Donald Davidson (Davidson Donald)

(p. 1917)
Born March 6, 1917 in Springfield (pc. Mass.). He graduated from Harvard University. He taught at Stanford, Princeton, University of Chicago, and Rockefeller University. Since 1981 - Professor, University of California at Berkeley.
Davidson developed the theory of action, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind and theory of meaning.

The same event is described in different ways: taking a plane, it acts as a ground actions, taken in physicalist terms - as a cause of action. This means that the mental and physical events can be in the causal relationship. However, strict psychophysical laws, ie. laws connecting mental and physical events, there is. In this paper Mental events (Mental Events, 1970) philosopher shows how the three above assumptions can be brought into mutual correspondence. Although the strict law, establishing a link between mental description of the event and its physical action, there is, nevertheless there is a strict law that establishes the relationship between physicalist description of the event and its effect. Davidson's position is called 'anomalous monism': monism of this position is to establish the identity of mental events with physical, as an anomaly - in the denial of psychophysical laws.

Natural language has a 'composite' nature, ie. capable of infinite education and more new proposals. In order to adequately display of this nature Davidson proposes to rely on a recursive theory of truth proposed by A. Tarski. This theory allows for each sentence of a language L stating the theorem in the metalanguage M. This theorem has the form of 'T': '' s 'is true if and only if p' (with 's' means the proposal language L). Assuming that the value of the proposals set out the terms of its truth, the 'T' specifies the value of sentences in L, without using the very notion of value.

However, the use of 'T' in the theory of value is problematic, since 'T' only requires that denoted by 's' proposal was equivalent to 'p' in terms of truth or falsity. But such equivalence may have and suggestions with various values. Ways to circumvent this difficulty in the process of empirical development and testing of the theory of meaning, Davidson shows in the work of radical interpretation (Radical interpretation, 1973). When interpreting an unknown language should, in his opinion, to adhere to 'rules of leniency'. This rule requires to consider the speaker's belief as logically coherent and relevant world around.

The works included in the collections of Davidson Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, 1981) and Essays on actions and events (Essays on Actions and Events, 1982).