Phenomenological Reviews

Series | Book | Chapter

212342

Theories of truth and learnable languages

Jaakko Hintikka

pp. 259-292

Abstract

By far the most interesting and successful recent theories of meaning have been truth conditional. The paradigm of such theories is usually taken to be Tarski's recursive characterization of truth for certain formal languages.1 Donald Davidson has both practiced truth-conditional theorizing in the semantics of natural languages, and has pleaded for the general importance of truth-conditional semantics.2 What is even more interesting and more unique to him, Davidson has sought to give a deeper motivation — perhaps a foundation — for truth-conditional semantics of the kind pioneered by Tarski. This deeper foundation Davidson has sought in the requirement of the learnability of the language in question.3

Publication details

Published in:

Hintikka Jaakko (1983) The game of language: studies in game-theoretical semantics and its applications. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 259-292

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-9847-2_10

Full citation:

Hintikka Jaakko (1983) Theories of truth and learnable languages, In: The game of language, Dordrecht, Springer, 259–292.