display all the ideas for this combination of texts
22 ideas
15339 | Tarski gave up on the essence of truth, and asked how truth is used, or how it functions [Tarski, by Horsten] |
Full Idea: Tarski emancipated truth theory from traditional philosophy, by no longer posing Pilate's question (what is truth? or what is the essence of truth?) but instead 'how is truth used?', 'how does truth function?' and 'how can its functioning be described?'. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.2 | |
A reaction: Horsten, later in the book, does not give up on the essence of truth, and modern theorists are trying to get back to that question by following Tarski's formal route. Modern analytic philosophy at its best, it seems to me. |
16302 | Tarski did not just aim at a definition; he also offered an adequacy criterion for any truth definition [Tarski, by Halbach] |
Full Idea: Tarski did not settle for a definition of truth, taking its adequacy for granted. Rather he proposed an adequacy criterion for evaluating the adequacy of definitions of truth. The criterion is his famous Convention T. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 | |
A reaction: Convention T famously says the sentence is true if and only if a description of the sentence is equivalent to affirming the sentence. 'Snow is white' iff snow is white. |
19135 | Tarski enumerates cases of truth, so it can't be applied to new words or languages [Davidson on Tarski] |
Full Idea: Tarski does not tell us how to apply his concept of truth to a new case, whether the new case is a new language or a word newly added to a language. This is because enumerating cases gives no clue for the next or general case. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
A reaction: His account has been compared to a telephone directory. We aim to understand the essence of anything, so that we can fully know it, and explain and predict how it will behave. Either truth is primitive, or I demand to know its essence. |
19138 | Tarski define truths by giving the extension of the predicate, rather than the meaning [Davidson on Tarski] |
Full Idea: Tarski defined the class of true sentences by giving the extension of the truth predicate, but he did not give the meaning. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
A reaction: This is analogous to giving an account of the predicate 'red' as the set of red objects. Since I regard that as a hopeless definition of 'red', I am inclined to think the same of Tarski's account of truth. It works in the logic, but so what? |
4699 | Tarski made truth relative, by only defining truth within some given artificial language [Tarski, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Tarski's account doesn't hold for natural languages. The general notion of truth is replaced by "true-in-L", where L is a formal language. Hence truth is relativized to each artificial language. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This is a pretty good indication that Tarski's theory is NOT a correspondence theory, even if its structure may sometimes give that impression. |
19324 | Tarski has to avoid stating how truths relate to states of affairs [Kirkham on Tarski] |
Full Idea: Tarski has to define truths so as not to make explicit the relation between a true sentence and an obtaining state of affairs. ...He has to list each sentence separately, and simply assign it a state of affairs. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.8 | |
A reaction: He has to avoid semantic concepts like 'reference', because he wants a physicalist theory, according to Kirkham. Thus the hot interest in theories of reference in the 1970s/80s. And also attempts to give a physicalist account of meaning. |
10672 | Tarskian semantics says that a sentence is true iff it is satisfied by every sequence [Tarski, by Hossack] |
Full Idea: Tarskian semantics says that a sentence is true iff it is satisfied by every sequence, where a sequence is a set-theoretic individual, a set of ordered pairs each with a natural number as its first element and an object from the domain for its second. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 3 |
15410 | Truth only applies to closed formulas, but we need satisfaction of open formulas to define it [Burgess on Tarski] |
Full Idea: In Tarski's theory of truth, although the notion of truth is applicable only to closed formulas, to define it we must define a more general notion of satisfaction applicable to open formulas. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by John P. Burgess - Philosophical Logic 1.8 | |
A reaction: This is a helpful pointer to what is going on in the Tarski definition. It culminates in the 'satisfaction of all sequences', which presumable delivers the required closed formula. |
18811 | Tarski uses sentential functions; truly assigning the objects to variables is what satisfies them [Tarski, by Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Tarski invoked the notion of a sentential function, where components are replaced by appropriate variables. A function is then satisfied by assigning objects to variables. An assignment satisfies if the function is true of the things assigned. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 3.2 | |
A reaction: [very compressed] This use of sentential functions, rather than sentences, looks like the key to Tarski's definition of truth. |
15365 | We can define the truth predicate using 'true of' (satisfaction) for variables and some objects [Tarski, by Horsten] |
Full Idea: The truth predicate, says Tarski, should be defined in terms of the more primitive satisfaction relation: the relation of being 'true of'. The fundamental notion is a formula (containing the free variables) being true of a sequence of objects as values. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 06.3 |
19314 | For physicalism, reduce truth to satisfaction, then define satisfaction as physical-plus-logic [Tarski, by Kirkham] |
