Editing Donald Davidson (philosopher) (section)

{{Short description|American philosopher (1917–2003)}}
{{Infobox philosopher
|region           = [[Western philosophy]]
|era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
|image       = Davidson pyke.jpg
|caption     = Portrait by photographer [[Steve Pyke]] in 1990
|name             = Donald Davidson
|birth_name       = Donald Herbert Davidson
|birth_date       = {{Birth date|1917|3|6|df=yes}}
|birth_place      = [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], U.S.
|death_date       = {{Death date and age|2003|8|30|1917|3|6|df=yes}}
|death_place      = [[Oakland, California]], U.S.
|education        = [[Harvard University]] ([[B.A.|BA]], [[PhD]])
|school_tradition = [[Analytic philosophy|Analytic]]<br>[[Neopragmatism]]<ref>[https://www.iep.utm.edu/pragmati/ Pragmatism – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]</ref>
|main_interests   = [[Philosophy of language]], [[philosophy of action]], [[philosophy of mind]], [[epistemology]], [[ontology]]
|notable_ideas    = [[Radical interpretation]], [[anomalous monism]], [[truth-conditional semantics]], [[principle of charity]], [[slingshot argument]], reasons as causes, understanding as translation, [[swampman]], [[Event (philosophy)|event]]s, Davidson's translation argument against alternative conceptual schemes (the third dogma of empiricism){{efn|[[W. V. O. Quine]] elaborated the first two dogmas in his paper ''[[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]''.}} 
|thesis_title      = Plato's 'Philebus'
|thesis_url        = https://philpapers.org/rec/DAVPP-2
|thesis_year       = 1949
|doctoral_advisor  = [[Raphael Demos]]<br>[[Donald Cary Williams]]
|academic_advisors = [[Alfred North Whitehead]]<br>[[Willard Van Orman Quine]]
|doctoral_students = [[Akeel Bilgrami]]<br>[[Michael Bratman]]<br>[[Kirk Ludwig]]<br>[[Claudine Verheggen]]<br>[[Stephen Yablo]]
}}
'''Donald Herbert Davidson''' (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher. He served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at [[Stanford University]], [[Rockefeller University]], [[Princeton University]], and the [[University of Chicago]]. Davidson was known for his charismatic personality and difficult writing style, as well as the systematic nature of his philosophy.<ref>McGinn, Colin. "[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n16/colin-mcginn/cooling-it Cooling it]". ''London Review of Books''. 19 August 1993. Accessed 28 October 2010.</ref> His work exerted considerable influence in many areas of philosophy from the 1960s onward, particularly in [[philosophy of mind]], [[philosophy of language]], and [[Action theory (philosophy)|action theory]]. While Davidson was an [[analytic philosophy|analytic philosopher]], with most of his influence lying in that tradition, his work has attracted attention in [[continental philosophy]] as well, particularly in [[literary theory]] and related areas.<ref>Dasenbrock, Reed Way, ed. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=VkpR25ji4-wC Literary Theory After Davidson]''. Penn State Press, 1989.</ref>