Pirates & Revolutionaries

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Logic & Semantics, Entry Directory]
[Alfred Tarski, Entry Directory]
[Tarski’s “Semantic Conception of Truth”, Entry Directory]

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

7. The Antinomy of the Liar

Brief Summary:

Tarksi has provided the (T) scheme for designating the truth of sentences: (T) X is true if, and only if, p. In this formulation, p is the sentence in question, and X is the name for it, often times being that same sentence with quotations around it. We encounter the liar paradox, however, when X refers to its own self and is predicated as not true. For example: This sentence is not true. The formulation would then read “This sentence is not true” is true, if and only if, this sentence is not true, or, after symbolic substitution, ‘s’ is true if and only if ‘s’ is not true. [The substitution is clearer when considering the more precise formulation that refers to where the sentence is on the page. See below.] Tarski thinks it is important to deal with this paradox, as its solution could play a central role in the foundation of theoretical semantics.

Summary

Previously Tarsky noted that in order to give a definition of truth, we cannot use any natural language, as they structurally speaking will cause too many difficulties [on account of ambiguities for example]. Instead we need to make a formalized language that approximates a natural language as close as possible. Part of this project of creating a suitable formalized language is determining the parts and generative operations of that language. We need primitive or undefined terms along with rules for defining new terms. We also need axioms (primitive sentences) as well as rules for inferring new sentences from them. Now in this section, Tarski says that

In order to discover some of the more specific conditions which must be satisfied by languages in which (or for which) the definition of truth is to be given, it will be advisable to begin with a discussion of that antinomy which directly involves the notion of truth, namely, the antinomy of the liar.
(339)

Tarski then creates a liar paradox using the (T) formulation: (T) X is true if, and only if, p. In this case, he will make p be an actual sentence on the page. In this publication, the page this text is on is 339, and the stated sentence is on line 11. So Tarksi formulates it like this

To obtain this antinomy in a perspicuous form, consider the following sentence:

The sentence printed in this paper on p. 339, l. 11, is not true.
(339)

Tarski abbreviates this above sentence to the letter ‘s’. Then he places this sentence and its name into his (T) scheme.

According to our convention concerning the adequate usage of the term “true,” we assert the following equivalence of the form (T):

(1) ‘s’ is true if, and only if, the sentence printed in this paper on p. 339, l. 11, is not true.
(339)

Yet, as we know, a name is identified with what it is a name of. So

On the other hand, keeping in mind the meaning of the symbol 's,' we establish empirically the following fact:

(2) 's' is identical with the sentence printed in this paper on p. 339, l. 11.

(339)

So since they are identical, we can substitute one for the other, which will produce a contradiction.

Now, by a familiar law from the theory of identity (Leibniz's law), it follows from (2) that we may replace in (1) the expression “the sentence printed in this paper on p. 339, l. 11” by the symbol “‘s.’” We thus obtain what follows:

(3) 's' is true if, and only if, 's' is not true.

In this way we have arrived at an obvious contradiction.
(339)

Tarski thinks that this is more than a joke. Since our structure produces it, we must take it seriously and deal with it. Specifically

We must discover its cause, that is, | to say, we must analyze premises upon which the antinomy is based; we must then reject at least one of these premises, and we must investigate the consequences which this has for the whole domain of our research.
(339-340)

In fact, this antinomy of the liar can play a central role in semantics just as other antinomies have played central roles in other areas of philosophy.

It should be emphasized that antinomies have played a preeminent role in establishing the foundations of modern deductive sciences. And just as class-theoretical antinomies, and in particular Russell's antinomy (of the class of all classes that are not members of themselves), were the starting point for the successful attempts at a consistent formalization of logic and mathematics, so the antinomy of the liar and other semantic antinomies give rise to the construction of theoretical semantics.
(340)

Text:

Tarski, Alfred. “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”. In The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives. Michael P. Lynch, ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts / London: MIT, 2001, pp.331-363.

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Alfred Tarski. “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (1944). Copyright 1992 by the Estate of Alfred Tarski. Reprinted by permission of Jan Tarski.

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

Alfred Tarski (1944) The semantic conception of truth and the foundations of semantics (Reprinted as Chapter 4 of Martinich’s anthology). This is an abridged and updated version of his 1935 long paper Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprache (The concept of truth in formalized languages), itself a translation from his book in Polish of 1933.

