ABSTRACT
This chapter explains Donald Davidson's idea that a systematic theory of meaning for a natural language that can be provided by a theory which generates, for each declarative sentence, a theorem which states its truth-conditions. Davidson makes it clear that when he speaks of a theory of meaning, he is primarily interested in the notion which Gottlob Frege termed sense: Frege held that an adequate account of language requires us to attend to three features of sentences: reference [semantic value], sense, and force. Davidson's strategy, in broad outline, is relatively simple. A compositional theory of meaning will therefore show how the meanings of sentences are systematically dependent upon the semantic properties of their constituent words and the way they are put together. The theory of meaning must allow us to correctly interpret the speakers of that language, in accordance with constitutive principles governing interpretation (such as the principle of charity).
