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19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / c. Principle of charity

[assume people aim to speak truth]

21 ideas
Common human behaviour enables us to interpret an unknown language [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §206)
     A reaction: This is a behaviourist spin on the idea of charity, but it leads to Davidson's assumption that most alien beliefs must be true.
To communicate, language needs agreement in judgment as well as definition [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §242)
     A reaction: If someone is locked into a highly alien viewpoint, then communication with them does seem to be virtually impossible. Amenability to reason, and consensus on elementary facts, seems to be the sine qua non of communication.
Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine]
     Full Idea: Wanton translation can make natives sound as queer as one pleases; better translation imposes our logic upon them.
     From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §13)
     A reaction: This begins to point towards the principle of charity, on which Davidson is so keen, and even on doubts whether two different conceptual schemes are possible. Personally I think there is only one logic (deep down), and the natives will have it.
We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine]
     Full Idea: The more absurd or exotic the beliefs imputed to a people, the more suspicious we are entitled to be of the translations.
     From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §15)
     A reaction: Quine is famous for his relativist and indeterminate account of translation, but he gradually works his way towards the common sense which Davidson later brought out into the open.
The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A]
     Full Idea: Quine takes to the principle of charity to apply only to the translation of the logical constants.
     From: report of Willard Quine (works [1961]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 8.7
     A reaction: Given how weird some people's view of the world seems to be, this very cautious approach has an interesting rival appeal to Davidson't much more charitable view, that people mostly speak truth. It depends whether you are discussing lunch or the gods.
We translate in a way that makes the largest possible number of statements true [Wilson,NL]
     Full Idea: We select as designatum that individual which will make the largest possible number of statements true.
     From: N.L. Wilson (Substances without Substrata [1959]), quoted by Willard Quine - Word and Object II.§13 n
     A reaction: From the Quine's reference, it sounds as if Wilson was the originator of the well-known principle of charity, later taken up by Davidson. If so, he should be famous, because it strikes me as a piece of fundamental and important wisdom.
You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The maxim that 'most of a speaker's beliefs are true' as an a priori principle governing radical translation seems to me to go too far; first, I don't know how to count beliefs; second, most people's beliefs on some topics (philosophy) are probably false.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and the Moral Sciences [1978], Pt Three)
     A reaction: Putnam prefers a pragmatic view, where charity is applicable if behaviour is involved. Philosophy is too purely theoretical. The extent to which Charity should apply in philosophy seminars is a nice question, which all students should test in practice.
Davidson's Cogito: 'I think, therefore I am generally right' [Davidson, by Button]
     Full Idea: Davidson's Cogito has the form 'I think, therefore I am generally right'.
     From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], 16.6) by Tim Button - The Limits of Reason
     A reaction: On the whole I would subscribe to this Cogito (as Button calls it), from an evolutionary perspective. There would just be no point in thought if it wasn't generally right in everyday activity.
There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The 'principle of charity' is a misleading term, since there is no alternative if we want to make sense of the attitudes and actions of the agents around us.
     From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233)
     A reaction: I suppose so, but only with a background of evolutionary theory. I would necessarily assume charity if a robot spoke to me.
The principle of charity attributes largely consistent logic and largely true beliefs to speakers [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Concerning charity, the Principle of Coherence seeks logical consistency in the thought of the speaker, and the Principle of Correspondence seeks a similar response to features of the world to that of an interpreter. The speaker has logic and true belief.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.211)
     A reaction: Davidson adds a Kantian commitment to pure and universal reason to the very sceptical framework created by Quine. I agree with Davidson, but it seems more like faith than like an argument or an empirical observation.
The principle of charity says an interpreter must assume the logical constants [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The principle of charity says that it is unavoidable that the pattern of sentences to which a speaker assents reflects the semantics of the logical constants.
     From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3)
     A reaction: That is not all the principle says, of course. Davidson seems to assume classical logic here, with a bivalent semantics. I wonder if all speakers use 'false' in the normal way, as well as 'true'? Do all languages even contain 'true'?
We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs [Kim]
     Full Idea: We attribute to a subject beliefs that are obvious logical consequences of beliefs already attributed to him.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.135)
     A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'obvious'. Presumably they must be judged obvious to the believer, but only if they have thought of them. We can't believe all the simple but quirky implications of our beliefs.
If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction [Kim]
     Full Idea: If someone says "I do and I don't like x", we do not take her to be expressing a literally contradictory belief.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.135)
     A reaction: It might mean 'one minute I like it, and the next minute I don't', where there seems to be a real contradiction, with a time factor. You can't sustain both preferences with conviction.
Charity should minimize inexplicable error, rather than maximising true beliefs [Evans]
     Full Idea: I think the Principle of Charity (maximise true beliefs) is unacceptable. The acceptable principle enjoins minimizing the attribution of inexplicable error and cannot be operated without a theory of the causation of belief for the creatures investigated.
     From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I)
     A reaction: The normal principle of charity certainly seems on shaky ground if you think you have encountered a fairly normal tribe, when they in fact are in possession of the weirdest belief system on the entire planet.
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.
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.
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.
Charity makes native beliefs largely true, and Humanity makes them similar to ours [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: One criterion for successful translation is that it show native beliefs to be largely true (Principle of Charity), and another is that it imputes to natives beliefs we can make sense of them having (Principle of Humanity).
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.4)
     A reaction: The trouble with such guidelines is that they always have to be 'all things being equal'. Sometimes the natives are really idiotic, and sometimes their attitudes seem quite inhuman.
Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A]
     Full Idea: A more sophisticated version of the principle of charity holds that we interpret speakers not as necessarily having beliefs that are true by our own lights, but as having beliefs that are intelligible by our own lights.
     From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7)
     A reaction: Consider Idea 4161 in the light of this. Presumably this means that we treat them as having a coherent set of beliefs, even if they seem to us to fail to correspond to reality. I prefer the stronger version that there has to be some proper truth in there.
The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A]
     Full Idea: Properly construed, the principle of charity is a holistic constraint applying, not to individual beliefs, but rather to systems of belief: we must interpret a speaker so that most of the beliefs in his system are, by our lights, true.
     From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7)
     A reaction: This is a lot more plausible than applying the principle to individual sentences, particularly if you are in the company of habitual ironists or constitutional liars.
Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady]
     Full Idea: It makes sense to think that one could recognise that something is a language without necessarily being able to translate it; cryptographers do this all the time.
     From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Maybe, but cryptographers usually have a lot of context to work with. If we met extraterrestrials if might not be so clear. One can only spot patterns, and crystals have those.