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen. In: Studia Philosophica. [Lemberg] 1 (1936), S. 261–405 (Vorabdruck datiert 1935).[4] Der Artikel ist eine deutsche Übersetzung der erstmals 1933 gedruckten polnischen Arbeit, die aber schon 1931 der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert wurde. Nachdruck in Karel Berka, Lothar Kreiser (Hrsg.): Logik-Texte. Kommentierte Auswahl zur Geschichte der modernen Logik. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1983, S. 445–546, in englischer Sprache in Tarski: Logic, Semantics and Metamathematics - papers from 1923 to 1938 by Alfred Tarski. Oxford 1956, 1983.

The German text can be found here:

30 Dec 2014

Tarski (§6) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘6. Languages with a Specified Structure’

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

6. Languages with a Specified Structure

Brief Summary:

Although we are doing semantics, we need to look more formally at language’s structures. We need specifically to determine primitive or undefined terms, rules for defining new terms, and as well axioms (primitive sentences) and the inference rules that we use to derive other sentences from these axioms (both of which being called ‘theorems’).

Summary

Previously Tarski noted that the field of semantics for long has been unclear with its concepts, with one consequence being the production of such paradoxes as ‘the antinomy of the liar’. Given this danger, Tarski turns now to “the problem of specifying the formal structure and the vocabulary of a language in which definitions of semantic concepts are to be given.” (337)

Our task will be to specify the structure of a language. This involves us designating classes of words and expressions, with special attention to those classes that we consider meaningful. First among these meaningful expressions are undefined (or primitive) terms. We as well need to provide rules for defining new terms.

There are certain general conditions under which the structure of a language is regarded as exactly specified. Thus, to specify the structure of a language, we must characterize unambiguously the class of those words and expressions which are to be considered meaningful. In particular, we must indicate all words which we decide to use without defining them, and which are called “undefined (or primitive) terms”; and we must give | the so-called rules of definition for introducing new or defined terms. (337-338)

We also need to “set up criteria for distinguishing within the class of expressions those which we call ‘sentences.’” (338) Then, once knowing which expressions are sentences, we need to say how sentences may be generated systematically. For this we need certain sentences, axioms (primitive sentences) and inference rules describing how to produce new sentences on the basis of these given ones. Both these axioms and the sentences derived from them are called ‘theorems’ or ‘provable sentences’.

Finally, we must formulate the conditions under which a sentence of the language can be asserted. In particular, we must indicate all axioms (or primitive sentences), i.e., those sentences which we decide to assert without proof; and we must give the so-called rules of inference (or rules of proof) by means of which we can deduce new asserted sentences from other sentences which have been previously asserted. Axioms, as well as sentences deduced from them by means of rules of inference, are referred to as “theorems” or “provable sentences.”
(388)

[We might ignore actual contents to our sentences and be concerned mostly with their structures. In this case we would be dealing mostly with symbols, and this is a formalized language.]

If in specifying the structure of a language we refer exclusively to the form of the expressions involved, the language is said to be formalized. In such a language theorems are the only sentences which can be asserted.
(338)

At this time, only deductive logic deals with formalized languages. However these could be developed in other branches of science like mathematics and theoretical physics. (338)

Tarksi then adds parenthetically that it is possible and potentially useful to construct languages that “have an exactly specified structure without being formalized.” (338)

Although we normally use natural languages, they are riddled with ambiguities, and so giving a precise meaning of truth for them is tricky. We can only accomplish this with formalized languages. The best we can do with natural languages is creating the closest approximation for them in formal languages.

The problem of the definition of truth obtains a precise meaning and can be solved in a rigorous way only for those languages whose structure has been exactly specified. For other languages – thus, for all natural, “spoken” languages – the meaning of the problem is more or less vague, and its solution can have only an approximate character. Roughly speaking, the approximation consists in replacing a natural language (or a portion of it in which we are interested) by one whose structure is exactly specified, and which diverges from the given language “as little as possible.”
(338)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski (§5) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘5. Truth as a Semantic Concept’

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

5. Truth as a Semantic Concept

Brief Summary:

Although we normally think of truth as a logical concept rather than a semantic one, Tarksi has shown that it is in fact semantic, because we understand it more clearly by means of his semantic formulation.

