Abstract
If logic is considered as a science which investigates the general conditions of attaining truth (true propositions), the truth is obviously the most important concept of logic.
Reprinted by permission of the author from Recueil de travaux de la Faculté de philosophie (University of Belgrade) 7, No. 2. The paper is part of a larger work under the title The Concept of Logic, which has not yet been published.
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One should bear in mind that this holds for the explicitly defined concepts of a formal-logic (formal logic comprising both’ syntax’ and’ semantics’). The concepts of informal logic which underlie all rational discourse are presupposed in the definition of truth.
For example, truth-tables are necessary for the definition of logical constants.
Studia Philosophica, vol. I, Leopoli 1936, pp. 261–405. [Reprint dated 1935.]-Ed. note: An English translation is more readily accessible: ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, transl. by J.H. Woodger, Oxford University Press, New York, 1956, Section VIII, pp. 152-278.
“To understand a sentence, to know what is asserted by it is the same as to know under what conditions it would be true” (R. Carnap, Introduction to Semantics, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1948, p. 22.
Sigwart, Logik, vol. I, Tübingen 1924, p. 8.
Tarski, op. cit., p. 265.
Op. cit., p. 155.
Op. cit., p. 279. [See Engl. tr., p. 165.]
Op. cit., pp. 280-281. [Engl. tr., p. 166; a slightly different translation.-Ed.]
“Diese Zeichen betrachte ich als beziehungsweise gleichbedeutend mit den Ausdrücken der Umgangsprache ‘nicht’, ‘oder’, ‘für ein beliebiges’ und ‘ist in … enthalten’ ” (pp. cit., p. 283). [Engl. tr., pp. 168-169.]
“In der inhaltlichen Interpretation der Sprache, die ich hier stets in Auge habe, repräsentieren die Variablen immer Namen von Klassen von Individuen” (op. cit., p. 284). [Engl. tr., p. 169.]
Op. cit., p. 286. [Engl. tr., p. 171.]
Op. cit., p. 289. [Engl. tr., p. 173-174.]
Op. cit., p. 313. [Engl. tr., p. 195.]
As there are adequate and non-adequate referential concepts there are also adequate (true) and non-adequate (false) referential propositions. The latter look as if they refer to some facts but there are no such facts.
This is not his main concern in the analysed work.
“Keine mit den Sprachgebrauch übereinstimmende Definition der wahren Aussage darf dem Prinzip des ausgeschlossenen Dritten widersprechende Konsequenzen nach sich ziehen” (op. cit., p. 303). [Engl. tr., p. 186.]
Arthur Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy, New York 1949, p. 350.
Ibid., pp. 355-356.
“Eine wahre Aussage ist eine Aussage, welche besagt dass die Sachen sich so und so verhalten … und die Sachen verhalten sich eben so und so” (op. cit., p. 268). [Engl. tr., p. 155.]
Loc. cit.
It is legitimate because the formula has a hypothetical form. The proposition ‘“The earth is flat” is true if and only if the earth is flat’ is valid but trivial because this formula is satisfiable by all assertions.
As we are concerned here with the problem of the meaning of truth, not with the problem of criteria of actual truth, to mean ‘an adequate referential proposition’ should not be confused with to be an adequate referential proposition.
Another objection to this view was made by Professor Ayer in his ‘Verification and Experience’ (in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1937). It consists in pointing out that when we want to answer the question how it is established that the experts agree we get a vicious regress.
See Tarski, op. cit., p. 271. [Engl. tr., p. 158.]
Rudolf Carnap, ‘Meaning Postulates’, Philosophical Studies 3, No. 5 (Oct. 1952) 67.
New empirical facts are indirectly relevant for an analytic proposition in so far as they directly induce us only to change the meanings of our words. However, with new meaning of their terms the statements previously believed to be analytical are no longer true. E.g. the statement ‘Atoms are indivisible parts of matter’ was an analytic statement so far as the term ‘atom’ had been taken to mean ‘indivisible particle’. The discovery that the referents of this term are in fact divisible directly caused our change of the meaning of the word ‘atom’ and indirectly made us re-appraise the truth-value of the reinterpreted sentence ‘Atoms are indivisible parts of matter’.
p is objectively true = Df p is empirically true or p is logically true = Df p is either empirically true, or logically true, or both empirically and logically true.
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© 1969 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Marković, M. (1969). The Problem of Truth. In: Cohen, R.S., Wartofsky, M.W. (eds) Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3381-7_10
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