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Full Idea
The concern of some philosophers has been expressed by saying that whereas Tarski took translation for granted, and sought to understand truth, Davidson takes truth for granted, and seeks to understand translation.
Gist of Idea
Should we assume translation to define truth, or the other way around?
Source
comment on Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by Simon Blackburn - Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy p.82
Book Ref
Blackburn,Simon: 'Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy' [OUP 1996], p.82
A Reaction
We can just say that the two concepts are interdependent, but my personal intuitions side with Davidson. If you are going to take something as fundamental and axiomatic, truth looks a better bet than translation.
| 7772 | Compositionality explains how long sentences work, and truth conditions are the main compositional feature [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| 7327 | Davidson thinks Frege lacks an account of how words create sentence-meaning [Davidson, by Miller,A] |
| 7769 | You can state truth-conditions for "I am sick now" by relativising it to a speaker at a time [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| 6179 | Should we assume translation to define truth, or the other way around? [Blackburn on Davidson] |
| 7332 | There is a huge range of sentences of which we do not know the logical form [Davidson] |