Between Davidson and Quine. Revisiting the notion of a conceptual scheme

Abstract

Davidson has argued that the idea of a conceptual scheme is incoherent, for it rests upon a dualism unstable, that of conceptual al scheme and organized content. His argument does reveal the incoherence in the tertium between language and the world. I respond to Davidson by distinguishing two senses of the scheme, the Kantian and the Quinian, and I maintain that objection does not work against the Quinian. Second, the argument operates on the same standpoint as its opponent; it is flawed, in consequence, for the same reason: the need to appeal to a perspective of a "cosmic exile" or to recognize the metaphor of "God's eye view"