"I conclude that there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases. And we should try again to say how convention in any important sense is involved in language; or, as I think, we should give up the attempt to illuminate how we communicate by appeal to conventions."
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Philosophers from the United StatesPeople from MassachusettsHarvard University alumniPrinceton University facultyStanford University faculty
Original Language: English
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Davidson, Donald. "A nice derangement of epitaphs." Philosophical grounds of rationality: Intentions, categories, ends 4 (1986): 157.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Davidson_(philosopher)
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Donald Davidson (philosopher)
Donald Herbert Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher, whose work exerted considerable influence in many areas of philosophy from the 1960s onward, particularly in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and action theory.
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