Full Idea: Tarski, a physicalist, reduced semantics to physical and/or logicomathematical concepts. He defined all semantic concepts, save satisfaction, in terms of truth. Then truth is defined in terms of satisfaction, and satisfaction is given non-semantically. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.1 | |
A reaction: The term 'logicomathematical' is intended to cover set theory. Kirkham says you can remove these restrictions from Tarski's theory, and the result is a version of the correspondence theory. |
19316 | Insight: don't use truth, use a property which can be compositional in complex quantified sentence [Tarski, by Kirkham] |
Full Idea: Tarski's great insight is find another property, since open sentences are not truth. It must be had by open and genuine sentences. Clauses having it must generate it for the whole sentence. Truth can be defined for sentences by using it. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.4 | |
A reaction: The proposed property is 'satisfaction', which can (unlike truth) be a feature open sentences (such as 'x is green', which is satisfied by x='grass'), |
19175 | Tarski gave axioms for satisfaction, then derived its explicit definition, which led to defining truth [Tarski, by Davidson] |
Full Idea: Tarski turned his axiomatic characterisation of satisfaction into an explicit definition of the satisfaction-predicate using some fancy set theoretical apparatus, and this in turn leads to the explicit definition of the truth predicate. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 7 |
10969 | Tarski had a theory of truth, and a theory of theories of truth [Tarski, by Read] |
Full Idea: Besides a theory of truth of his own, Tarski developed a theory of theories of truth. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.1 | |
A reaction: The famous snow biconditional is the latter, and the recursive account based on satisfaction is the former. |
17746 | Tarski's 'truth' is a precise relation between the language and its semantics [Tarski, by Walicki] |
Full Idea: Tarski's analysis of the concept of 'truth' ...is given a precise treatment as a particular relation between syntax (language) and semantics (the world). | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Michal Walicki - Introduction to Mathematical Logic History E.1 | |
A reaction: My problem is that the concept of truth seems to apply to animal minds, which are capable of making right or wrong judgements, and of realising their errors. Tarski didn't make universal claims for his account. |
10904 | Tarskian truth neglects the atomic sentences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith on Tarski] |
Full Idea: The Tarskian account of truth neglects the atomic sentences. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Mulligan/Simons/Smith - Truth-makers §1 | |
A reaction: Yes! The whole Tarskian edifice is built on a foundation which it is taboo even to mention. If truth is just the assignment of 'T' and 'F', that isn't even the beginnings of a theory of 'truth'. |
2571 | Tarski says that his semantic theory of truth is completely neutral about all metaphysics [Tarski, by Haack] |
Full Idea: Tarski says "we may remain naïve realists or idealists, empiricists or metaphysicians… The semantic conception is completely neutral toward all these issues." | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Susan Haack - Philosophy of Logics 7.5 |
10821 | Physicalists should explain reference nonsemantically, rather than getting rid of it [Tarski, by Field,H] |
Full Idea: Tarski work was to persuade physicalist that eliminating semantics was on the wrong track, and that we should explicate notions in the theory of reference nonsemantically rather than simply get rid of them. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Hartry Field - Tarski's Theory of Truth §3 |
10822 | A physicalist account must add primitive reference to Tarski's theory [Field,H on Tarski] |
Full Idea: We need to add theories of primitive reference to Tarski's account if we are to establish the notion of truth as a physicalistically acceptable notion. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Hartry Field - Tarski's Theory of Truth §4 | |
A reaction: This is the main point of Field's paper, and sounds very plausible to me. There is something major missing from Tarski, and at some point there needs to be a 'primitive' notion of thought and language making contact with the world, as it can't be proved. |
19134 | Tarski defined truth for particular languages, but didn't define it across languages [Davidson on Tarski] |
Full Idea: Tarski defined various predicates of the form 's is true in L', each applicable to a single language, but he failed to define a predicate of the form 's is true in L' for variable 'L'. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
A reaction: You might say that no one defines 'tree' to be just 'in English', but we might define 'multiplies' to be in Peano Arithmetic. This indicates the limited and formal nature of what Tarski was trying to achieve. |
16303 | Tarski made truth respectable, by proving that it could be defined [Tarski, by Halbach] |
Full Idea: Tarski's proof of the definability of truth allowed him to establish truth as a respectable notion by his standards. | |
From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 |
16304 | Tarski didn't capture the notion of an adequate truth definition, as Convention T won't prove non-contradiction [Halbach on Tarski] |
Full Idea: Every really adequate theory of truth should also prove the law of non-contradiction. Therefore Tarski's notion of adequacy in Convention T fails to capture the intuitive notion of adequacy he is after. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 | |
A reaction: Tarski points out this weakness, in a passage quoted by Halbach. This obviously raises the question of what truth theories should prove, and this is explored by Halbach. If they start to prove arithmetic, we get nervous. Non-contradiction and x-middle? |