L A DESTREZA RECEPTIVA LEER Y LA COMPRENSIÓN LECTORA

2.2.1 Primitive evidence: hold true attitudes

It is a constraint on radical interpretation that an interpretive theory must be based on non-semantic evidence, specifically on observable (behavioural) evidence, or on evidence that can ultimately be obtained from the obser- vation of behaviour (and the interaction between speaker and environment and speaker and interpreter).

Quine took the relevant behavioural evidence for the radical translator to consist of prompted assent: assent to sentences prompted by specified types of sensory stimuli.1 Davidson takes the primary evidence of radical interpretation to be an attitude: the attitude of holding true a sentence, relativized to time. Mostly, this evidence is manifested as sincere assertion of the sentence, but Davidson suggests that hold true attitudes towards a sentence can sometimes be inferred from the utterance of another sentence (we shall come back to this below).

This means that the evidence is not purely behaviouristic: it is of a psy- chological nature. The evidence consists of anattitude that the speaker has towards a sentence, particularly towards a sentence uttered by the speaker, namely that she holds it true.2 _{Quine’s evidence (prompted assent) is of a}

more behavioural nature. Assent need not be sincere, whereas holding true a sentence (or rather, sincere assertion) is: Davidson assumes that sincerity can be found out prior to knowing the speaker’s language. He suggests that in case of his evidence a further reduction to behavioural evidence may be possible, but that is clearly not his main concern.3 As opposed to Quine, Davidson rejects the idea that intentional notions like holding true a sen- tence (which is a belief) can be reduced to non-intentional vocabulary, so in as far as a further behavioural reduction is possible it will not eliminate the intentional vocabulary: a description of behaviour as intentional inherently involves such vocabulary for Davidson (Davidson would presumably say the same of Quine’s notion of assent).4

By taking the hold true attitude as evidence Davidson seems to meet the most important constraint of the project: not to assume any prior knowledge of the meaning of the speaker’s words (i.e. any knowledge of semantic facts). The evidence involves psychological facts, but no semantic facts.5

1

Cf. chapter II of Quine (1960) (paragraph 7).

2_{Although Davidson suggests that hold true attitudes towards related sentences can}

sometimes be inferred in case of utterances other than assertions, see below. If the evidence is restricted to asserted sentences, it amounts to the identification of sincere assertion (and maybe hold true attitudes that can be inferred from sincere assertions on the basis of logic).

3_{Cf. BBM, p. 142.} 4

Cf. BBM, p. 154. Cf. TT, p. 162.

5

It may be objected thatsentence is a semantic notion (and maybe the same goes for

On the other hand, taking the attitude of holding true as basic evidence may seem to conflict with another of Davidson’s tenets: the idea that be- liefs cannot be identified independently of what a speaker means, due to the interdependence of meaning and belief. Thinking that a sentence is true, however, is a belief. Davidson thinks of holding true as a special kind of be- lief, that can be identified prior to having interpreted the speaker’s language, because it is non-individuative. The attitude can be described without hav- ing to appeal to the meaning of a sentence and can be manifested towards various sentences. Holding true a sentence does not imply anything as to the meaning of the sentence.6

Unfortunately, Davidson rarely reflects in more than a superficial way on how the primitive evidence of radical interpretation is available to the radical interpreter. It seems that Davidson holds that identifying a hold true attitude is not much harder than identifying an utterance of a sentence as being intentional and linguistic in the first place. The possibility of radical interpretation as described by Davidson therefore relies on the assumption that the interpreter can find out that the speaker holds true certain sentences prior to knowing what those sentences mean.

2.2.2 The identification of hold true attitudes

Jonathan Bennett, in a review of Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation that is otherwise also extremely critical towards most aspect of Davidson’s philosophy of language, especially criticizes Davidson for his explanation of the evidence of radical interpretation.7 _{Bennett imputes philosophical}

negligence to Davidson by taking the complex notion ‘intending to express a truth’ as an ‘unanalysed, unexamined lump’. Bennett writes that it is implausible that at a stage where we do not yet know the meaning of a speaker’s sentences we can distinguish attitudes like believing s to be true, believing s to be plausible, believing s to be probable, believing s to be desirable, and so on.

In fact, Davidson does suggest that we should take into account these more fine-grained distinctions of attitudes towards sentences. Davidson ar- gues that in a more developed theory probability and desire play a role from the start. In later works he takes the speaker’s preference that one sentence be true rather than another as basic. In particular he argues that degrees of holding true (probabilities) need to be taken into account when identifying the meaning of theoretical predicates, since speaker’s do not have binary attitudes towards sentences containing such predicates.8

speaker’s language, except for the individuation of its sentences (or rather: utterances of sentences).

6

Cf. Gl¨uer, p. 278. Cf. RI, p. 135.

7

Bennett (1985), p. 611 and p. 617-618.

