Philosophy 381: Philosophy of Language

Consider the following quote from Davidson's , "A Nice Derangement of Epithaphs"

"Neither the prior nor the passing theory describes what we would call the language a person knows, and neither theory characterizes a speaker's or interpreter's linguistic competence."(p. 355)

(1) Explain or define the key terms in this claim.

(2) Justify Davidson's claim.

(3) Evaluate Davidson's claim, i.e. either provide reasons to think the claim is (or might be) false or provide further reasons to think his claim is true.

Extra directions: This assignment should be a minimum of 2 standardly formatted typewritten pages. There is no maximum length, but since I value precision, conciseness, and clarity, excess verbiage should be avoided.

Due: Tuesday, March 25, at the beginning of class.