8. The Second Person

Author: Davidson, Donald

Source: Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, September 2001 , pp. 107-123(17)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

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Abstract:

The author argues that language is necessarily a social phenomenon. The argument draws heavily on considerations advanced in favour of the thesis that meaning something requires understanding, and being understood by, a second person. Davidson denies that it is necessary for successful communication between X and Y that X speaks as Y; in substitution of this requirement, Davidson proposes a three-way speaker–speaker–world relation he labels ‘triangulation’, which is not constituted by syntax but by common stimuli and responses.

Keywords: social phenomenon; communication; understanding; triangulation; syntax; language; second person

Document Type: Research article

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