World encyclopedia of political systems and parties Book

A solid collection of Davidson's work on subjectivity, knowledge, language, and truth. It's hard to get a grip on Davidson given the scope and range of his work; my interest in this volume was the collection of essays in the final section, which begin with his thoughts on the coherence theory of truth (and his later change of heart about coherentism).

The ideas Davidson sets out about truth, and its relation to knowledge, belief, and meaning, are complex and powerful. He is, unfairly I think, lumped in with Rorty (a thinker who is himself often misunderstood) as a "relativist", but reading Davidson's thoughts on what subjectivists about truth get right, I do not see this at all. Davidson's agreement with Rorty is in the denial of skepticism; they differ on the point of whether "what is truth?" is a question worth pursuing. Davidson thinks so, and in spelling out why, he arrives at a position which turns on the nature of mind and the very idea of a distinction between "knower" and "known".

There is a lot to digest here, and even more in the other collections in this series. Not for the philosophically-untrained, but there may be some value for those inclined to a challenge.