Principle of charity or hybris?

"Principle of charity or hybris?" Wittgenstein's insight that linguistic meaning is constituted within the fabric of life seems to bridge the gap between the continental hermeneutic tradition and analytical philosophy of language. This article sustains that such an intuition ought to be accompanied by a revision of the human subject concept implicit in Donald Davidson's "principle of charity." Without this re-conception, the principle of charity becomes a disguised form of conceptual imperialism, incompatible with the spirit of continental hermeneutics. The article concludes with some observations on relativism in light of the previous remarks.