Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Alfred Tarski: Alfred Tarski (1901-1983) was a Polish logician and mathematician. Notable works include his contributions to model theory, metamathematics, and the development of the theory of truth. See also Truth definition, Truth theory, Model theory, Models.
_____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Hartry Field on Tarski - Dictionary of Arguments
I 33f Tarski/Field: According to Tarski the following two sentences are a contradiction because he needs quantities for his definition of implication: a) "Snow is white" does not imply logically "grass is green". b) There are no mathematical entities like quantities. ((s) Therefore, Field must be independent of Tarski.) Solution Field: Implication as a basic concept. >Mathematical entities, >Ontology/Field, >Tarski-scheme. --- II 124 Tarski/Truth: Tarski's truth theory is unlike disquotational truth: only for a fragment. >Disquotationalism/Field. Unrestricted quantifiers and semantic concepts must be excluded. >Quantifiers. Problem: we cannot create infinite conjunctions and disjunctions with that. (Tarski-Truth is not suitable for generalization). >Generalization. DeflationsimVsTarski/QuineVsTarski. >Deflationism. Otherwise, we must give up an explicit definition. Deflationism: uses a generalized version of the truth-schema. TarskiVsDeflationism: pro compositionality. (Also Davidson) >Compositionality. Tarski: needs recursion to characterize e.g."or". >Logical constants. II 125 Composition principle/Field: E.g. A sentence consisting of a one-digit predicate and a referencing name is true, iff the predicate is true of what the name denotes. This goes beyond logical rules because it introduces reference and denotation. >Reference, >Denotation. Tarski: needs this for a satisfying Truth-concept. Deflationism: Reference and danotation is not important for it. >Compositionality). II 141 Truth-Theory/Tarski: Thesis: we do not get an adequate Truth-theory if we take only all instances of the schema as axioms. - This does not give us the generalizations we need, e.g. that the modus ponens receives the truth. II 142 Deflationism/Tarski/Field. Actually, Tarski's approach is also deflationistic. --- Soames I 477 FieldVsTarski/Soames: Tarski hides speech behavior. Field: Tarski introduces primitive reference, and so on. >language independence. SoamesVsField: his physicalist must reduce every single one of the semantic concepts. - For example, he cannot characterize negation as a symbol by truth, because that would be circular. E.g. he cannot take negation as the basic concept, because then there would be no facts about speakers (no semantic facts about use) that explain the semantic properties. FieldVsTarski: one would have to be able to replace the semantic terms by physical terms. >Semantics._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich, Aldershot 1994 Soames I Scott Soames "What is a Theory of Truth?", The Journal of Philosophy 81 (1984), pp. 411-29 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich, Aldershot 1994 Soames II S. Soames Understanding Truth Oxford 1999 |