10.13135/2036-542X/7710
application/pdf
2036-542X
7710
2
en
Silvana Ballnat
Trópos
The Problem of Sharing Language: 
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos
7
Saggi
2014-12-01
2023-06-06
2014-12-01
2023-06-06
137-150
1
Silvana Ballnat
2014/12/01
10.13135/2036-542X/7710
137
2036-542X
2
150
The Problem of Sharing Language: 
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos/article/download/7710/6447
7
                                                     trópos • anno VII • numero 2 • 2014 – ISBN 978-88-548-7972-0
                                                     DOI 10.4399/97888548797209 – pag. 137-150 (dicembre 2014)




                              The Problem of Sharing Language
                                          Davidson in a Gadamerian Perspective

                                                                               Silvana Ballnat



   abstract: This paper examines the possible convergences between Gadamer and
      Davidson regarding the problem of common language needed for mutual
      understanding by reassessing the source of their diVerence. It begins with
      Davidson’s estimation, according to which he agrees largely with Gadamer’s
      views on language, understanding and communication except for his thesis
      that communication presupposes sharing language. My analysis of this obser-
      vation results with the conclusion that the main diVerence between these two
      philosophers lies in their understanding of language in general: for Gadamer
      language is not only a way of communicating meanings as in Davidson’s work,
      but also it is a bearer of tradition. This text shows how serious appreciation of
      this dimension of having–language influences the conditions for a dialogue that
      according to Gadamer are to be found also in the tradition, which is disclosed
      in language that we learn by learning about world. But the main contribution of
      the present text consists of its attempt to specify Gadamer’s idea of tradition’s
      agency through language by means of Davidson’s terms of “prior” and “passing”
      theories by oVering a new account on their relation.

   keywords: common (sharing) language, prior/passing theories, dialogue, tradition,
      world–disclosing.




1. Introduction

In the concluding passage of his “Gadamer and Plato’s Philebus”, David-
son asserts that he shares many of Gadamer’s views on the problems of
language, understanding and conversation, except for the following: “con-
versation presupposes a common language”, arriving at an “agreement
concerning an object demands a common language first be worked out”
(Davidson 2005: 275) and that what is occurring in a dialogue is the cre-
ation of a common language. According to Davidson, conversation does not
presuppose, nor even require a common language; agreement depends on
shared objects and not on a common language; understanding is what is
created in a dialogue, not a common language.

                                                                                                            137
138     Silvana Ballnat


   Both Gadamer and Davidson said much more on understanding and
shared language and obviously developed their discussions in diVerent
contexts. In this paper I will examine their divergences and show that their
positions are not as diVerent as they seem at first glance. To this end I
will initially reconstruct Davidson’s critique of the concept of “common
language”, subsequently I will give an account of Gadamer’s point and I
will conclude by presenting my own assessment.


2. Davidson on “common language”

In “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs”, Davidson describes what is involved
in the idea of conducting communication successfully, since that is what
is going on with having a language. His first premise is that speakers com-
municate their intended meanings. The second one is that they want to
be understood since that is why they got involved in a conversation in the
first place. Communication is accomplished when the listener understands
the speaker’s intended meaning, which is the third premise. How does he
do that? What does the listener do, or what kind of capacities should he
employ, so that he understands what the speaker says? Since the speaker
wants to be understood he uses words, which he assumes the listener to be
able to interpret correctly. So he engages in the conversation with certain
expectations about the listener’s interpretative faculty. This is the starting
theory1 of interpretation the speaker has about his interpreter according to
the standard conception of communication, which Davidson temporarily
considers in order to later rebut its necessity. Much like the speaker’s starting
theory, there is also a prior theory on the listener’s side. The listener — who
is also an interpreter — has at each moment of speech, a theory, which he
adjusts gradually depending on the available pieces of evidence. A variety of
things can count as evidence: “knowledge of the character, dress, role, sex,
of the speaker, and whatever else has been gained by observing the speaker’s
behavior, linguistic and otherwise” (Davidson 2005: 100 (sic!)). This prior
theory, however, is permanently revised, by “entering hypotheses about
new names, altering interpretation of familiar predicates, and revising past
interpretations of particular utterances in the light of new evidence” (ibid.).
    The fact that the speaker’s view of the listener’s prior theory is relevant
to what he says and what he means by his words is a key aspect in this
standard picture. “It is an important part of what he has to go on if he wants
     1. Davidson uses the word “theory” only because the description of the communicative situation
on both sides [of the speaker and listener] is susceptible of a recursive account. That means that
neither the speaker nor the listener need to know they are using theories or beliefs during their
conversation.
                                             The Problem of Sharing Language   139