Nevertheless, Davidson is convinced (also while elaborating a more re- fined theory) that an attitude as to whether a sentence is true or false is the key to understanding for the radical interpreter, and it may be this assump- tion that Bennett thinks is questionable. Intuitively, most of a speaker’s utterances are not concerned with truth, i.e. they are not (sincere) asser- tions. Moreover, many sentences cannot even be held true: imperatives, interrogatives, etc. have no truth value. (Davidson writes in Moods and Performances that non-indicative sentences have no truth value.)9

Davidson willingly admits that we are normally not concerned with truth when communicating, but he thinks that truth plays a crucial role in un- derstanding themeaning of linguistic expressions (as opposed to their use). Davidson argues that we can only understand an indicative sentence if we understand under what conditions it is true. This is what we have to learn when we learn a language. However, truth-conditional understanding is not restricted to indicative sentences. According to Davidson’s account of the logical form of moods other than the indicative mood truth conditions play an essential role in the understanding of all kinds of sentences: the under- standing of all other kinds of sentences (interrogatives, imperatives, etc.) presupposes the understanding of related indicatives. For example, inter- rogatives can only be understood by understanding the indicative sentences that they imply as possible answers (if uttered as a question), or imperatives by understanding under what conditions what they command is obeyed (if uttered as a command).10

This reasoning inspires Davidson’s idea on how a truth theory is able to deal with moods other than the indicative. Utterances of sentences of a non- indicative mood actually consist of two utterances of indicative sentences: one of them is a ‘mood setter’ (which is true if and only if the other sentence has the mood specified by it) and the other is the related indicative (in the sense suggested above).11 The details of this account need not concern us here, what matters is the idea that for Davidson the meaning of all sentences can be analysed in terms of indicative sentences.

Davidson thinks that this primacy of indicative sentences in the theory of meaning carries over to a primacy of the (related) hold true attitude in the use of language. Davidson suggests in Thought and Talk that from many kinds of utterances (other than sincere assertions) we can infer that the speaker holds true certain sentences. For example, if the speaker utters a command, we can infer that he thinks that some related (indicative) sentence is false that he wants to be made true by someone’s obeying the command.12

TP, p. 65.

9_{Cf. MP, p. 121.} 10

Cf. TP, p. 124.

11_{For open questions there must be more than two related indicative sentences. David-}

son does not consider this.

12

However, it is not obvious why the primacy of truth conditions in the understanding of all linguistic expressions implies that the ‘correlating’ atti- tude (holding true) should be the primary evidence for the radical interpreter as to what the speaker means.

One difficulty is in Davidson’s idea that the utterance of other than indicative sentences implies that the speaker holds true (or false) certain related sentences. We grant that this is so, but how could the radical inter- preter identify these related sentences at a point where she has no idea yet as to the meaning of any of the sentences? This is only possible if the inter- preter already knows the syntax of the sentences, particularly the syntax of the moods.

In Radical Interpretation Davidson indeed suggests that logical struc- ture can be read into the language prior to identifying the meaning of any sentence: the interpreter can identify sentences always held true and study patterns of inferences among those sentences.13 This presumably also in- volves identifying what moods sentences have.14 In that case the interpreter could for example recognize a sentence as an imperative or an interrogative without yet knowing its meaning. One may think that in that case, if the speaker utters an interrogative sentence, the interpreter can infer from the logical form of the interrogative sentence that the speaker (if he is sincere) is ignorant as to the truth value of related indicative sentences (even though the interpreter knows the meaning of neither of these two sentences).15

One problem with this idea is that the mood of the sentence is indepen- dent of the force of its utterance (i.e. asserting, commanding, questioning, etc.). What is formally an interrogative can be used not to ask something, but to assert or imply something (e.g. a rhetorical question). Therefore, inferences can only be made on the basis of additional assumptions. Nev- ertheless, as long as there is a conventional association between mood and force this need no be a problem for the identification of hold true attitudes towards related sentences.

A more important problem is the circularity in this idea: identifying logical form also depends on the recognition of hold true attitudes, so the recognition of the hold true attitude (either towards the sentence uttered or towards a related sentence) cannot be based without circularity on a prior recognition of logical form, including the mood of sentences. Therefore, if interpretation starts by identifying logical form (without yet identifying the truth conditions of any sentence), this must involve classifying sentences into moods and giving a truth conditional analysis of non-indicative sentences.

Would it be possible—theoretically—to identify the compositional struc- ture ofall sentences without having interpreted any sentence yet? Is it—for

13

Cf. RI, p. 136. Cf. Lepore and Ludwig (2005), p. 175-178. Cf. TP, pp. 67-75.

14

Cf. Lepore and Ludwig (2005), pp. 178, footnote 152.

example—possible to identify what structure is required to build interrog- atives without having interpreted any question yet? In order to do so (it seems) the interpreter at least needs to recognize when the speaker is ask- ing a question (without knowing its meaning yet) in order to identify the structure of the conventionally related interrogative mood.

However, maybe it is more plausible that interpretation starts with ut- terances of simple sentences (like ‘Gavagai’) and that the logical structure is identified in concert with interpretation of predicates. When the interpreter has sufficient insight into the structure of the sentences, he is able to draw inferences and identify sentences related to the ones uttered that are held true or held false.

The question as to what is possible here may be partly empirical. We shall therefore not pursue it further here.