Donald DavidsonProblems of Rationality
OXFORD: CLARENDON PRESS2004
Contents
Provenance of the Essays and Acknowledgmentsix Introductionxiii
Marcia Cavell
Rationality and Value
1 1. The Problem of Objectivity (1995)3 2. Expressing Evaluations (1984)19 3. The Objectivity of Values (1995)39
ppendix
: Objectivity and Practical Reason (2000)52 4. The Interpersonal Comparison of Values (1986)59
Problems and Proposals
75 5. Turing's Test (1990)77 6. Representation and Interpretation (1990)87 7. Problems in the Explanation of Action (1987)101 8. Could There Be a Science of Rationality? (1995)117 9. What Thought Requires (2001)135 10. A Unified Theory of Thought, Meaning, and Action (1980)151
Irrationality
167 11. Paradoxes of Irrationality (1982)169 12. Incoherence and Irrationality (1985)189 13. Deception and Division (1986)199 14. Who is Fooled? (1997)213
end p.
viiAn Interview with Donald Davidson231
Ernie Lepore
Contents List of Volumes of Essays267
Donald Davidson
Index273
end p.
viii
Provenance of the Essays and Acknowledgments
Essay 1, 'The Problem of Objectivity', was published in
Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
(Leuven, June 1995), 203-20.Essay 2, 'Expressing Evaluations', was delivered as the Lindley Lecture and published as a Lindley Lecture monograph atthe University of Kansas, 1984.Essay 3, 'The Objectivity of Values', was first published in
El Trabajo Filosófico de Hoy en el Continente
, edited byCarlos Gutiérrez (Bogatá, Editorial ABC, 1995), 59-69. Translated into Serbo-Croatian by D. ö. Mileusni
ć
, it was later publishedin
Belgrade Circle
, 1-2 (1995), 177-88, both in English and Serbo-Croatian.Essay 4, 'The Interpersonal Comparison of Values', is a slightly altered version of 'Judging Interpersonal Interests', published in
Foundations of Social Choice Theory
, edited by J. Elster and A. Hylland (Cambridge University Press, 1986), 195-211.Essay 5, 'Turing's Test', was published in
Modelling the Mind
, edited by W. H. Newton-Smith and K. V. Wilkes (OxfordUniversity Press, 1990), 1-11.Essay 6, 'Representation and Interpretation', was published in
Modelling the Mind
, edited by W. H. Newton-Smith and K.V. Wilkes (Oxford University Press, 1990), 13-26.Essay 7, 'Problems in the Explanation of Action', was published in
Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honour of J. J.C. Smart
, edited by P. Pettit, R. Sylvan, and J. Norman (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 35-49.
end p.
ixEssay 8, 'Could There Be a Science of Rationality?', was first published in
International Journal of Philosophical Studies
,3 (1995), 1-16. Translated into Spanish by A. Nudler and S. Romaniuk, it was published in
La Rationalidad: Su Poder y sus Limites
, edited by O. Nudler (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996), 273-93.Essay 9, 'What Thought Requires', was first published in
The Foundations of Cognitive Science
, edited by J. Branquinho(Oxford University Press, 2001), 121-32. Translated into Chinese by Whi-Chuan Fang, it was reprinted in
Con-Temporary
, 1 1(2003).
Essay 10, 'A Unified Theory of Thought, Meaning, and Action', was first published as 'Toward a Unified Theory of Meaning and Action' in
Grazer Philosophische Studien
, 11 (1980), 1-12. It was subsequently published in
Essays on Truth, Language and Mind
, edited and translated into Polish by B. Stanosz (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1992).Essay 11, 'Paradoxes of Irrationality', was first published in
Philosophical Essays on Freud
, edited by R. Wollheim and J.Hopkins (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 289-305. It was published in Serbo-Croatian in
Filozofsko
č
itanje Frojda
, edited byO. Savi
ć
, who also translated the essay (Belgrade: IIC SSO Srbije, 1988). Translated into French by Pascal Engel, it was publishedin
Paradoxes de L'Irrationalité
(Combas: Éditions de L'Éclat, 1991). Translated into German by G. Grünkorn, it was published in
Motive, Gründe, Zwecke: Theorien praktischer Rationalität
, edited by S. Gosepath (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer TaschenbuchVerlag, 1999), 209-31. A precursor of this paper was delivered as the Ernest Jones Lecture before the British PsyohoanalyticAssociation on April 26, 1978.Essay 12, 'Incoherence and Irrationality', was presented at the Entretiens between Oxford and the Institut International dePhilosophie, 3-9 September 1984. It was published in
Dialectica
, 39 (1985), 345-54.Essay 13, 'Deception and Division', was first published in
The Multiple Self
, edited by J. Elster (Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986), 79-92. It was reprinted in
Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson
, edited by E.LePore and B. McLaughlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 138-48. Translated into French by P. Engel, it was published in
Paradoxesde L'Irrationalité
(Combas: Éditions de L'Éclat, 1991). It was published in Spanish
end p.
xin
Mente, Mundo y Acción
(Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós, 1992). Translated into Serbo-Croatian by Z. Lazovi
ć
, it was published in
Metafizi
ć
ki Ogledi
(Belgrade: Radionica Sic, Edicija Teorija, 1995).Essay 14, 'Who is Fooled?', was published in
Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality
, edited by J.-P. Dupuy(Stanford, Calif.: CSLI, 1997), 15-27.
end p.
xi
Introduction
This volume of essays has been virtually ready for publication for three years. In the summer of 2000, Ernie LePore came to Berkeley to stay with us for a week. Except for walks in the hills, meals, anexcursion or two, Ernie LePore and my husband spent the entire time going through his unpublished essays,deciding which ones to keep, and how to place and order them in the forthcoming volumes of collectedessays. They put together Volumes 3, 4, and 5 at that time. Ernie and I thought the volumes were ready to go.But Donald never let things out of his hand for publication until he had taken them as far as he thought hecould. He was clearly not ready to let the last two volumes of collected essays escape just yet. He diedunexpectedly before he had made the final changes and written an Introduction.At my request, immediately after Donald died Ernie came to Berkeley for three days. He helped melocate the essays and the volumes and make a number of preliminary arrangements. But there was a bit leftto be done. When Ernie left, Arpy Khatchirian, who has been of enormous help to me, and I were not inevery case sure which of several versions of an essay was the 'final' one. Then what little idea I had of thechanges Donald might have made came from sets of comments Arpy and I had independently given him andthat Donald had kept among the papers but had not incorporated into the text. All the changes we suggestedwere minor. Some he clearly would have accepted; with a few others I had to make a judgment call. And of course there may have been many changes he would have made had he been given the time. There is someoverlap in the essays, but except for exact duplications (noted at the end of Essay 3), Donald might well havewanted the overlap to remain.Donald's Introduction to Volume 3,
Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective
, begins with a paragraphstating the themes that connect
end p.
xiiithe essays. He follows this with a brief paragraph on each of them individually. I have taken this asmy model here. Many of these essays I knew well, and Donald and I had discussed them; all, I had at leastheard him give. The Introduction is of course in my words. (In two cases Donald preceded the essay with asummary, as required by the publication in which the essay appeared. I have incorporated these summariesinto my introductions.) I may have made errors of emphasis, even of content.I am grateful beyond words to Ernie LePore. My thanks also to Branden Fitelson, who read those of Donald's essays that draw on decision theory (essays 2, 8, and 10), suggesting a few changes in my own paragraphs in the Introduction; and, once again, to Arpy Khatchirian.
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Problems of Rationality
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