidson's solution is, and I think it is very exciting, to free ourselves from the assumption that there are objects before the mind, objects that may possess some properties which we may be ignorant of. So, it is not matter that is natural that there is something we could not know about the objects, what is actually matter is that there are no such things as thougt objects, therefore you are safe from the ignorance. Persuasive or convincing, it is up to you to decide.
What finally remains of the concept of subjectivity once we reject thought objects, the redear will find in Essay 3, The Myth of the Subjective, and Essay 4, What is present to the Mind.
But if you, for any reason, choose the modest way, you will still be commited to fact that even if there would be thought objects, they would be coming to our mind only partially, therefore our knowledge is always aspectual, and aspectuality is not incompleteness.
So, it is not that we are safe from ignorance, rather we are ignorant of our own safety (see Essay 5, Indeterminism and Antirealism).