Donald Davidson identifies three forms of knowledge which he believes to be irreducible and interdependent: knowledge of self, which is immediately known; knowledge of the outside world, which is simply caused by the events and objects around you, and thus depends on sense organs to be semi-immediately known, yet open to uncertainty; and knowledge of the minds of others, which is never immediately known. The standard approach to philosophy tries to reduce one of these forms of knowledge to one or two of the others, often leading to unanswerable questions. Davidson argues that all three varieties of knowledge are interdependent—that is, you cannot have any one without the other two. In this paper, I will primarily review Davidson’s argument of the interdependence of the three varieties of knowledge. I will then briefly discuss the plausibility of Davidson’s account and question if it truly can explain how we come to understand others’ feelings and emotions.
Review of Logical Interdependence
After reviewing the skepticisms that arise from the standard philosophical approach, Davidson suggests that we need a theory that will accommodate all three models while making sense of their relationships among each other; anything else will leave us with the question: how can we know the world in three completely different ways? Davidson’s argument begins with an exploration of why the three kinds of knowledge are each in their own right necessary and irreducible to the other two forms. His argument is on the basis that we simply could not go on without knowledge of the mental states of others, or knowledge of our own mental states.
Beliefs are a condition of said knowledge. Davidson’s argument deals a lot with the concept of objective trut...
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...dge to one or two of the other forms by suggesting that all three forms of knowledge are logically interdependent. He argues this interdependence through the context of beliefs, and objective truth, and communication. While there is a real-world example of how this theory could falter (i.e. autism), by expanding his theory to address this counterexample, Davidson’s three varieties of knowledge can actually go a long way in explaining how we come to understand the feelings, emotions, and mental states of others.
References
Andrews, K. (2002). Interpreting autism: a critique of Davidson on thought and language. Philosophical Psychology, 15(3). Retrieved from:
Davidson, D. (1991). Three varieties of knowledge. Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (205- 220). New York: Oxford University Press.
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Alexander, J., & Weinberg, J. (2009, January 1). The "Unreliability" of Epistemic Intuitions . . Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://www.siena.edu/uploadedfiles/home/academics/schools_and_departments/school_of_liberal_arts/philosophy/Alexander%20&%20Weinberg.The%20Unreliability%20of%20Epistemic%20Intuitions.pdf
Gardner, H. (2011). FRAMES OF MIND: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.
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Sternberg, Robert J. & Janet E. Davidson, eds. 1995. The Nature of Insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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