Abstract
Tarski’s definition of truth had a major impact on analytic philosophy. It unquestionably had a major impact on Carnap. It helped motivate his shift, in the mid-1930’s, from pure syntax to the incorporation of semantics (and then pragmatics) into his overall view of scientific language. But it is sometimes said (e.g. by Coffa1) that this change of Carnap’s, from pure syntax to a broader view including semantics, involved the abandonment of a coherence theory of truth, and the acceptance of a correspondence theory. Along with this comes the accusation — levelled, for instance, by Russell2 — that the supposed coherence theory of the syntax phase led Carnap to give up an empiricist criterion of meaning.
I am grateful to Paul Horwich, Eckehard Köhler, Jan Wolenski, and other conference participants for conversation about the issues surrounding this paper at the Prague conference on truth in September 1996. I am also grateful to the organizers, especially Jaroslav Peregrin, for their hospitality and for providing such ideal surroundings for a conference. Carnap lived in Prague from 1931 to 1935 — which coincides almost exactly with his syntax period. He felt at home in the city, and was honored to have Masaryk’s personal signature on the “Ernennungsurkunde” for his position at the German University. He left reluctantly for Chicago, in 1935, and often looked back fondly on his time in Prague. I am also grateful to Steve Awodey, Mike Price, and Howard Stein for discussion about Carnap and truth, and to Erich Reck for his detailed and very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
... this is again only a practical question of language engineering, and therefore ought to be solved according to such practical points of view as convenience and simplicity.
— from Carnap’s reply to Davidson (Schilpp 1963)
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Carus, A.W. (1999). Carnap, Syntax, and Truth. In: Peregrin, J. (eds) Truth and Its Nature (if Any). Synthese Library, vol 284. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9233-8_2
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