Truth and Meaning

E289480

Truth and Meaning is a seminal philosophical essay by Donald Davidson that argues for understanding meaning through a formal theory of truth inspired by Tarski.

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All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Truth and Meaning canonical 2
essay "Meaning" 1

Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf philosophical essay
work on philosophy of language
arguesAgainst meaning theories based on reference to meanings as entities
arguesFor truth-conditions as central to meaning
assumes a systematic relation between syntax and semantics
that a theory of meaning should be learnable by speakers
author Donald Davidson
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
criticizes intensional meaning theories that posit meanings as abstract entities
verificationist theories of meaning
field analytic philosophy
philosophy of language
hasImpactOn debates about the nature of meaning
debates about truth and interpretation
formal approaches to natural language semantics
hasKeyClaim a satisfactory theory of meaning for a language can be given by a suitably constrained theory of truth for that language
a theory of meaning should be finitely axiomatizable and compositional
a theory of meaning should entail all T-sentences for the object language
knowledge of meaning is knowledge of truth-conditions
semantic structure of sentences can be captured via a formal truth theory
hasKeyConcept T-sentences
compositionality of meaning
radical interpretation
semantic theory
truth-conditions
hasMethod formal semantic analysis
model-theoretic inspiration from Tarski
hasReception widely regarded as a seminal paper in philosophy of language
influenced Davidsonian semantics
contemporary philosophy of language
formal semantics in linguistics
theories of radical interpretation
truth-conditional semantics
influencedBy Alfred Tarski
language English
mainTopic formal theories of truth
theories of meaning
truth-conditional semantics
partOf Donald Davidson’s collected essays
philosophicalTradition analytic philosophy of language
proposes understanding meaning via a theory of truth
publicationYear 1967
publishedIn Synthese
relatedWork Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
Radical Interpretation
usesConcept Tarskian object-language/metalanguage distinction
surface form: Tarskian truth theory

Referenced by (3)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Donald Davidson notableWork Truth and Meaning
From a Logical Point of View hasPart Truth and Meaning
this entity surface form: essay "Meaning"