Donald Davidson

Kai von Fintel points to a detailed obituary of Donald Davidson in the Guardian. This goes into quite a bit of detail about Davidson’s work, and is I think a good tribute. (Although I was surprised to see the Locke lectures, which Davidson gave in 1970, described as ‘then-prestigous’. I didn’t understand the ‘then’.)

The Guardian says that there’s lots of work by Davidson still to be published, so there’s lots of papers to look forward to.

I also thought it was worth noting a comment from Richard Rorty in the NY Times obituary:

I don’t think there’s anybody else among American philosophers, after the deaths of Quine and Rawls, who gave him any competition.

I’d have added Lewis to that list, but Rorty’s point about how good, and important, Davidson’s work is seems right.