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Full Idea
Truth in a model is interesting because it provides a transparent and mathematically tractable model - in the 'ordinary' rather than formal sense of the term 'model' - of the less tractable notion of truth.
Gist of Idea
Truth in a model is more tractable than the general notion of truth
Source
Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131)
Book Ref
-: 'Journal of Philosophy' [-], p.131
A Reaction
This is an important warning to those who wish to build their entire account of truth on Tarski's rigorously formal account of the term. Personally I think we should start by deciding whether 'true' can refer to the mental state of a dog. I say it can.
Related Ideas
Idea 10170 While true-in-a-model seems relative, true-in-all-models seems not to be [Reck/Price]
Idea 13634 Satisfaction is 'truth in a model', which is a model of 'truth' [Shapiro]
| 10011 | Identity is a level one relation with a second-order definition [Hodes] |
| 10027 | Mathematics is higher-order modal logic [Hodes] |
| 10021 | It is claimed that numbers are objects which essentially represent cardinality quantifiers [Hodes] |
| 10016 | When an 'interpretation' creates a model based on truth, this doesn't include Fregean 'sense' [Hodes] |
| 10017 | Truth in a model is more tractable than the general notion of truth [Hodes] |
| 10015 | Higher-order logic may be unintelligible, but it isn't set theory [Hodes] |
| 10018 | Truth is quite different in interpreted set theory and in the skeleton of its language [Hodes] |
| 10022 | Numerical terms can't really stand for quantifiers, because that would make them first-level [Hodes] |
| 10023 | Talk of mirror images is 'encoded fictions' about real facts [Hodes] |
| 10026 | Arithmetic must allow for the possibility of only a finite total of objects [Hodes] |