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Donald Davidson

Donald Davidson Books

Philosopher

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“Metaphor is the dreamwork of language and, like all dreamwork, its interpretation reflects as much on the interpreter as on the originator. The interpretation of dreams requires collaboration between a dreamer and a waker, even if they be the same person; and the act of interpretation is itself a work of the imagination. So too understanding a metaphor is as much a creative endeavour as making a metaphor, and as little guided by rules.”

CreativityDreamsRulesMetaphors
Book:Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
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“The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Differentpoints of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”

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Book:Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation: Philosophical Essays
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“There are three basic problems: how a mind can know the world of nature, how it is possible for one mind to know another, and how it is possible to know the contents of our own minds without resort to observation or evidence. It is a mistake, I shall urge, to suppose that these questions can be collapsed into two, or taken into isolation.”

KnowsWorldMindTwoProblemThreeMistakeTakenEvidenceObservationIsolationUrgesResorts
Book:Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective: Philosophical Essays
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