The Essential Davidson 1st Edition

by Donald Davidson (Author),‎ Ernie Lepore (Introduction),‎ Kirk Ludwig (Introduction)

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ISBN-13: 978-0199288861

ISBN-10: 0199288860

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The Essential Davidson compiles the most celebrated papers of one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers. It distills Donald Davidson's seminal contributions to our understanding of ourselves, from three decades of essays, into one thematically organized collection. A new, specially written introduction by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on his work, offers a guide through the ideas and arguments, shows how they interconnect, and reveals the systematic coherence of Davidson's worldview.
Davidson's philosophical program is organized around two connected projects. The first is that of understanding the nature of human agency. The second is that of understanding the nature and function of language, and its relation to the world. Accordingly, the first part of the book presents Davidson's investigation of reasons, causes, and intentions, which revolutionized the philosophy of action. This leads to his notable doctrine of anomalous monism, the view that all mental events are physical events, but that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. The second part of the book presents the famous essays in which Davidson set out his highly original and influential philosophy of language, which founds the theory of meaning on the theory of truth.
These fifteen classic essays will be invaluable for anyone interested in the study of mind and language. Fascinating though they are individually, it is only when drawn together that there emerges a compelling picture of man as a rational linguistic animal whose thoughts, though not reducible to the material, are part of the fabric of the world, and whose knowledge of his own mind, the minds of others, and the world around him is as fundamental to his nature as the power of thought and speech itself.

The Essential Davidson

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Donald Davidson (1917-2003) was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Professor at Stanford, Princeton, Rockefeller, and the University of Chicago. He was a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Paperback: 290 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (February 23, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0199288860
ISBN-13: 978-0199288861
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 0.6 x 6.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,632,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Jeffrey Rubard

He Took His Stands

May 18, 2015

Format: Paperback

From about 1967 to his death in 2003, Donald Davidson was the preeminent American philosopher. He didn't write about everything, but everything he did write on he wrote well about: many sectors of contemporary analytic philosophy have concealed within them a hidden sensitivity to one of Davidson's bons mots.

Davidson's collected papers now run to five volumes, and they are not cheap; thusly, if this anthology compiled by two of his biggest fans, Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, were at all adequate it would be an important introduction to his thought for non-completists. It is. Lepore and Ludwig collect Davidson's most *influential* writings and his most *representative* ones as well: every student of analytic philosophy halfway advanced in the trade will know of "Truth and Meaning" (containing Davidson's famous inversion of Tarski's logical analysis of truth to serve the purposes of semantics) and "Mental Events" (containing Davidson's infamous arguments against any but an "anomalous" monism), but Davidson spent just as much care on the ontology of events in "The Logical Form of Action Sentences" and the defense of language as fundamentally idiolectic in "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs".

Since it has been a while since Davidson was riding tall, his scruples about modality learned from his teacher Quine and his lack of interest in psychological discoveries about the brain -- he doubted the latter were even possible -- may seem weird to younger readers. However, if you suppose you have an interest in philosophical argument, Davidson's arguments (particularly in "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", where he takes Kuhnian "paradigms" apart in a masterful way) are still the gold standard for ontological parsimony and ability to convince; and simply because we have scientific data or a formal calculus is not reason enough to suppose that data or calculus are fundamentally relevant to the study of rationality.

We are unlikely to hear cries of "Back to Davidson" anytime soon, but that is partially because we have fundamentally never left his world. Highly recommended for passionate students of philosophy: get the gist and return to contemporaries refreshed.

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BDF

Fine selection of Davidson's work

June 18, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

As a Continental writer, I have never understood how this supremely gifted person was seduced away from Classics and from a wonderful dissertation on Gadder by Willard van Orman Quine. Even more damaging to my preconception, I met him on the beach during a convention at Samos, Greece. He was modest, engaging, and interested in what I had to say. Only at the end did we exchange names and I realized who I was talking with. His work on radical interpretation and on metaphors remains well with everyone's attention.

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Christopher Richards

A great starting point

October 8, 2008

Format: Paperback

Donald Davidson has a reputation as a difficult philosopher. This reputation is not unfounded. Reading a Davidson essay that was referred to elsewhere (in my case, my first introduction was "Mental Events") is how most people first read him, but that's no way to get familiar with Davidson. We can object all we want to specific essays, or formulations, but Davidson's work forms one of the great systems of 20th century philosophy. Since he wrote no single book that introduces his whole philosophy, we have to scrounge around and read essays, following up interesting leads and lamenting that there is no one place to start.

Enter this book. It is missing a few important essays like "The Structure and Content of Truth" and "Thought and Talk," but that's forgivable given the accessibility of many of his most important essays in a single spot. Reading a single Davidson essay is a difficult task, and piecing together his views is even harder, but to begin unraveling the Davidsonian web it's hard to start anywhere better than here.

The editors provide a great introduction, which should help the reader orient themselves around the work. After reading a number of Davidson essays and not really understanding much beyond the surface, the introduction illuminated the basic structure of his project and made understanding Davidson a pleasure (though he is still difficult, the difficulty is rather like solving a puzzle), rather than an exercise in frustration mixed with pleasure. The editors, sadly, organized the book backwards. The truth work should come first, then the action work. But, then, I'd probably be complaining about that.

It is lacking, however, in fine-grained detail and explication. For that reason, I recommend this book in conjunction with Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig's "Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language, and Reality" for anyone interested in his philosophy. It is tough going, even with a guide, but reading Davidson is worthwhile: it's necessary to have at least a passing acquaintance with his work if you're interested in philosophy in the last thirty years; he will be remembered as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, and for good reason.

The only reason I took off one star is because, despite all the pros of this book, I don't really like the organization, there are essays that should be here but aren't, and the introduction could be better. But, this is nitpicking; anyone remotely interested should buy, own, and read this book with relish.

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If you were stranded on a desert island and were only allowed one Davidson book.....

The editors gave themselves quite a task when they decided to compile this book, which aims to bring together in one handy volume the essential works of Davidson.Read more

Published on March 21, 2006 by Randall Helzerman

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