ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the understanding of interpretation that informs Davidson's theory has significant implications for the way analytic philosophy conceives of itself, especially in relation to its contrasting tradition and potential conversation partner, continental philosophy. It addresses how one philosopher interprets another philosopher's interpretation of interpretation, and how this relates to the way analytic philosophers interpret non-analytic philosophers and, by reflection, themselves. The chapter then describes Quine's radical translation, and then at greater length how and why Davidson alters it for radical interpretation. Quine's theory of interpretation is an attempt to explain how to understand each other in the absence of magic. The ways interpretations of analytic philosophers have shaped analytic philosophy as a tradition for various reasons. The radical interpretation is an important adaptation, which is a kind of interpretation, of Quine's theory of radical translation in the history of analytic philosophy.