to be understood” (Davidson 2005: 101). In my own words, this means
that both speaker and listener are operating with expectations towards one
another. Those expectations concern both external and internal features and
both linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviour of the interlocutors. These ex-
pectations depend not only on what the interlocutors see or hear from each
other, but essentially on their skills, beliefs, interests, etc. that they bring
into the conversation. Those expectations are not solely linguistic items, but
they concern the world, which people live in and care for. My contention is
that some of these expectations should be shared among the interlocutors
so that they could open a dialogue in the first place. Otherwise, there is
no reason for this particular communication with this particular person.
Of course this is not the only condition for the possibility of a dialogue:
the intention of arriving at the goal — which is mutual understanding —
is another. But engaging in a dialogue simply to reach an agreement, as
Davidson assumes, would reduce the language to being purely an instru-
ment for communication. In my picture, however, dialogue is a typical way
of life for people who take care of their surroundings. Thus, the idea of a
human being as a rational animal who has something to say because she or
he believes in its truth is confronted with the idea of human beings who
engage in a conversation because that is their way of disclosing their minds
and the world to each other.
    Although Davidson would not disagree with this last comment, he still
draws his conclusion against “common language”. In order to make his
point against the “common language” thesis, Davidson distinguishes as we
already saw between prior and passing theories of the interpreters (both
speaker and listener are interpreters) and in a second move he contends that
what we need for successful communication are shared passing theories
and not prior theories. Sharing prior theories would correspond to the stan-
dard thesis, according to which communication needs a common language.
Common language here is identified with prior theories, which “constitute
his (interpreter’s, S.B.) basic linguistic competence, and which he shares
with those with whom he communicates. [This] knowledge or abilities that
constitute the theory may be called conventions” (Davidson 2005: 102). We
see how prior theories change their content here. Previously, I compared
them with expectations and contended their importance for communication
and this was only a reinterpretation of Davidson’s point of view. Now, how-
ever, prior theories obtain diVerent content. Here, they are understood as a
set of rules and conventions and precisely that does not match the general
requirement for successful communication according to Davidson. Prior
theories in this sense are rather an accidental facilitator than a necessary
condition for agreement. We do not need to share them in order to come
to an agreement.
140    Silvana Ballnat


    Passing theories, on the other hand, are essential for communication
because herein exists the greatest agreement. The important aspect of
the passing theory is the impossibility of having previous knowledge of it.
Davidson writes: “ ‘Mastery’ of such a language would be useless, since
knowing a passing theory is only knowing how to interpret a particular
utterance on a particular occasion. Nor could such a language, if we want to
call it that, be said to have been learned, or to be governed by conventions”
(Davidson 2005: 102). Still, how can an interpreter interpret even a particular
situation without engaging his or her general abilities? This is not a question
of applying theoretical knowledge in a particular situation. Rather it is a
matter of being a historically and culturally conditioned person: an inter-
preter interprets a language situation as a being in the world, as Dasein. The
circularity forces one to question the quality of the connection between the
prior and the passing theory. According to Davidson past understandings
are in some kind of relation with current ones. He writes: “Of course things
previously learned were essential to arriving at passing theory, but what was
learned could not have been the passing theory” (Davidson 2005: 103). Thus
the main problem appears to be understanding the relation between prior
and passing theory in Davidson’s terminology or between Auslegung and
Interpretierung2 in Heidegger’s terminology, or between sharing language
and developing mutual understanding in Gadamer’s terminology.
    It seems that even for Davidson the common language is not irrelevant at
all, for the passage above could be read so that it allows for the essential role
of “previously learned” as a condition for carrying on with the understand-
ing by means of creating passing theories. Still, Davidson obviously feels
very uncomfortable with the notion of “common language”. Therefore it
looks as if we have to turn the question to the very meaning of this no-
tion, which is not a question about its significance anymore. I suggest that
Davidson’s diYculty with accepting the notion of “common language” is to
be found rather in the standard idea of language and less in the expression
“common”. This is also the reason for his radical inference at the end of this
text, which brought him a great deal of attention. That famous conclusion
is: “there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like
many philosophers and linguists have supposed” (Dostal 2011: 107). The

