“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything”

Donald Davidson. "Radical interpretation." Dialectica 27.3‐4 (1973): p. 324; as cited in; Herman Parret, ‎Jacques Bouveresse (1981) Meaning and Understanding, p. 186

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Donald Davidson (philosopher) 6
scriitor amator 1917–2003

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“There are then, at least two dialectical truths. The first is that you and I are reasonable creatures; the second that you and I ought to be reasonable. Because of the second, we can say not merely that we cannot reasonably deny the first, but also that we ought not to deny it. If these dialectical propositions are errors, they are irrefutable errors: there is no way for men qua rational creatures to find out what is wrong with them, just as there is no way for men qua rational creatures to cast doubt on their truth.”

Frank Van Dun (1947) Belgian law philosopher

"The Logic of Common Morality" http://web.archive.org/web/20060616233942/http://www.stephankinsella.com/texts/vandun_philosophy_argument.pdf, from E.M. Barth and J.L. Martens, eds., Argumentation Approaches to Theory Formation: Containing the contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumentation, October 1978 (Benjamins, 1982; original from the University of Michigan, digitized Mar 12, 2007. ISBN 9-027-23007-2, 333 pages).

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“I tend to be an optimist about human nature but a political pessimist…I think we’re living in very, very scary times and we have to find ways of looking squarely at it and finding reasons for optimism.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: On balancing pessimism and optimism in “Kamila Shamsie: 'We have to find reasons for optimism’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/08/kamila-shamsie-we-have-to-find-reasons-for-optimism-home-fire in The Guardian (2018 Jun 8)

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