On Overcoming the Tension Between Triangulation and Davidson’s Rejection of the Third Dogma of Empiricism

Early in his career, Donald Davidson criticized what he termed the ‘Third Dogma of Empiricism,’ namely, the idea that a rigid distinction can be drawn between conceptualizing scheme and empirical content. Later on in his career, Davidson developed a theory of triangulation in order to explain how successful communication is possible. In this paper, I identify two interpretations of Davidsonian triangulation – the Causal-Similarity View and the Constitutive Interpretation. After highlighting some problems with the Causal-Similarity View, I question whether the Constitutive Interpretation requires implementing the scheme/content distinction Davidson rejected in his earlier writings. Ultimately, I argue that, by drawing from Davidson’s principle of charity and his notion of a passing theory, the Constitutive Interpretation of triangulation does not require the scheme/content distinction and so the early and later theories of Davidson do not come into conflict.