     2. David Hoy argues for a convergence between Gadamer and Davidson also via Heidegger’s
distinction between Auslegung and Interpretierung. While he tries to build a connection between
Davidson’s radical interpretation and Gadamer’s claim on universality of hermeneutic, I try to
consider the much more modest question about the role of prior theories in Davidson’s work and
the role of common language in Gadamer’s work in order to understand Davidson’s claim that the
problem of “common language” is where he disagrees with Gadamer (Hoy 1997: 112). In doing
so I am following Dostal’s appreciation of Gadamer and Davidson’s diVerent understandings of
language as a source for their disagreement with respect to the problem of common language
(Dostal 2011: 168).
                                             The Problem of Sharing Language   141


question a fortiori is: what do philosophers and linguists think a language
is? Plenty of instances in the works of Davidson indicate what he thinks
the answer to be. In his opinion philosophers and linguists conceived lan-
guage as something like a system of rules and vocabulary determined by
conventions, which could be learned and mastered by the members of a
linguistic community and which are necessary and suYcient for interpre-
tation of language situations. So speaking would be “being able to operate
on the basis of shared conventions, rules, or regularities” (ibid.). The task
of the theory of meaning would be to find out what methods we use for
communicating or interpreting meanings and what methods we use for
understanding them. Since we do not find them but nevertheless continue
to communicate successfully, it follows that there is “no such thing to be
learned, mastered and born with” (ibid.).
    This inference says a lot. I will try to discern three possible views of
language, which I think it refers to. Obviously Davidson is opposed to what
I would call with Gadamer an instrumental view of language. This is a view
according to which we can master the language as if it were an instrument
for gaining knowledge, a view very akin to the philosophers with logical
interests. In this case, language is an instrument, which we can put to its use
as we do with a hammer. An instrument is something like a thing, entity,
tool or even organ, which we inherit or acquire and then apply to actual
situations. Secondly in Davidson’s assessment there is a critique of the view
that language can be learned, which could be regarded as a critique to the
behaviourist theory according to which language acquisition is central for
humans to have language. Language acquisition is the very slow process
of acquiring habits by learning through conditioning. Therefore, in this
case language is a set of habits. Third and last is the view of Chomsky
who introduced the idea of innate linguistic capacity (language acquisition
device), which was very often interpreted as a theory that neglects the
production of meaning in every concrete situation and led to the conclusion
that all we need for an understanding of language is to be found by exploring
the neural basis of language. In this case language is something like an organ
we are born with.
    All of these three possible targets of Davidson’s final critical remark have
a common aspect in that they presuppose that language is a finished set
of conventions, rules or habits, which we apply in new situations. Conse-
quently, what is essential to language is not its production, since it is only
the application of a previously mastered device. And indeed we have a
problem here, which is how to save the creativity of language as its essential
dimension, in other words: how do we save the novelty and still explain
that we are nevertheless capable of understanding it? Under the assumption
that language is essentially speaking, these are obviously very important
142    Silvana Ballnat


questions. At the core of something being a language is the communica-
tion of meanings, which we are able to interpret. But what is significant in
communication is not the application of previously learned meanings and
their being correctly recognized by the interlocutor. On the contrary, both
speaker and listener are always in new language situations. No previous
knowledge of anything (rules, words, habits etc.) can help them deal with
what is going on in the communicative process, which is understanding.
So how do we happen to understand meanings for which we do not have
recipes? For although the words appear familiar, they receive their mean-
ings in sentences, which, when pronounced in new situations, are always
new sentences.
   For Davidson, the answer lies in a steady creation of passing theories as
we have seen. Creativity is a way of dealing with novel language situations
that we do not have any method for reaching an understanding for.
   No one would be happier to subscribe to such a conclusion than Gadamer.
His hermeneutical project shows him as clearly critical of positions con-
necting the concepts of understanding, language and even truth with the
concept of method.


