Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Kurt Vonnegut, William D. Hart and Numenius

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3 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
Tarski showed how we could have a correspondence theory of truth, without using 'facts' [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: It is an ancient and honourable view that truth is correspondence to fact; Tarski showed us how to do without facts here.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2)
     A reaction: This is a very interesting spin on Tarski, who certainly seems to endorse the correspondence theory, even while apparently inventing a new 'semantic' theory of truth. It is controversial how far Tarski's theory really is a 'correspondence' theory.
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 1. Tarski's Truth / b. Satisfaction and truth
Truth for sentences is satisfaction of formulae; for sentences, either all sequences satisfy it (true) or none do [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: We explain truth for sentences in terms of satisfaction of formulae. The crux here is that for a sentence, either all sequences satisfy it or none do (with no middle ground). For formulae, some sequences may satisfy it and others not.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 4)
     A reaction: This is the hardest part of Tarski's theory of truth to grasp.
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth
A first-order language has an infinity of T-sentences, which cannot add up to a definition of truth [Hart,WD]
     Full Idea: In any first-order language, there are infinitely many T-sentences. Since definitions should be finite, the agglomeration of all the T-sentences is not a definition of truth.
     From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 4)
     A reaction: This may be a warning shot aimed at Davidson's extensive use of Tarski's formal account in his own views on meaning in natural language.