A Brief Memoir

DONALD DAVIDSON: A BRIEF MEMOIR I first met Donald Davidson in 1955, when I was spending an academic year at Berkeley; there were regular joint meetings of people interested in logic from Berkeley and Stanford. In the 1960s I made several visits to Stanford as a Visiting Professor, and there I got to know Donald extremely well. We became close friends and remained so ever afterwards. I did not share his enthusiasm, or his capacity, for difficult physical skills such as surfing, though I admired his ability to perform such feats. We were also far apart in our attitudes to religion. But I think that the liking for another person which generates friendship does not depend on sharing attitudes to these things. Of the three closest friends outside my family that I have had, one of whom was Donald, and another of whom is also dead, all have been atheists, which I am not. Referring to Donald as an atheist is a bit misleading. I think his attitude to religion was like that of the man who preceded me in line when I joined the British Army in 1943. We were questioned for what was to go on our identity discs, and I heard the following dialogue: Name? Smith. Initials? D. A. Religion? What’s that? Well, Church of England, R.C., Other Denominations. Oh, none of that. Right, C. of E. But friendship, or the liking that underlies it, probably demands a sharing of some attitudes. I think it was much the same with our approach to philosophy: we differed over much, particularly over Donald’s firm adherence to classical logic and my sceptical attitude towards it; yet we shared a basic approach to philosophy, in a common belief that the structure of thoughts can be analysed only through an analysis of the means of their expression in language. Of everyone whom I have met, it was with Donald that I found it easiest and most fruitful to discuss philosophy. For some reason, the ideas and arguments of each of us resonated with the other: I immediately understood what he said, and he immediately understood what I said; and to each of us the other’s remarks struck him as completely to the point. The most striking manifestation of this occurred during a seminar on the philosophy of language that he and I gave together during one of his visits to Oxford. We alternately read papers, continuing the discussion from the previous session, and then the other would reply. We had not at all planned

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O BITUARY OF P ROFESSOR D ONALD DAVIDSON

that it would go as it did, but in fact virtually no one said anything during the eight sessions of that seminar save the two of us: it was a sustained dialogue lasting over sixteen hours; we ought to have paused to allow the other people attending to participate, but neither of us could stop. As everyone knows, Donald’s death was utterly unexpected, and shocked all who knew him. He had reached a creditable age, but everyone had taken for granted that he would live for many years more: he was still physically energetic and mentally active. He had an imaginative and stimulating mind; he was tolerant and had a sense of humour and an ability to establish rapport with many people very different from himself. He had strong feelings, occasionally prickly but never malevolent. He contributed much to philosophy, but was also a very nice man and a very good friend. I miss him very much. It is a great pity that he could not be the Vienna Circle Lecturer for 2003. I greatly regret that illness has prevented me from being present at this memorial session for Donald Davidson. With sorrow I honour his memory. Michael Dummett