3. Gadamer on “common language”

In order to correctly understand what Gadamer means when he says that
“jedes Gespräch setzt eine gemeinsame Sprache voraus, oder besser: es bildet eine
gemeinsame Sprache heraus” (Gadamer 1990: 384), which is exactly the thesis
Davidson criticizes, the most important assumption to make is Gadamer’s
critique of the instrumental view of language. This is also an appropri-
ate starting point since that is something that these philosophers obvi-
ously share.

a) Instrumental View of Language

The instrumental view of language, firstly assumes that language is a tool
for designating things in the world or for communicating thoughts and
secondly says that meanings lie in those things or thoughts. However,
Gadamer questioned this view for a variety of reasons, which are not only
relevant to the philosophy of language, but also to the self–understanding
of a human being. For that instrumental view of language basically implies
the modern attitude of people being able to take absolute control over
the world and everything they find in it including themselves. This lends
support to the thesis that people can transcend their historical finality as
                                            The Problem of Sharing Language   143


well as their connectedness to tradition, which they are born into and raised
with. Gadamer could not leave such a position unchallenged.
    He finds the origin of the instrumental theory of language in the classical
picture, which Plato discussed in Cratylus (Gadamer 1990: 410V ). The final
result of the dilemma whether language’s origin is to be found in the con-
vention or in the nature of things led the direction the reflection on language
took for many centuries to follow. The outcome of Plato’s radical critique of
the rightness or trueness of names gave shape to the philosophical tradition
at the end of which we find the instrumental theory of language with the
ideal of a sign system (Gadamer 1990: 422).
    This instrumental theory of language is characterized by some features,
which are diYcult to rebut, because they seem to correspond to common-
sense logic. Those are for instance conventionalism and sign–character,
which reduce the language to merely designative functions thus denying
it any epistemologically constitutive role for generating knowledge and
having an experience of the world. The only epistemological relevance of
language is reduced to it being a means for describing things and commu-
nicating truths to which our mind came in a nonlinguistic manner. Both
finding true knowledge and describing the true order of things in the world
are independent from language. For these reasons language does not hold
any significant position in philosophy for a very long time.
    However, our everyday experience with language also facilitates the
impression of language use as a use of means. It seems as if we learn to speak
as we learn to manipulate or to handle certain situations e.g. swimming or
calculating. We can seemingly choose arbitrarily which words we are going
to use for communicating previously well–ordered truths and meanings.
In fact our words seem to be interchangeable and available whenever we
need them.
    Such an impression of our experience with language as an instrument,
which we can manipulate, is not self–deception. It is rather in the na-
ture of language, which Gadamer described as self–forgetfulness of lan-
guage (Selbstvergessenheit der Sprache) in his paper “Mensch und Sprache”
(Gadamer 1990: 150). This does not only mean we do not think of grammat-
ical rules when we speak a language we feel comfortable with, but it also
means we do not think of speaking a language when we act in the world
towards other people, objects, subject matters etc. The self–forgetfulness
of language means that although everything we do is absorbed by the
language, we do not “see” that language interlacement. In its immediate ab-
sorption it remains absolutely transparent. Thus, when I order an ice–cream
and want to relax after my hard working day, I do not expect to get the
word “ice–cream” although all I do is use the words: “I would like some
ice–cream”. When saying these words I expect to enjoy the tasty dessert
144   Silvana Ballnat


and in doing this, I do not mean that I was exchanging words for ice–creams.
This self–forgetfulness of the language points to the close ties of language,
thinking and world. Such an observation does not support treating language
as an instrument, which merely exists to signify something whenever I
need it. It doesn’t matter whether I think of language as an instrument for
describing matters or as a means of communicating believes and feelings
etc. They both are reductionist since what matters in the classical picture of
language is that I disregard my being partially absorbed by the language, so
that language is not only a limit of my world, but it is a possibility for me
having a world in the first place.
    Philosophical hermeneutics argues for a comprehensive non–reductionist
approach to the world–language relation. Its alternative answers to this re-
lation are introduced by the conceptions of world disclosing and by the
tradition–bearing dimensions of language.

