display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
| 8614 | A sophisticated principle of charity sometimes imputes error as well as truth [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Unlike principles of crude charity, sophisticated principles of charity call for imputations of error in the subject if he has lived in deceptive conditions. | |
| From: David Lewis (New work for a theory of universals [1983], 'Cont of L') | |
| A reaction: This begs lots of questions about how you decide conditions are 'deceptive' if you have not yet embarked on your radical interpretation of the subject. Davidson's point still stands, that imputing truth must be the normal procedure. |
| 8615 | We need natural properties in order to motivate the principle of charity [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: We need natural properties, so that the principle of charity will impute a bias towards believing that things are green rather than grue, and towards a basic desire for long life, rather than long-life-unless-one-was-born-on-a-Monday.... | |
| From: David Lewis (New work for a theory of universals [1983], 'Cont of L') | |
| A reaction: Lewis always seems to be approaching things from the wrong end. We don't need properties so that we can attribute charity, so that we can interpret. We interpret, because we can be charitable, because we all experience natural properties. |
| 15539 | Basic to pragmatics is taking a message in a way that makes sense of it [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The cardinal principle of pragmatics is that the right way to take what is said, if at all possible, is the way that makes sense of the message. | |
| From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'A better solution') | |
| A reaction: Thus when someone misuses a word, suggesting nonsense, we gloss over it, often without even mentioning it, because the underlying sense is obvious. A good argument for the existence of propositions. Lewis doesn't mention truth. |