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Full Idea
An ability to state the condition for the truth of a sentence is, in effect, no more than an ability to express the content of the sentence in other words.
Gist of Idea
Stating a sentence's truth-conditions is just paraphrasing the sentence
Source
Michael Dummett (The philosophical basis of intuitionist logic [1973], p.224)
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Truth and Other Enigmas' [Duckworth 1978], p.224
A Reaction
Alternatively, if you give something other than a paraphrase of the sentence as its meaning (such as a proof of its truth), then you seem to have departed from your target sentence. Can we reduce and eliminate our sentences in this way?
| 18073 | Dummett says classical logic rests on meaning as truth, while intuitionist logic rests on assertability [Dummett, by Kitcher] |
| 19054 | Meaning as use puts use beyond criticism, and needs a holistic view of language [Dummett] |
| 19055 | Stating a sentence's truth-conditions is just paraphrasing the sentence [Dummett] |
| 19056 | If a sentence is effectively undecidable, we can never know its truth conditions [Dummett] |
| 19057 | Classical quantification is an infinite conjunction or disjunction - but you may not know all the instances [Dummett] |