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TARSKI, QUINE, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE VERNACULAR “TRUE”

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Abstract

It is argued that the blind ascriptive role for the word “true”, its use, that is, in conjunction with descriptions of classes of sentences or with proper names of sentences (but not quote-names), is one which applies indiscriminately to sentences regardless of whether these are in languages we speak, can understand, or can translate into sentences that we do speak (and understand). Formal analogues of the ordinary word “true” as they arise in Tarski’s seminal work, and in others, cannot replicate this essential role of the ordinary word “true”.

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Azzouni, J. TARSKI, QUINE, AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE VERNACULAR “TRUE”. Synthese 142, 273–288 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-005-3717-8

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