Principle of charity

In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity is an approach to understanding a speaker's statements by rendering the best, strongest possible interpretation of an argument's meaning. In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to help keep people trying to understand or evaluate the truth of an argument from introducing a logical fallacy or other error into an argument that is not inherent to it. According to Simon Blackburn, "it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject's sayings."

It was named in 1958-59 by Neil L. Wilson, and Willard Van Orman Quine and Donald Davidson are associated with different formulations of the principle of charity. Davidson also sometimes referred to it as the principle of rational accommodation. He summed it up as: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimises agreement. The principle may be invoked in the case of a particular logical argument or indeed to make sense of a speaker's utterances when one is unsure of their meaning; Quine's use of the principle, in particular, gives it this latter, wide domain.

A supplement to the principle of charity is the principle of humanity, which states that when interpreting another speaker we must assume that his or her beliefs and desires are connected to each other and to reality in some way, and attribute to him or her "the propositional attitudes one supposes one would have oneself in those circumstances" (Daniel Dennett, "Mid-Term Examination," p. 343). The principle of humanity was named by Richard Grandy in 1973.

External links

• Article on the principle of charity at Lander University's Phil department
• "A Code of Conduct for Effect Rational Discussion," including the principle of charity and several other principles. From Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer.

References

• Davidson, Donald (1984) [1974]. "Ch. 13: On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Schema". Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.