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Full Idea
Davidson thinks that Frege's model for a theory of semantic value (and thereby for a systematic theory of sense) is unsatisfactory, because it provides no useful or explanatory account of how sentence-meaning can be a function of word-meaning.
Gist of Idea
Davidson thinks Frege lacks an account of how words create sentence-meaning
Source
report of Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 8.1
Book Ref
Miller,Alexander: 'Philosophy of Language' [UCL Press 1998], p.246
A Reaction
Put like that, it is not clear to me how you could even start to explain how word-meaning contributes to sentence meaning. Try speaking any sentence slowly, and observe how the sentence meaning builds up. Truth is, of course, relevant.
| 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] |