Donald Davidson's Philosophical Writings

Donald Davidson was one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century and with a reception and influence that, of American philosophers, is perhaps matched only by that of W. V. O. Quine. Davidson's ideas, presented in a series of essays (and one posthumous monograph) from the 1960s onwards, have had an impact in a range of areas from semantic theory through to epistemology and ethics. His work exhibits a breadth of approach, as well as a unitary and systematic character, that is unusual within twentieth century analytic philosophy. Thus, although he acknowledged an important debt to Quine, Davidson's thought amalgamates influences (though these are not always explicit) from a variety of sources, including Quine, C. I. Lewis, Frank Ramsey, Immanuel Kant and the later Wittgenstein. And while often developed separately, Davidson's ideas nevertheless combine in such a way as to provide a single integrated approach to the problems of knowledge, action, language and mind. The breadth and unity of his thought, in combination with the sometimes-terse character of his prose, means that Davidson is not an easy writer to approach. Given the demanding nature of his work, it is perhaps only to be expected that it would receive a range of interpretations and assessments, and this is especially true of much of the engagement with Davidson's thought that has developed in recent years. In a number of publications, Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, in particular, have advanced a critical interpretation of Davidson's philosophy that focuses on his earlier work, especially his contributions to the theory of meaning and philosophy of action, but that is largely negative in its assessment of the cogency of Davidson's arguments, and the philosophical viability of the positions he advances. At the same time, the re-publication of Davidson's later essays has disseminated them to a wider, and often newly-appreciative, audience, while the work, not only of Richard Rorty, but also of Robert Brandom, and, to some extent, John McDowell, is suggestive of a broader and more positive engagement with Davidson's thinking. In addition, Davidson's work has also been an important, if sometimes contentious, point of focus for philosophical interaction between analytic and so-called 'continental' thought (particularly in relation to hermeneutic and literary theory. Regardless of divergence in interpretation, then, Davidson's work still attracts considerable philosophical attention, and seems likely to have a continuing influence and significance.