Summary

Previously Tarski provided the ‘material conditions’ for a sentence to be true, which is that its name can take a truth predicate and be equated with its true articulation in some language. Specifically, a sentence p in some language needs to be equated with its name X, which is predicated as being true:

(T) X is true if, and only if, p.

Now in this section, Tarski proposes a name for this conception of truth: “the semantic conception of truth”.

Semantics is a field that is concerned with expressions and their meanings.

Semantics is a discipline which, speaking loosely, deals with certain relations between expressions of a language and the objects (or “states of affairs”) “referred to” by those expressions. As typical examples of semantic concepts we may mention the concepts of designation, satisfaction, and definition as these occur in the following examples:

the expression “the father of his country” designates (denotes) George Washington;

snow satisfies the sentential function (the condition) “2 is white”;

the equation “2 ● x = 1” defines (uniquely determines) the number 1/2.
(336)

‘Designates’, ‘satisfies’, and ‘defines’ express relations, but ‘true’ has a different logical nature. It “expresses a property (or denotes a class) of certain expressions, viz., of sentences.” (336) But even though truth is a logical property unlike these other semantic notions, Tarski thinks that truth is still a matter for semantics. He provides a couple of reasons: 1) our formulations for truth refer to sentences or to the objects ‘talked about’ by these sentences, and 2) the simplest and most natural way to provide an exact definition of truth involves using such semantic notions as satisfaction.

It is for these reasons that we count the concept of truth which is discussed here among the concepts of semantics, and the problem of defining truth proves to be closely related to the more general problem of setting up the foundations of theoretical semantics.
(336)

Tarski acknowledges that semantics cannot do everything. (337)

Semantical notions have been a part of philosophy, logic, and philology from the beginning. However they “have been treated for a long time with a certain amount of suspicion.” (337) This suspicion has been warranted, since all efforts to present semantic notions clearly have been “miscarried”. To make matters worse, these semantic concepts have led to such paradoxes and antinomies as “the antinomy of the liar, Richard's antinomy of definability (by means of a finite number of words), and Grelling-Nelson's antinomy of heterological terms.” (337)

Despite these shortcomings in the field of semantics up to this point in history, Tarski believes “that the method which is outlined in this paper helps to overcome these difficulties and assures the possibility of a consistent use of semantic concepts.” (337)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski (§4) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘4. A Criterion for the Material Adequacy of the Definition’

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

4. A Criterion for the Material Adequacy of the Definition

Brief Summary:

The conditions for our definition of truth are that it must be formally correct and materially adequate. It is formally correct if takes the form of the (T) scheme:

(T) X is true if, and only if, p.

Here, X is the name for a sentence, conventionally placed within quotation marks, and p is the sentence expressed in some language (given without quotations). For example:

The sentence “snow is white” is true if, and only if, snow is white.

The definition then is materially adequate if this equivalence is fulfilled [that is to say, if the content or material of the left side of the equation and on the right side are fully adequate to one another.]

Summary

Previously Tarski examined some correspondence theory definitions of truth, and he found them to be too unclear and imprecise. So we must formulate the definition in a different way. Tarski will do so here first by beginning with an example. He has us consider the sentence:

“snow is white”
(334)

We wonder, under what conditions would this sentence be true or false? If we stick with the classic correspondence theory, we would say that

the sentence is true if snow is white, and that it is false if snow is not white. Thus, if the definition of truth is to conform to our conception, it must imply the following equivalence:

The sentence “snow is white” is true if, and only if, snow is white.

(334)

[We above have an equivalence, since we have a biconditional, if and only if.] Tarski notes that “snow is white” on the left side of the equivalence has quotation marks around it, while on the right side it does not.

On the right side we have the sentence itself, and on the left the name of the sentence. Employing the medieval logical terminology we could also say that on the right side the words “snow is white” occur in suppositio formalis, and on the left in suppositio materialis.
(334)

Tarski provides two reasons for why we need to have the name for the sentence on the left and the sentence itself on the right. Recall again our formulation.

The sentence “snow is white” is true if, and only if, snow is white.

The first part,

The sentence “snow is white” is true

has the form “X is true”. In this grammatical structure, we need to replace X with a name, for otherwise it would not be meaningful, “since the subject of a sentence may be only a noun or an expression functioning like a noun.” (334) The second reason is that “the fundamental conventions regarding the use of any language require that in any utterance we make about an object it is the name of the object which must be employed, and not the object itself. In consequence, if we wish to say something about a sentence, for example, that it is true, we must use the name of this sentence, and not the sentence itself” (334).

