戴維森的意義整體論

Davidson's Holistic Theory of Meaning

戴維森意義理論的要旨，在於說明我們如何使用自己的語言，有效地詮釋或理解他人的語言；所以，對於戴維森而言，一個滿足的意義理論必須能夠解釋：一個詮釋者需要具備何種理論才能了解他人的言說，而此詮釋者又是如何知道此理論真的能夠正確地描述他人的語言。戴維森認為，一個類似塔斯基的真理理論，因為可以滿足一個做為合理的意義理論所需之形式上要求，剛好提供了一個建構理論時的基本結構；當一個詮釋者使用這個理論來詮釋他人的語言時，其實是為該語言的每一個語句製造一個適當的T語句。給予某個語句為真的條件，是否真的可以做為賦予該語句意義的一種方法呢？當檢證這個理論是否真的可被用來詮釋他人的語言，戴維森主張：經驗的證據基礎在於測試每一個T語句的真假，再配合善意原則的應用……亦即，在詮釋的脈絡中，詮釋者與被詮釋者之間應設法達到最大的一致性。使用類似塔斯基的真理理論來建構一個滿足的意義理論，這個理論必須符合戴維森所提出的形式上與經驗上的限制。本文主要的目的，就在於說明並論證一個形式上滿足的意義理論必定是整體的，而一個經驗上滿足的意義理論也一定是整體的，其結果就是戴維森的極端的整體論。

Davidson's theory of meaning is an attempt to account for the fact that we use our own language effectively to interpret or understand the utterances (in the same or different language) of others. So, a satisfactory theory of meaning for Davidson must explain what kind of theory an interpreter has to know in order to understand the speaker of an alien language and how the interpreter could come to know that such a theory correctly describes the speaker. According to Davidson, a theory of truth in Tarski's style can provide the fundamental structure for fulfilling the formal requirements of a satisfactory theory of meaning. When an interpreter (specifically, a radical interpreter) employs this theory to interpret another, he must produce a T-sentence for each sentence in that language. Testing the truth of each T-sentence together with interpreter's charity……the principle that agreement should be maximized in the context of interpretation……provides the evidential bases for the claim that giving the conditions under which a sentence is true is a way of giving the meaning to that sentence. To accommodate Tarski's concept of truth, a theory of truth must meet certain formal and empirical constraints in order to serve as a satisfactory theory of meaning. The purpose of this article is to argue that a formally satisfactory as well as an empirically satisfactory theory of meaning must be holistic. The result is Davidson's extreme holism. So, Davidson's holistic theory of meaning (or interpretation) can be formulated as the view that interpreting (or giving the meaning of) a sentence of a certain language is not a matter of constructing a T-sentence for the sentence and testing the T-sentence one by one, but a matter of constructing and testing a satisfactory theory of meaning for the language as a whole.