关键词: 戴维森, 实用主义, 语言, 意义, 彻底诠释

Abstract:

Donald Davidson is mainly interpreted as a pragmatist by the neo-pragmatists. However, Davidson’s pragmatism is more complex regarding its application in literary theory, which presents him through three faces: the neo-pragmatist Davidson, the intentionalist Davidson, and the radical interpreter Davidson. Davidson’s theory of irregular language becomes the basis of the neo-pragmatists’ philosophy of language as a defense of the original status of unfamiliar languages, such as literary language, in linguistic communication. However, there is a conflict between Davidson’s intentionalism and the pluralist hermeneutic of neo-pragmatists. The former accuses the latter of violating Davidson’s long-held anti-conventionalism principle and pleads for a “first intention” to enrich the pragmatic orientation of Davidson’s literary theory. In order to reconcile the two different viewpoints, we develop a new pragmatic theory of metaphor based on his previous and later theories of meaning. It is a rhetorical theory based on a radical interpretive stance per se that results from pragmatizing the metaphor within Davidson’s text, better achieving a balance between textual fidelity and pragmatic stance.

Key words:

Donald Davidson, pragmaticism, language, meaning, radical interpretation