Donald Davidson and the Three

Donald Davidson and the Three Varieties of Knowledge

In tackling the problem of epistemology, Donald Davidson identifies three types of human knowledge that can be validated by empirical means. They are self-knowledge, knowledge of the world, and knowledge of other people (Davidson 205). Davidson then embarks upon the establishment of a comprehensive systematic means by which these three types of knowledge might be linked and hence legitimized in the eyes of the non-empiricist skeptic. Davidson proposes accomplishing this goal by finding answers to the three following questions:

How is it possible for a mind to know the world of nature? How is it possible for one mind to know another mind? How is it possible to know the contents of one's own mind without having recourse to external observation or evidence? (Davidson 208)

In setting out to answer these questions, Davidson provides a theory for how the three forms of knowledge are interrelated, which are meant to simultaneously serve as a rebuke to skeptics who, coming from either a Cartesian or Humean perspective, have traditionally been doubtful of such theories.

Davidson argues that it is not possible to have any knowledge without first having knowledge of both one's own mind and the minds of others. It is impossible to go through life without a means of communicating to others one's own thoughts about the external world. Thought is wholly dependent on communication. Here, Davidson briefly delves into the Wittgensteinian idea that there is no such thing as a private language (209). Language confirms its objectivity via communication with another individual; thus, there is no such thing as a language that only one person, and no other, can understand. A shared language is thus necessary for knowledge. Communication is held up as the standard of objectivity. Even if we were confronted with a being that spoke a language that we did not understand, we could take hints from the attitude contained by the other person's expression and individuate it, hence deriving some meaning from it (Davidson 210-211). The principles that are necessary for separating meaning (objective truth) from opinion (the subjective) are the principles of charity: the principle of coherence and the principle of correspondence. The first of these principles establishes a pattern of logic, while the second endows the speaker with a degree of belief as to what the interpreter takes to be true belief about the external world. To put it in simpler terms, one must have a shared view of the world with the other person that is also correct (i.e. verifiable.)

Until a base line has been established by communication with someone else," writes Davidson, "there is no point in saying one's own thoughts or words have a propositional content" (213). But in order to obtain knowledge of another's mind via communication, one must first have knowledge of the external world. This is because communication is contingent on stimulation from an external source. This is where Davidson introduces his theory of triangulation. A stimulus sends out waves to two different people at once. The two people then face one another and communicate as a means of correlating their observed reactions to that particular piece of stimuli. Thus, argues Davidson, knowledge of both the external world and knowledge of the minds of others are interrelated, and neither form of knowledge is possible without the other.

What is more, in order to be able to attribute a thought to someone else, we must first be aware of what our own thoughts are. Thus, self-knowledge and the knowledge of the minds of others are interrelated. Ultimately, Davidson reasons, communication is what unites these two forms of knowledge, serving as an objective confirmation. What it comes down to, in the end, is that a community of minds forms the basis of all knowledge.

The skeptic might object that there is a difference between personal, subjective thoughts that are thus individual and private, in that a person does not express them out loud, and the objective thoughts that Davidson is discussing in the bulk of his essay. To this, Davidson responds that, while subjective thoughts may be personal and individual, the concept of such thoughts is not, as the thoughts are still rooted in the world that we inhabit - and are aware that we inhabit - as a community of individuals. Our private thoughts occupy the same conceptual space and are situated on the same public map.

Subjectivity is thus formed from the contextual interlaying of the objective, external world and the other minds that inhabit it - and not the other way around, as skeptics such as Descartes and Hume would have it. One's awareness of oneself speaking to oneself is contingent on an awareness of speaking in the context of having others listen and interpret what one says. Self-knowledge is contingent on having knowledge of what other people think. In order to know what other people think, one must live in the same world as them and share in reactions to its numerous features.

This theory serves as an interesting response to Descartes' famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am." Descartes felt that the only thing that could be confirmed in the world was the existence of the self, which was arrived at via thought. But thought alone does not suffice in Davidson's conception of knowledge; another thinking, feeling individual must be present in order to serve as a sort of receptacle or mirror for those thoughts. For Descartes, the skeptic, perception is completely unreliable and must be discarded; for Davidson, perception is an integral component of knowledge, in that it links one's self-knowledge ("I think, therefore I am") with one's knowledge of the external world with one's knowledge of others' knowledge.