Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T05:04:47.615Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Charles Travis on Truth and Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Martijn Wallage*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

Abstract

Charles Travis has developed a distinction between “the historical” (the sensible world) and “the conceptual” (thoughts and concepts), which underlies his influential contributions to the philosophy of language and perception. The distinction is based on the observation that there are, for any thought, indefinitely many different circumstances that would render it true. The generality of thoughts and concepts contrasts with the particularity of the sensible world. I challenge the assumption that what exhibits such generality cannot belong to the sensible world. I also defend a version of the claim that perception involves the exercise of conceptual capacities.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Austin, J. L. 1950. “Truth.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 24 (supp. vol.): 111–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1962. Sense and Sensibilia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1973. “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1986. “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge.” In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by Leore, Ernest. New York: Blackwell: 307–19.Google Scholar
Dodd, Julian. 1995. “McDowell and Identity Theories of Truth.” Analysis 55: 160–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. (1918) 1956. “The Thought: A Logical Inquiry.” Mind 65 (259): 289311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. 1979. Posthumous Writings. Edited by Hermes, Hans, Kambartel, Friedrich, and Kaulbach, Friedrich. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hornsby, Jennifer. 1997. “Truth: The Identity Theory.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 1: 124.Google Scholar
Kalderon, Mark Eli. 2011Before the Law.” Philosophical Issues 21 (1): 219–44.Google Scholar
McDowell, John. (1994) 1996. Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, John. 2008. “Avoiding the Myth of the Given.” In Jakob, Lindgaard, ed. 2008. John McDowell: Experience, Norm, and Nature. Oxford: Blackwell., 114.Google Scholar
PriorA. N. 1971. Objects of Thought, edited by Geach, P. T. and Kenny, A. J. P.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1991. Representation and Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 2012. “Comments on Travis and McDowell.” In Maria, Baghramian, ed. 2012. Reading Putnam. New York: Routledge., 347–58.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid. (1956) 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, Barry. 2018. Seeing, Knowing, Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2008. Occasion-Sensitivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2011. Objectivity and the Parochial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2013. Perception: Essays after Frege. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2017. “Deliverances (Indirection).” Topoi 36 (2): 229–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2018. “The Move, the Divide, the Myth, and Its Dogma.” In In the Light of Experience, edited by Gersel, Johan, Jensen, Rasmus Thybo, Thaning, Morten S., and Overgaard, Søren. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1922) 1981. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by Ogden, C. K. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1956) 2009. Philosophical Investigations. Rev. 4th ed. Edited by Hacker, P. M. S. and Schulte, Joachim. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar