• From the beginning through the last full paragraph of p. 533. After several pages in which Davidson sets the historical and conceptual context of the issue he will discuss, he defines that issue on pp. 531-533 in terms of conditions numbered I and II. Those conditions are characterized most helpfully not when they are initially introduced but in the first paragraph of p. 532. The idea of a “narrow” psychological state that Davidson mentions in this connection came to be developed into a distinction between “narrow” content (content that is in the head) and “wide” content (content whose characterization requires reference to external factors). On p. 445, Davidson notes a variety of positions concerning the sort of content of the belief expressed by “Here is a glass of water”—whether it is wide or narrow. Then he goes on to raise the question of the implications of these views for the question of first-person authority. He will discuss these issues throughout the lecture using the “Twin Earth” idea that you encountered briefly in Dennett and two other well-known examples, his own “Swampman” example and, later, an example due to Tyler Burge concerning the term ‘arthritis’. Pay attention to all of these; we are reading Davidson as much for his presentation of these examples as for the points he makes using them.

• From the end of p. 533 through the last full paragraph of p. 537. Davidson begins this with a survey of views on mental content in the years following Putnam’s argument concerning Twin Earth. Although Putnam’s example was initially designed to make a point about language and meaning, it became intertwined with a number of discussions of issues in the philosophy of mind, especially those concerning the status of folk psychology that we’ve been pursuing.

Although Davidson is often concerned to find points of agreement when he turns to a more detailed discussion of Burge and then Putnam on pp. 534-536, it will be more useful for our purposes to look for points of disagreement. He sets these out pretty clearly in the case of Burge. In the case of Putnam, they are partly disguised by his distaste for philosophical distinctions between the necessary and contingent, including the idea of a “rigid designator.” (This is a term due to Saul Kripke that he used to characterize expressions whose reference does not depend on contingent facts and thus stays fixed as we move from one possibility to another—Kripke and Putnam held that proper names and certain kind terms, like ‘water’, were rigid.) One way to see Davidson’s differences from Putnam is to note that Putnam’s view of how we manage to refer to things like water has the potential to lead to cases where people may be understood to refer to things about which their beliefs are largely wrong. Davidson’s commitment to something like a principle of charity (see “Mental Events,” p. 62) tends to point him in different directions. (On pp. 538, you will find another connection with “Mental Events” when Davidson mentions his position on mind-body issues, his “anomalous monism”—for this, see pp. 58f.)

• From the last full paragraph of p. 537 to the end. On p. 537, Davidson begins to stake out the position for which he will argue in the remainder of the paper. The idea concerning narrow psychological states that he mentions there is sometimes phrased as the claim that the narrow states “supervene” on internal physical states, and the term “individualism” is sometimes used for the view that psychology should be concerned only with such states.

The argument Davidson makes in the last part of the paper can stand pretty well on its own. Just let me note that his emphasis in his criticisms on the assumption of “entities” could be misleading since it might suggest his target is dualism. His concern is instead about the coherence of the idea of sameness of belief, something that would have to make sense if beliefs were entities. His comment, near the end of the discussion of Burge on p. 536, about thoughts not being independent of one another is the most explicit statement here of those concerns, but they appeared also in “Mental Events” (see pp. 62f).