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Single Idea 6338

[filed under theme 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions ]

Full Idea

Someone who does not understand German and is told 'Schnee ist weiss' is true if frozen H2O is white, does not understand the German sentence, even though he knows the truth-conditions.

Gist of Idea

We could know the truth-conditions of a foreign sentence without knowing its meaning

Source

Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990], Ch.5.22 n1)

Book Ref

Horwich,Paul: 'Truth (2nd edn)' [OUP 1998], p.69

A Reaction

This sounds like a powerful objection to Davidson's well-known claim that meaning is truth-conditions. Horwich likes the idea that meaning is use, but I think a similar objection arises - you can use a sentence well without knowing its meaning.

The 12 ideas from 'Truth (2nd edn)'

23299 Horwich's deflationary view is novel, because it relies on propositions rather than sentences [Horwich, by Davidson]
6332 The common-sense theory of correspondence has never been worked out satisfactorily [Horwich]
6336 No deflationary conception of truth does justice to the fact that we aim for truth [Horwich]
6337 The deflationary picture says believing a theory true is a trivial step after believing the theory [Horwich]
6334 The function of the truth predicate? Understanding 'true'? Meaning of 'true'? The concept of truth? A theory of truth? [Horwich]
6335 The redundancy theory cannot explain inferences from 'what x said is true' and 'x said p', to p [Horwich]
6338 We could know the truth-conditions of a foreign sentence without knowing its meaning [Horwich]
6339 Logical form is the aspects of meaning that determine logical entailments [Horwich]
6340 There are Fregean de dicto propositions, and Russellian de re propositions, or a mixture [Horwich]
6341 Right translation is a mapping of languages which preserves basic patterns of usage [Horwich]
6342 Some correspondence theories concern facts; others are built up through reference and satisfaction [Horwich]
6344 Truth is a useful concept for unarticulated propositions and generalisations about them [Horwich]