Here we are using quotations around a sentence to indicate its name, but we can use other methods as well. For example, we could arbitrarily assign it some letter symbol. Or we can be more mechanical and

use the following expression as the name (the description) of the sentence “snow is white”:

the sentence constituted by three words, the first of which consists of the 19th, 14th, 15th, and 23rd letters, the second of the 9th and 19th letters, and the third of the 23rd, 8th, 9th, 20th, and 5th letters of the English alphabet.
(335)

Tarski will now generalize this procedure. Consider some sentence, and call it ‘p’. We then form the name of this sentence (in the above we did so with quotation marks), and we name it with another letter, for example, X. Now we have two sentences. We have p, which is the sentence in question. (Above the example was: snow is white). And we also form this sentence: X is true. (Above it was: “snow is white” is true). We now want to know, what is the logical relation between X is true and p? (Or as above, what is the logical relation between “Snow is white” is true and snow is white?) Tarski says that given the way we conceive of their truth, they are equivalent.

We shall now generalize the procedure which we have applied above. Let us consider an arbitrary sentence; we shall replace it by the letter 'p.' We form the name of this sentence and we replace it by another letter, say 'X.' We ask now what is the logical relation between the two sentences “X is true” and 'p.' It is clear that from the point of view of our basic conception of truth these sentences are equivalent. In other words, the following equivalence holds:

(T) X is true if, and only if, p.

We shall call any such equivalence (with 'p' replaced by any sentence of the language to which the word “true” refers, and 'X' replaced by a name of this sentence) an “equivalence of the form (T).”
(335)

[Perhaps another way of saying the above sentence is that a sentence is true if its equivalent form in a certain language is true.] The above equivalence is the material adequacy for the truth definition. [I am not sure why we use the term ‘material’. Perhaps this is because it concerns the adequacy of the content of the right side of the formulation to the content of the left side.] [So our usage of term “true” is adequate from the material perspective when we use it apply in the above manner. In other words, it seems that the material conditions for the truth of a sentence are that a) it is true in some language and that b) we can declare that truth by predicating truth to its name while c) designating its expression in some language and d) affirming its truth in that language.]

Now at last we are able to put into a precise form the conditions under which we will consider the usage and the definition of the term "true" as adequate from the material point of view: we wish to use the term "true" in such a way that all equivalences of the form (T) can be asserted, and we shall call a definition of truth "adequate" if all these equivalences follow from it.
(335)

We note that expression (T) is not itself a sentence but rather it is a schema of a sentence. [Perhaps this is because it is not filled in yet with content, or perhaps for some reason even if it is filled in with content it should not be considered a sentence.] Tarski claims that neither (T) itself nor any instantiation of it suffices for a definition of truth.

We can only say that every equivalence of the form (T) obtained by replacing 'p' by a particular sentence, and 'X' by a name of this sentence, may be considered a partial definition of truth, which explains wherein the truth of this one individual sentence consists. The general definition has to be, in a certain sense, a logical conjunction of all these partial definitions.
(335)

Tarski closes with the following parenthetical remark:

(The last remark calls for some comments. A language may admit the construction of infinitely many sentences; and thus the number of partial definitions of truth referring to sentences of such a language will also be infinite. Hence to give our remark a precise sense we should have to explain what is meant by a "logical conjunction of infinitely many sentences"; but this would lead us too far into technical problems of modern logic.)
(336)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

29 Dec 2014

Tarski (§3) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘3. The Meaning of the Term “True”’

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

3. The Meaning of the Term “True”

Brief Summary:
Truth often is defined using the ‘correspondence theory’ in the following way: “A sentence is true if it designates an existing state of affairs.” But this and similar correspondence theory definitions are not clear and precise enough to suffice as definitions for truth, and thus we must seek something better.

Summary

Previously Tarski discussed the extension of the term true. We will now encounter more difficulties with the term’s meaning (or intension).

