 Davidson completed his undergraduate study at Harvard, graduating in 1939. His early interests were in literature and classics and, as an undergraduate, Davidson was strongly influenced by A. N. Whitehead. After starting graduate work in classical philosophy (completing a Master’s degree in 1941), Davidson’s studies were interrupted by service with the US Navy in the Mediterranean from 1942–45. He continued work in classical philosophy after the war, graduating from Harvard in 1949 with a dissertation on Plato’s ‘Philebus’ (1990b). By this time, however, the direction of Davidson’s thinking had already, under Quine’s influence, changed quite dramatically (the two having first met at Harvard in 1939–40) and he had begun to move away from the largely literary and historical concerns that had preoccupied him as an undergraduate towards a more strongly analytical approach.