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Full Idea
It may be that sentences are used as they are because of their truth conditions, and they have the truth conditions they do because of how they are used.
Gist of Idea
It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions
Source
Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13)
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Truth, Language and History' [OUP 2005], p.13
A Reaction
I've always taken the attempt to explain meaning by use as absurd. It is similar to trying to explain mind in terms of function. In each case, what is the intrinsic nature of the thing, which makes that use or that function possible?
Related Idea
Idea 23289 Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson]
| 23287 | Disquotation only accounts for truth if the metalanguage contains the object language [Davidson] |
| 23288 | When Tarski defines truth for different languages, how do we know it is a single concept? [Davidson] |
| 23289 | Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson] |
| 23290 | It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions [Davidson] |
| 23292 | Correspondence can't be defined, but it shows how truth depends on the world [Davidson] |
| 23291 | Without truth, both language and thought are impossible [Davidson] |
| 23284 | Plato's Forms confused truth with the most eminent truths, so only Truth itself is completely true [Davidson] |
| 23285 | If we try to identify facts precisely, they all melt into one (as the Slingshot Argument proves) [Davidson] |
| 23286 | Truth can't be a goal, because we can neither recognise it nor confim it [Davidson] |