Charity, Self Interpretation, and Belief

The purpose of this paper is to motivate and defend a recognizable version of N. L. Wilson’s “Principle of Charity.” Doing so will involve: (1) distinguishing it from the significantly different versions of the Principle familiar through the work of Quine and Davidson; (2) showing that it is compatible with, among other things, both semantic externalism and “simulation” accounts of interpretation; and (3) explaining how it follows from plausible constraints relating to the connection between interpretation and self-interpretation. Finally, it will be argued that Charity represents a type of “minimal individualism” that is closely tied to first person authority, and that endorsing Charity in our interpretations of others reflects a commitment to capturing, from the third-person starting point, their first-personal point of view.