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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Reflections on my Critics' and 'Lectures 1930-32 (student notes)'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
There is no theory of truth, because it isn't a concept [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: It is wrong to say that there is any one theory of truth, for truth is not a concept.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], C V B)
     A reaction: This makes you wonder how he understood the word 'concept'. In most modern discussions truth seems to be a concept, and in Frege it can be an unsaturated predicate which is satisfied by sentences or thoughts.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
All thought has the logical form of reality [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: Thought must have the logical form of reality if it is to be thought at all.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], A V.1)
     A reaction: This links nicely the idea that true thoughts somehow share the structure of what they refer to, with the idea of logical form in logic. But maybe logical form is a fiction we offer in order to obtain a spurious map of reality.
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
'Truth' may only apply within a theory [Kuhn]
     Full Idea: 'Truth' may, like 'proof', be a term with only intra-theoretic applications.
     From: Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970], §5)
     A reaction: I think we can blame Tarski (via Quine, Kuhn's teacher) for this one. I take it to be an utter failure to grasp the meaning of the word 'truth' (and sneakily substituting 'satisfaction' for it). For a start, we have to compare theories on some basis.