Abstract
Donald Davidson is mainly interpreted as a pragmatist by the neo-pragmatists. However, Davidson’s pragmatism is more complex regarding its application in literary theory, which presents him through three faces: the neo-pragmatist Davidson, the intentionalist Davidson, and the radical interpreter Davidson. Davidson’s theory of irregular language becomes the basis of the neo-pragmatists’ philosophy of language as a defense of the original status of unfamiliar languages, such as literary language, in linguistic communication. However, there is a conflict between Davidson’s intentionalism and the pluralist hermeneutic of neo-pragmatists. The former accuses the latter of violating Davidson’s long-held anti-conventionalism principle and pleads for a “first intention” to enrich the pragmatic orientation of Davidson’s literary theory. In order to reconcile the two different viewpoints, we develop a new pragmatic theory of metaphor based on his previous and later theories of meaning. It is a rhetorical theory based on a radical interpretive stance per se that results from pragmatizing the metaphor within Davidson’s text, better achieving a balance between textual fidelity and pragmatic stance.
Keywords
Donald Davidson, pragmaticism, language, meaning, radical interpretation
First Page
146
Last Page
155
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Qiao. 2022. "The Three Faces of Donald Davidson’s Pragmatic Literary Theory." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 42, (2): pp.146-155. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol42/iss2/36