b) Language as World Disclosure

Gadamer develops his position in Wahrheit und Methode drawing on Hum-
boldt’s considerations of language, especially on the thesis that language
bears a worldview (Gadamer 1990: 443–446). Die Verschiedenheit der Sprachen
ist Verschiedenheit der Weltanschauungen. Humboldt formulated this thesis
to state that learning a language means socializing in a speech community.
Gadamer builds on it and simultaneously argues for the interdependence
of world and language. This means that language is not to be conceived as
a form (as Gadamer thought Humboldt did) that we fill with meanings,
chosen from our world–experiences. It rather is constitutive for our ability
to meaningfully have a world. So the hermeneutically formulated thesis on
world disclosure involves understanding of oneself, of other subjects and of
the world as a whole, which has its own logic. The language dependency is
thereby manifold: language is the medium of those understandings, their
content and their nature of being something, which could be understood.
This dimension is fundamental in Heidegger’s sense of aletheia and ontolog-
ical in both Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s sense of an antireductionist view of
language. A reductionist position of language considers language solely in
its role as a signifying being, disconnected from the dimension of meaning.
While in the representationalist view, language is a kind of order of sign-
posts, which we attach to the entities of a separate order of things or order
of meanings, in the hermeneutic view on the other hand, language order
does not have an independent reality from the order of meanings and from
the order of things. On the contrary, for Gadamer, Humboldt’s dictum that
language bears a worldview says not only that having a world depends on
having language. It claims prima facie that having language is dependent on
                                              The Problem of Sharing Language   145


having a world. This is a non–reductionist thesis. “Wichtiger aber ist, was
dieser Aussage zugrunde liegt: dass die Sprache ihrerseits gegenüber der Welt, die
in ihr zur Sprache kommt, kein selbstständiges Dasein behauptet” (Gadamer
1990: 447). It stands for a conceptual multi–directional dependency among
human thinking and experiencing, speaking and indeed world having.
    So, contrary to mainstream instrumental opinion and complying with
Humboldt’s thesis, Gadamer underlines the world disclosing character of
language. “Nicht nur ist die Welt nur Welt, sofern sie zur Sprache kommt — die
Sprache hat ihr eigentliches Dasein nur darin, daß sich in ihr die Welt darstellt”
(Gadamer 1990: (sic!)). Since a human being is necessarily a being that lives
in a world, this thesis has a fundamental status.

c) World Disclosure and Scheme–Content Dualism

For many philosophers — especially those coming from the analytic tradi-
tion — this view of language as world disclosing leads to some idealistic and
— after Davidson’s critique of scheme–content–dualism — also relativistic
consequences. In taking language as world disclosing, so the argument
goes, these philosophers want to see nothing more than a scheme by which
we organize the world and our experience. In this perspective it seems
as if Gadamer and Davidson diVer in the thesis that language has a world
disclosing dimension. Nevertheless, this conclusion would be incorrect.
Davidson has indeed shown that we cannot make such a picture intelli-
gible. However, what this picture does not share with the hermeneutical
view of language as world disclosing, are the notions of language and of
the world, taken solely. In the hermeneutic view, language is not a set of
rules, conventions and words with fixed meanings. It is not even a sen-
sory organ with (or “through”) which we perceive the world. Language
is not something of a third kind, independent from the speaking persons.
Language lives in speaking. It is not out there as the natural objects are. It
is something, which we can suYciently describe as a syntactic–semantic
system. After all, both Davidson, and also Gadamer hold that talking to
someone about something is an essential constituent of language. Similar to
Davidson’s triangulation, Gadamer’s idea of language presupposes a relation
between subjects trying to arrive at an understanding of something. Fol-
lowing Humboldt’s analysis of Dualis, Gadamer proclaims irreducibility of
subjectivity, inter–subjectivity and objectivity, which is also similar to David-
son’s view. According to this argument, it is possible to see the world with
language while not regarding language as a scheme. It seems that Davidson
would agree with the last remark. In “Seeing Through Language” he writes
“we perceive the world through language, that is through having language”
(Davidson 2005: 141). Therefore and despite the readings, according to which
146    Silvana Ballnat


the thesis of language as world disclosure reintroduces the scheme–content
dualism, Dostal classifies Gadamer’s rejection of the world–worldview dis-
tinction and Davidson’s rejection of the scheme–content distinction as one
of the basic agreements between these two philosophers (Dostal 2011: 167).

