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3 ideas
23289 | Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson] |
Full Idea: It is clear that someone who knows under what conditions a sentence would be true understands that sentence, …and if someone does not know under what conditions it would be true then they do not understand it. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13) | |
A reaction: I've always subscribed to this view. Langauge is meaningless if you can't relate it to reality, and I don't think there could be a language without an intuitive notion of truth. |
23290 | It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions [Davidson] |
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. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], 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? |
283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
Full Idea: The science of whether one must persuade or not must rule over the science capable of persuading. | |
From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 304c) | |
A reaction: Plato probably thinks that reason has to be top of the pyramid, but there is always the Nietzschean/romantic question of why we should place such a value on what is rational. |