Avoiding the Third Dogma of Empiricism: Rejecting Representationalism in Favor of Inferentialism

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Author

Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

Donald Davidson pronounces the distinction between “conceptual scheme” and “empirical content” as the third dogma of empiricism. In this paper, I show that Davidson’s objection is, indeed, directed at essential deficiencies in the representationalist approach to meaning and knowledge. The central thesis of representationalism is that the notion of representation should be taken as prior and basic in an account of meaning and knowledge. Davidson’s main objection to the representationalist approach is that we could not have a clear understanding of the representation relation, for there is essentially nothing to make sentences and theories true. After a brief sketch of representationalism and its alternative, inferentialism, I discuss the possibility of rejoining Davidson’s objections from an inferentialist view. In particular, the inferentialist can explain how linguistic expressions are understood, and how a non-dualistic picture of the conceptual could be provided. In the end, I try to show that, notwithstanding his objections to the representationalist approach, Davidson is ultimately committed to a version of representationalism, by emphasizing the role of “truth” in his account of meaning and knowledge.

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References

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