d) Dialogue and Language as Bearer of Tradition

So the problem must lie somewhere else. My suggestion as to where that
could be is similar to that of McDowell’s3 , with the diVerence that I make
a stronger distinction between the world disclosure moment and the tra-
dition–bearing moment and claim that it is in the latter instance where
Gadamer and Davidson mostly diVer.
    Even though in Gadamer’s view speaking is essential to language, it
is not the only significant truth to say about language. As I have already
pointed out above, one can ascribe a philosophy of language to Gadamer
only if the subject is understood in a non–reductionist manner. This means
not merely language is speaking to someone about something and it is not
only disclosing a world, but also, that language is a bearer of tradition. This
is the source of disagreement between Davidson and Gadamer. Davidson
does not consider the theory that states the essentially historical tradition
which people live in has the capacity to speak to us and shape us. We adopt
it partially consciously through learning language, because that tradition is
provided through written and oral languages. Acquiring those traditions is
not an irrational act since one can reasonably state they are productive only
if cultivated i.e. a rational act of acceptance occurs. Even if Davidson agreed
that we acquire traditions and ways of world–orders when we acquire our
native languages, he would doubt that this is essential for communication,
since successful communication is always a new situation for which we do
not have recipes.
    For Gadamer on the other hand it is important to ask: what is the
structure of communication? If the genuine structure of a dialogue is its
question–answer model, as Gadamer believes, then we should try to find
out what is involved in asking questions and giving answers.
    The strong emphasis on the question–part of the dialogue is the reason
for opposing Gadamer’s dialectics of question to Plato’s dialectics of answer.
Gadamer’s premise states everything can be understood as an answer to a
question. The significant role of the question in the philosophical hermeneu-
tic is firmly connected to the picture of a human being whose lifestyle is

     3. John McDowell argues against Davidson’s critique of “common language” as a condition
of understanding from Gadamer’s own standpoint, according to which language is world disclosive
(McDowell 2002).
                                                        The Problem of Sharing Language         147


a permanent search for sense and orientation, which explains Gadamer’s
conviction that true dialogue as mode of life has power to transform the
very personalities of the individual dialogue–partners.
    It is intelligible that posing questions does not arise from nothing, but
rather that it is rooted in a perspective. If you do not know anything about a
topic you cannot even ask a question. Questions can be asked given certain
— even though not always clearly known — backgrounds. The relation
between this background and its question is not causal. The background
continues to be present in the question. But not only do questions come
from a perspective, they also shape a perspective for possible answers. Not
everything counts as an answer to a certain question. This “coming from
some background” and this “shaping openness for possible answers” is
something Gadamer referred to as horizon of the question. Every question
is situated in a horizon.
    Thus, when speaker and listener are talking with each other about some-
thing, they are trying to find proper questions, because not every question
relates to what people are talking about. They both try to find answers
because the novelty of language situations does not allow for preparing
answers in advance. So far Davidson would agree. Hence, the fact that these
interlocutors engage their histories in dialogue is an indispensable condition
for that dialogue to take place. I think Davidson would not go that far, since
this coincides exactly with the description of how passing and prior theories
are related, which allows prior theories to be essential for communication.
    There is, however, another respect, in which it is possible to make sense
of sharing language. Gadamer and Davidson would probably reach an agree-
ment here. The fact that our interlocutors talk to each other has its reason
in common circumstances. Even if they do not agree on something, they
share a minimum of inter–subjectivity, which is irreducible to subjectivity
and objectivity, since all of them are in mutually constitutive relations. It is
this minimum level of interaction that, according to Gadamer, we can iden-
tify as a presupposed common language for the dialogue4 . The common
language that is going to be worked out is an advanced form of interaction.
The former is interaction as a condition, the latter one is interaction as a
result. If I read Malpas correctly, he makes a similar distinction between
“commonality that resides in the possibility of common engagement” and

     4. My reading of Gadamer here is more orthodox (see my citation above: Gadamer 1990: 384)
than Braver’s, for whom Gadamer as Davidson are philosopher who work on the “problem how to
understand others in the absence of common language” (Braver 2011: 149), which assumes that both
of them are criticizing the theory of common language as a condition for mutual understanding.
However I agree with Braver that Davidson misinterprets Gadamer’s terms such as “language”,
“dialogue”, “world” etc. which I find to be grounds for assessing his thesis of working out a common
language, and not having it in advance, as essential for mutual understanding.
148   Silvana Ballnat


“commonality that depends on such common engagement but is articulated
in those modes of determinate agreement that take the form of a shared
language. . . ” (Malpas 2011: 269).
    I want to pay attention to two results of my previous discussion, before I
continue with my concluding remarks. Since for Gadamer “to have world”
is “to have language”, it does not make any diVerence if you say, as Davidson
does, that what we share is the world and not the language when we start
a conversation. Secondly, since for Gadamer the medium, the content and
the way of understanding are all of a linguistic character, it does not make a
major diVerence whether he says common language or understanding of a
common concern is what we are working out in a dialogue. To understand
something and to put it in words are not independent activities.


