Poetry smuggling paper: can Davidson make sense of metaphors which, when taken literally, are trivially true?

This paper tries to present Donald Davidson on metaphor in a way which appears more systematic than his own celebrated essay. On this interpretation, he uses his principle of charity to make sense of metaphors: taken literally, a metaphor is patently false or trivially true, but because there is normally no reason to utter such a statement and because we must assume fellow speakers to have largely true beliefs, we take it as a metaphor. I consider the concern that Davidson’s principle is much better for processing metaphors which are patently false, when taken literally, rather than trivially true. We must interpret charitably and charitable interpretation requires us to treat speakers as having largely true beliefs by our lights and the best way to meet this requirement when faced with some patently false statements is treat them as not intended to be taken literally. But what is the situation with metaphors which, when taken literally, are trivially true? I give an example where Davidson’s system can cope with this. The interpreter must consider why a trivially true statement was uttered and charity requires preferring some other explanation to: the uttered falsely believed that you did not know this. (This is also material before my own system on metaphor!)