Abstract

This paper discusses the scope and limits of the Principle of Charity (PC) in dialectic and argumentation from a Davidsonian perspective. On the one hand, some scholars have proposed that PC is insufficient for explaining the complexities of dialogues and then have suggested extending PC into a Dialectical Principle of Charity (DPC). On the other hand, some scholars have proposed that PC should not be considered necessary because it leads to the “paradox of charity” in critical discussion. They have then proposed limiting PC use in argumentation. Our paper addresses the problems stated by Pruś and Sikora (2023) about the rigidness of the Principle, which assumes the interpreter’s view is true and the reduction of the possibility for rational confrontation of beliefs, and the paradox of charity in argumentation stated by Lewiński (2012) according to which charity is incapable helping us decide between opposite positions, as those we find in critical dialogues. We propose that PC is both a necessary condition for argumentation and a dynamic method for the dialectical process. Although we find both roles in Davidson’s works on interpretation (Sect. 2), we want to make explicit their significant contributions to dialectic and argumentation, which are not explicit in his works and are little recognized and much polemicized among theorists of these fields. On the positive side, our proposal aims to nourish Pruś’ and Sikora’s Dialectical Principle of Charity (DPC) by adding a mechanism to track changes at sentential, propositional, and subpropositional levels (Sect. 3) and to clarify how, although PC is not sufficient for the analyst to choose between opposite theses in critical discussion, it is a necessary condition for meaningful disagreement, so it is neither optional nor a mere strategic device among others we can use in argumentation (Sect. 4).