Speaking the Truth (May 13, 1970)

Davidson’s first lecture begins with a discussion of the theoretical importance of the notion of speaking the truth, continues with a characterization of the structure of an adequate semantic theory, and concludes with some remarks on the connections between truth-theoretic semantics and the underlying levels of representation posited by syntacticians in the generative tradition. What is special about speaking the truth, Davidson claims, is that anyone who is competent with a language and who knows the relevant facts about the world is in a position to know whether a speaker of that language speaks the truth on any given occasion. It is no surprise, then, that truth is central to Davidson’s conception of semantics: for much of the lecture, he defends the claim that a Tarskian truth theory can serve as the basis for a theory of meaning. At the end of the lecture, he suggests that the logical forms associated with sentences by an empirically supported Tarskian truth theory for a language can be identified with the Chomskyan deep structures of those sentences.

Invariants of Translation (May 29, 1970)

In his final lecture, Davidson turns away from the project of providing semantic analyses for particular natural language constructions. He outlines his theory of radical translation—that is, his theory of how one can come to know that a candidate T-theory for a given object language is correct. By assuming (on the one hand) that whenever an object-language speaker accepts a sentence, that sentence is true, and (on the other hand) that we as theoreticians generally have correct beliefs about the world, Davidson argues that we can arrive at a correct T-theory for an object language. He concludes with some reflections on the fact that this procedure seems to make it inevitable that we will discover the recursive structure of our own language in the languages of others, as well as the preponderance of our beliefs in the minds of our peers.

Quotation (May 20, 1970)

Davidson’s third lecture concerns quotation. He considers and rejects a number of semantic treatments of quotation, including the “proper-name theory,” the “picture theory,” and the “spelling theory.” He then presents his own preferred theory, which assimilates the semantics of quotation to the semantics of demonstratives. According to Davidson’s “demonstrative theory,” quotation marks refer to the material they flank, which is not always a semantic part of the sentence containing it. The flexibility of demonstrative reference, Davidson claims, allows his theory to account for mixed use/mention cases: in these cases, the demonstrative introduced by the quotation marks refers to a part of the sentence which does make a semantic contribution. Moreover, since the demonstrative theory reduces quotation to demonstration, it is susceptible to a truth-theoretic treatment if demonstratives are.

Truth and Ontology (May 15, 1970)

Davidson begins his second lecture by arguing that, because the truth of a sentence must be relativized to a speaker and time, a truth-theory for a language will require an ontology containing at least sentences, speakers, and times. He then contrasts his preferred approach to semantics with a number of alternatives, including fact-based theories of truth, substitutional theories of quantification, and what he calls the “double-negation” theory of truth. He argues that, given certain plausible assumptions, it can be shown that fact-based theories are committed to the implausible conclusion that there is only one fact. Drawing on reasoning originally due to John Wallace, he then argues that the substitutional account of quantification cannot be correct either. He finds the “double-negation” theory equally defective, as it fails to account for sentences in which truth is predicated of named propositions.

Attributions of Attitude (May 22, 1970)

The subject of Lecture IV is attributions of attitude. In it, Davidson extends his theory of indirect quotation, which had appeared in 1968, to propositional attitude ascriptions more generally. He begins by criticizing rival accounts due to Quine, Scheffler, Church, and Frege. His positive proposal turns on the idea that the complementizer clauses embedded in ascriptions of attitude are not semantically a part of the embedding sentence. According to the paratactic account he favors, attributions of attitude involve demonstrative reference to an utterance of the speaker’s, which is claimed to stand in some relation to some utterance or attitude of the ascribee.

Introduction

This introduction to Davidson’s 1970 Locke Lectures begins by describing their historical background, paying particular attention to the factors that made the philosophical community at Oxford at the time when they were delivered particularly receptive to the ideas in them. It then provides a brief summary of the contents of each of the lectures and gestures at how they depart from previously published works, both those that appeared before 1970 and those that would appear later. Special attention is paid to passages that either have never appeared before in print or appear in the lectures in a novel form.

Adverbial Modification (May 27, 1970)

Lecture V takes up the semantics of adverbial modifiers. Davidson begins with some methodological remarks, offering reasons for optimism about the prospects for giving a truth-theoretic semantics for a full natural language. He then argues that we have reason independent of the semantics of adverbial modifiers to think that an adequate semantics for English will need to quantify over events. Once the possibility of covert quantification over events is granted, Davidson goes on to show how adverbial modification can be given a natural treatment in an event-semantic framework. He concludes with some remarks on the notion of logical form.