We use the term “ true” with many meanings and usages. So as philosophers we must specify the meaning we want to give it. (333)

Tarski will follow in the tradition of Aristotle, who wrote in his Metaphysics

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.
(Aristotle, qt in Tarski, 333; Aristotle, gamma 7, 27)

Tarski reformulates this using modern terminology to say:

The truth of a sentence consists in its agreement with (or to) reality.
(333)

This is sometimes called the “correspondence theory of truth.” (333)

[Normally we might use the term ‘ designate’ to mean that some name or term stands for some object of reference. But also] we can think of whole sentences as designating states of affairs, and thus we could say:

A sentence is true if it designates an existing state of affairs.
(334)

Yet none of these definitions is precise and clear enough to suffice to define truth. Thus “It is up to us to look for a more precise expression of our intuitions. “ (334)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski (§2) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘2. The Extension of the Term “True”’

[The following is summary. All boldface, underlying and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

2. The Extension of the Term “True”

Brief Summary:
We will apply the term ‘truth’ only to declarative sentences articulated in some language.

Summary

The concept of truth would have an extension [the set of things to which it refers.] Tarski begins with some remarks about truth’s extension.

The predicate “true” is often applied to many things, including

psychological phenomena such as judgments or beliefs, sometimes to certain physical objects, namely, linguistic expressions and specifically sentences, and sometimes to certain ideal entities called “propositions.” (332)

“Sentence” will mean what in grammar we call a declarative sentence. “Proposition” is notoriously difficult to define, so Tarski will stick with applying the term ‘true’ only to sentences. (332-333)

[Since we are dealing with real grammatically formed sentences, we are dealing with real natural language.] Thus we always related the notion of truth to a specific language, “for it is obvious that the same expression which is a true sentence in one language can be false or meaningless in another.” (333)

However, the notion of truth could also be extended to apply to things other than sentences. (333)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski (§1) of “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entitled ‘1. The Main Problem – A Satisfactory Definition of Truth’

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Part I. Exposition

1. The Main Problem – A Satisfactory Definition of Truth

Brief Summary:
The first part of the article is about the material and formal conditions for a definition of truth.

Summary

Tarski will be focusing on the notion of truth. The main problem at hand is giving a satisfactory definition of truth, which would be materially adequate and formally correct definition [more on these ideas later].

Tarski says we first must specify the conditions that the material point of view would say are adequate for the definition of truth. We secondly must “determine on what the formal correctness of the definition depends.” (332) To do this,

we must specify the words or concepts which we wish to use in defining the notion of truth; and we must also give the formal rules to which the definition should conform. Speaking more generally, we must describe the formal structure of the language in which the definition will be given.
(332)

The first part of this article will deal with these points above.

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski. Preliminary Text to “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Logic & Semantics, Entry Directory]
[Alfred Tarski, Entry Directory]
[Tarski’s “Semantic Conception of Truth”, Entry Directory]

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Preliminary Text

Brief Summary:
The first part of the article explains Tarski’s definition of truth and his ideas regarding the foundation of semantics. In the second part he responds to objections to his theories.

Summary

In a preliminary section, Tarski explains that his text has two main divisions to it, an expository and a polemical section. (331) The first part summarizes informally his work with definition of truth and with the problem of giving a foundation to semantics. In the second part he responds to objections to his theories. Finally, he thanks Marja Kokoszynsk, Ernest Nagel, and David Rynin. (331)

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski

http://www.ifispan.waw.pl/studialogica/s-p-f/volumina_i-iv/I-07-Tarski-small.pdf

The German text can be found here:

Tarski’s “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”, entry directory

by Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Logic & Semantics, Entry Directory]
[Alfred Tarski, Entry Directory]

Entry Directory for

Alfred Tarski

“The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics”

Preliminary Text

Part I. Exposition

1. The Main Problem – A Satisfactory Definition of Truth

2. The Extension of the Term “True”

3. The Meaning of the Term “True”

4. A Criterion for the Material Adequacy of the Definition

5. Truth as a Semantic Concept

6. Languages with a Specified Structure

7. The Antinomy of the Liar

8. The Inconsistency of Semantically Closed Languages

9. Object-Language and Meta-Language

10. Conditions for a Positive Solution of the Main Problem

11. The Construction (in Outline) of the Definition

Text:

A hyperlinked online version can be found here:

The Lynch edited book writes this in the acknowledgments:

Further bibliographical information from
http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/522/522/MPPLecture4.html:

And yet further bibliographical information from the German wiki page for Tarski