Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

 

What Galileo Said

Issue: • Author/s: John Biro
Topics: Epistemology, History of Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of language

What Galileo Said

Issue: Issue 13 • Author/s: John Biro
Topics: Epistemology, Philosophy of language

Davidson’s paratactic account of indirect speech has it that a natural-language report of an utterance such as Galileo’s supposed one of ‘The Earth moves’ should be understood as analyzable into two separate, and semantically independent, utterances, the first of which points to the second, with the latter meaning in the reporter’s mouth what Galileo’s meant in his. The account rests on the assumption—shared by most writers on the subject, including critics of the account—that the correct natural-language report of Galileo’s utterance is ‘Galileo said that the Earth moves.’ I show…