4. Conclusion

Is there any scenario in which Davidson would accept such alternative
argumentation for a common language? Is there any sense in which the
theory of common language can be kept and which Davidson did not
consider? I think there are some indications for this.
    In “The Social Aspect of Language” Davidson points to one more possi-
ble, though for him irrelevant, understanding of “common language”:
    “I assume that two speakers couldn’t understand each other if each
couldn’t (pretty well) say in his way what the other says in his. If we employ
the translation manual relating the two ways of speaking to define what we
mean by speaking in the same way, we can after all salvage something of the
claim that communication requires a shared practice. But this is not what
anyone would call sharing language, nor what anyone has meant by a com-
mon practice or a shared set of rules or conventions” (Davidson 2005: 151f ).
    This passage shows Davidson’s restricted sense of “shared language”. I
hope to have shown that there are other intelligible senses of conceiving a
common language. Some of them actually match with what Davidson states
in the first sentence of this passage. Indeed, I would not be able to com-
municate, if I had no understanding at all of what the words and sentences
my interlocutor is using mean. We experience such situations, when we
try to be supportive of friends who are defending their PhD in molecular
physics or computer sciences. I should therefore be somehow socialized in
the practices and language uses, which enable me to understand meanings
my interlocutor communicates. You do not suspend the novelty of language
production by endorsing shared language and practices as a condition for
successful communication. If the theory of sharing language contains some-
thing intelligible, it is — also according to Davidson — the idea of mutual
                                            The Problem of Sharing Language   149


understanding between the speakers with regards to the content of their
conversation. The fact that no one speaks of sharing language as the sharing
of elementary understanding of linguistic and nonlinguistic practices in the
contexts familiar to Davidson, does not mean that those possible senses are
unintelligible.
     Davidson makes another observation, which is crucial to his argument.
He points out that we understand malapropisms and slips of tongue and
other false language usages despite the fact that we start with correct yet in
such cases misleading prior theories. I believe an interpretation with similar
logic to the one above is also applicable to this observation. He concludes:
nothing we know in advance does really facilitate the proper understanding
of these cases. I argue for the contrary. The wrong direction, which in such
cases is caused by correct expectations, is merely superficial and deceptive,
because we can imagine situations when malapropisms occur and one of
the speakers does not understand the words at all. Such cases would not
end with mutual understanding. We understand a malapropism exactly
because we have some, even misleading, expectations or, as Gadamer calls
it, Sinnerwartungen. We do not apply expectations as we apply systems or
theories to new situations. Their role consists of determining possibilities
or shaping a horizon. For instance, if Mrs. Malaprop by “nice derangement
of epitaphs” actually means a nice arrangement of epithets and I happen to
understand this, it is because my horizon has already excluded possibilities
like “gun rampage at the cemetery” or “stressful vacation” or “high school
prom”. It is because we already have expectations that we do not lose our
minds trying to figure out what our interlocutors meant. Instead, both
in normal as in deviate language uses, we are able to carry on. The large
number of possible interpretations we can apply to speakers, is characteristic
for the standard cases too. Having a horizon, which enables us to recognize
what is near and what is far away, what is important and what is not and so on,
enables us to have an understanding at all. Is this a notion of shared language
in the standard and strict sense, in which Davidson criticizes the concept?
Certainly not, assuming “language” is a system of rules and conventions
plus vocabulary. But if language is a bearer of tradition and if a tradition is
not only a form but a synthesis of form and content, than language is —
among other things — also a repository of expectations of meanings.
     When Davidson says that all we need for successful communication are
passing theories, it is like Gadamer saying tradition is not something fixed,
which imposes on speakers, but something, which has its life in its being
lived. Tradition lives in speaking. It would be a pure misconception if we
saw traditions as systems of beliefs that we can list and specify. Nevertheless
it is the background, which enables us to move on with the passing theories.
Talking of language as a carrier of tradition in Gadamer’s dynamic sense
150     Silvana Ballnat


of this concept is trying to understand the connection of prior and passing
theories in a non–standard manner.


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