13 ideas
10825 | The notion of truth is to help us make use of the utterances of others [Field,H] |
Full Idea: I suspect that the original purpose of the notion of truth was to aid us in utilizing the utterances of others in drawing conclusions about the world,...so we must attend to its social role, and that being in a position to assert something is what counts. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §5) | |
A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This sounds excellent. Deflationary and redundancy views are based on a highly individualistic view of utterances and truth, but we need to be much more contextual and pragmatic if we are to get the right story. |
10820 | In the early 1930s many philosophers thought truth was not scientific [Field,H] |
Full Idea: In the early 1930s many philosophers believed that the notion of truth could not be incorporated into a scientific conception of the world. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §3) | |
A reaction: This leads on to an account of why Tarski's formal version was so important, and Field emphasises Tarski's physicalist metaphysic. |
13499 | Tarski reduced truth to reference or denotation [Field,H, by Hart,WD] |
Full Idea: Tarski can be viewed as having reduced truth to reference or denotation. | |
From: report of Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 4 |
10818 | Tarski really explained truth in terms of denoting, predicating and satisfied functions [Field,H] |
Full Idea: A proper account of Tarski's truth definition explains truth in terms of three other semantic notions: what it is for a name to denote something, and for a predicate to apply to something, and for a function symbol to be fulfilled by a pair of things. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) | |
A reaction: This is Field's 'T1' version, which is meant to spell out what was really going on in Tarski's account. |
10817 | Tarski just reduced truth to some other undefined semantic notions [Field,H] |
Full Idea: It is normally claimed that Tarski defined truth using no undefined semantic terms, but I argue that he reduced the notion of truth to certain other semantic notions, but did not in any way explicate these other notions. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §0) |
10819 | Tarski gives us the account of truth needed to build a group of true sentences in a model [Field,H] |
Full Idea: Model theory must choose the denotations of the primitives so that all of a group of sentences come out true, so we need a theory of how the truth value of a sentence depends on the denotation of its primitive nonlogical parts, which Tarski gives us. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §1) |
10827 | Model theory is unusual in restricting the range of the quantifiers [Field,H] |
Full Idea: In model theory we are interested in allowing a slightly unusual semantics for quantifiers: we are willing to allow that the quantifier not range over everything. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], n 5) |
10826 | 'Valence' and 'gene' had to be reduced to show their compatibility with physicalism [Field,H] |
Full Idea: 'Valence' and 'gene' were perfectly clear long before anyone succeeded in reducing them, but it was their reducibility and not their clarity before reduction that showed them to be compatible with physicalism. | |
From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §5) |
7615 | Field says reference is a causal physical relation between mental states and objects [Field,H, by Putnam] |
Full Idea: In Field's view reference is a 'physicalistic relation', i.e. a complex causal relation between words or mental representations and objects or sets of objects; it is up to physical science to discover what that physicalistic relation is. | |
From: report of Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I wouldn't hold your breath while the scientists do their job. If physicalism is right then Field is right, but physics seems no more appropriate for giving a theory of reference than it does for giving a theory of music. |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |