Davidson_On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme

Background: Epistemic Relativism

Barnes & Bloor: All beliefs are on a par with one another with respect to the causes of their credibility. There are no
context-free or super-cultural norms of rationality.
(1) There are no absolute facts about what justifies what (non-absolutism).
(2) Epistemic judgments should be construed as having a relational form, E justifies B according to scheme C
(relationism).
(3) There are many alternative schemes, but no facts that make any one of these schemes more correct than any
of the others (scheme pluralism).
Notice: Even if (1) and (2) hold, if (3) turns out to be false then there is no difference between relativism and
non-relativism; there is nothing for E and B to be relative to.
The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
Davidson: (3) is incoherent.
Conceptual Schemes A way of organizing empirical content (worlds, facts, experience,&c.) The world conforms to our
linguistic or conceptual categories.
Dualism (Third Dogma): Division between Scheme (conceptual apparatus of a language) and Content (world).
The possibility of conceptual schemes allows for the possibility of different worlds.
This paves the way for (3) scheme pluralism.
Key Passage: We may accept the doctrine that associates having a language with having a conceptual scheme. The
relation may be supposed to be this: where conceptual schemes differ, so do languages. But speakers of different
languages may share a conceptual scheme provided there is a way of translating one language into the other. Studying
the criteria of translation is therefore a way of focusing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes. I consider two
kinds of cases that might be expected to arise: complete and partial, failures of translatability.
Two conceptual schemes C1 and C2 are incommensurable iff the languages with which they are identified, say L1
and L2, are not translatable.
Test: If the idea of different conceptual schemes is intelligible, then we can make sense of a difference in conceptual
schemes consisting in complete or partial failure of language translation between schemes.
So, if complete or partial failure is unintelligible then incommensurable conceptual schemes is unintelligible
Argument Against Complete Failure
Complete Failure df.= L1 and L2 are not translatable (sentences in one language cannot be translated into the other).
1.
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The intelligibility of complete failure requires the dualism of scheme and content to be intelligible.
This dualism is intelligible only if conceptual schemes either: (i) organize systematize, divide up the content or
(ii) fit predict, account for, face the content.
Concerning (i), a conceptual scheme organizes content in either of two ways: it organizes a single object or it
organizes a plurality of objects.
It is unintelligible that a single object (the world or all of nature) could be organized.
The distinction between conceptual scheme and empirical content is intelligible only if conceptual schemes
organize a plurality of objects.
*It is intelligible for a scheme to organize a plurality of objects only if it uses common principles of individuation.*
a. We cannot understand the notion of the data to be organized by schemes except in familiar terms
characteristic of our home language. A language that organizes entities like ships and shoes and sealing
wax, cabbages and kings must be a language very like our own.
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7.
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If (6), L1 and L2 are translatable.

Concerning (ii), a conceptual scheme fits the content only if the sentences of the language with which it is identified
are largely true.
If the sentences of a language are largely true, then Tarskis convention T holds for that language
a. Tarski's Convention T holds that for every sentence s of (the language) L, a theorem can be given of the
forms is true if and only if p' where 's' is replaced by a description of s and 'p' by s itself.
b. E.g., Snow is white iff snow is white; Schnee is weiss iff snow is white.
*Convention T requires that the sentences of the object language be translatable into the meta-language.*
If L1 and L2 are largely true, then they are each translatable into a meta-language, which allows for the translation
between L1 and L2.
If (11), L1 and L2 are translatable.
Therefore, complete failure of translation is unintelligible

Objection to Premise (6)

Not clear why experience needs to be individuated according to principles close to our home language. Our scheme:
Objects persist through time. Alternative scheme: Objects are temporal stages that bear close proximity to one another.
Objection to Premise (10)
Why think that L1 and L2 are translatable into the same meta-language? Theres nothing in Tarski that prevents
multiple meta-languages.
Argument Against Partial Failure
Partial Failure df.= Parts of L1 and L2 are not translatable. Parts of L1 and L2 are translatable.
Davidson argues that the presents of parts of L1 and L2 as translatable rules out the intelligibility of there being parts
that arent. For different points of view to make sense, there must be a common coordinate system on which to plot
them i.e., partial translation presupposes fundamental agreement.
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Interpretation consists in forming hypotheses about what speakers utterances mean.

Meaning and belief are interdependent.
If we want to interpret what others mean, we must count them as holding true beliefs in most matters. (Principle of
Charity)
a. If a speaker yells Boomshakalaka after a dunk, then we should assume that the speaker believes there
was a successful dunk.
If, however, partial failure is possible, then if the interpreter rejects an utterance of the speaker (that is, takes what
the speaker says, once translated, to be false), then this could be either (i) a difference in belief or (ii) a difference in
schemes.
a. If a speaker yells Boomshakalaka after a missed dunk, then we could think either (i) the speaker failed to
see the dunk was missed (maybe she failed to see the ball go in) or (ii) this is a point at which translation
fails (heres where are schemes cease to overlap).
*If (4), then (given there is no general principle to adjudicate between disagreement of beliefs and schemes) we
cannot make sense of the idea of the translatability of parts of L1 and L2.*
Partial failure amounts to complete failure.
Complete failure is unintelligible (by above argument).
Partial failure is unintelligible.

Objection surrounding Premise (5)

Possible Equivocation: (a) There could be partial failures of translation v. (b) We could find out that there are failures of
translation.

This handout is intended as a reliable guide to the text. As it has benefited from the work of many scholars, it is not suitable for citation.