Gila Sher

Did Tarski commit "Tarski's fallacy"?

Did Tarski Commit Tarskis Fallacy ? Author(s): G. Y. Sher Source: The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 653-686 Published by: Association for Symbolic Logic Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2275681 Accessed: 16/06/2009 13:06 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asl. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Association for Symbolic Logic is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Symbolic Logic. http://www.jstor.org

On the Possibility of a Substantive Theory of Truth

The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant of Tarskis theory. The paper begins with general considerations on truth and correspondence and concludes with a brief outlook on the “family” of theories of truth generated by the new methodology.

WAYS OF BRANCHING QUANTIFERS

Ways of Branching Quantifers Author(s): Gila Sher Source: Linguistics and Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Aug., 1990), pp. 393-422 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25001396 . Accessed: 14/10/2013 23:41 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Linguistics and Philosophy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 72.199.214.225 on Mon, 14 Oct 2013 23:41:04 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Partially-ordered (branching) generalized quantifiers: A general definition

Following Henkin’s discovery of partially-ordered (branching) quantification (POQ) with standard quantifiers in 1959, philosophers of language have attempted to extend his definition to POQ with generalized quantifiers. In this paper I propose a general definition of POQ with 1-place generalized quantifiers of the simplest kind: namely, predicative, or “cardinality” quantifiers, e.g., “most”, “few”, “finitely many”, “exactly α ”, where α is any cardinal, etc. The definition is obtained in a series of generalizations, extending the original, Henkin definition first to a general definition of monotone-increasing (M↑) POQ and then to a general definition of generalized POQ, regardless of monotonicity. The extension is based on (i) Barwise’s 1979 analysis of the basic case of M↑ POQ and (ii) my 1990 analysis of the basic case of generalized POQ. POQ is a non-compositional 1st-order structure, hence the problem of extending the definition of the basic case to a general definition is not trivial. The paper concludes with a sample of applications to natural and mathematical languages.

The Formal-Structural View of Logical Consequence

The Formal-Structural View of Logical Consequence Gila Sher The Philosophical Review, Vol. 110, No. 2. (Apr., 2001), pp. 241-261. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28200104%29110%3A2%3C241%3ATFVOLC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G The Philosophical Review is currently published by Cornell University. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/sageschool.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org Fri Nov 2 22:04:07 2007

Is there a place for philosophy in Quine's theory?

Is There a Place for Philosophy in Quines Theory? Gila Sher The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 96, No. 10. (Oct., 1999), pp. 491-524. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-36228 1999 10%2996%3A10%3C49 1 %3AITAPFP%3E2.O.C0%3B2-0 The Journal of Philosophy is currently published by Journal of Philosophy, Inc.. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/jphil.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org/ Sun Dec 3 12:25:41 2006

What is Tarski's Theory of Truth?

What is Tarski’s Theory of Truth? 1. Interpretation as generalization In “On the Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages”, Tarski (1933) describes his project as follows: For an extensive group of formalized languages it is possible to give a method by which a correct definition of truth can be con- structed for each of them. The general abstract description of this method and of the languages to which it is applicable would be troublesome and not at all perspicuous. I prefer therefore to intro- duce the reader to this method in another way. I shall construct a definition of this kind in connection with a particular concrete language and show some of its most important consequences. The indications which I shall then give in §4 of this article will, I hope, be sufficient to show how the method illustrated by this example can be applied to other languages of similar logical construction. (Pp. 167–168) Tarski conceived of his theory as a general method for defining truth for a broad, if well defined, range of languages, but he chose to expound it through a single, simple example. This example, however, does not uniquely determine his general method, and the question arises as to how to generalize Tarski’s example. Tarski clarified one aspect of this question, namely, how to extend his example to languages with indefinitely high order of variables, but many other fundamental issues were not addressed either in his original (1933) paper, or, indeed, in his later (informal) papers (1944 and 1969). The fact that Tarski did not address these ques- tions is, of course, indicative of his attitude: Tarski was either unaware of these questions, or uninterested, or believed the answers were obvious and no further explanation was required. Today, however, the philo- sophical discussion has veered away from the technical matters that occupied Tarski in the 30’s (partly, no doubt, due to his own thorough and successful treatment of these matters), and differences in attitude towards Tarski’s theory are often grounded in differences in answers to the open questions. Even general attitudes towards the theory of truth (e.g., towards the possibility Topoi 18: 149–166, 1999.  1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Gila Sher of a substantive, non-deflationist theory of truth) can be traced to implicit generalizations of Tarski’s example. In this paper I will study Tarski’s theory through a few of its open questions and some of its generaliza- tions. I will concentrate on the “reductionist approach” to Tarski’s theory, exemplified by two generalizations due to Field. My critical investigation of these gener- alizations will not be directed at their exegetical virtues; rather, I will be interested in their viability as philo- sophical theories and in some of the challenges they face. I will begin with a brief introduction to the original goals of Tarski’s theory. 1 2. Aims of theory We can distinguish three aims of Tarski’s theory: a philosophical aim, a methodological aim and a logical aim. 1. The Philosophical Aim. 2 Tarski described his goal in constructing a theory of truth as philosophical in nature. The goal is to construct a materially accurate and formally consistent definition of the classical notion of truth: The present article is almost wholly devoted to a single problem – the definition of truth. Its task is to construct . . . a materially adequate and formally correct definition of the term ‘true sentence’. This problem . . . belongs to the classical questions of philosophy . . . . [Ibid., p. 152. See also pp. 266–267] By the ‘classical question’ of truth Tarski means the question of how to define the “classical”, correspon- dence notion of truth: [T]hroughout this work I shall be concerned exclusively with grasping the intentions which are contained in the so-called clas- sical conception truth (‘true – corresponding with reality’) . . . . [Ibid., p. 153]

Is logic in the mind or in the world

The paper presents an outline of a unified answer to five questions concerning logic: (1) Is logic in the mind or in the world? (2) Does logic need a foundation? What is the main obstacle to a foundation for logic? Can it be overcome? (3) How does logic work? What does logical form represent? Are logical constants referential? (4) Is there a criterion of logicality? (5) What is the relation between logic and mathematics?

Truth as Composite Correspondence

Is a substantive standard of truth for theories of the world by and for humans possible? What kind of standard would that be? How intricate would it be? How unified would it be? How would it work in “problematic” fields of truth like mathematics? The paper offers an answer to these questions in the form of a “composite” correspondence theory of truth. By allowing variations in the way truths in different branches of knowledge correspond to reality the theory succeeds in rendering correspondence universal, and by investigating, rather than taking as given, the structure of the correspondence relation in various fields of knowledge, it makes a substantive account of correspondence possible. In particular, the paper delineates a “composite” type of correspondence applicable to mathematics, traces its roots in views of other philosophers, and shows how it solves well-known problems in the philosophy of mathematics, due to Benacerraf and others.

The foundational problem of logic

Author(s): Sher, Gila | Abstract: AbstractThe construction of a systematic philosophical foundation for logic is a notoriously difficult problem. In Part One I suggest that the problem is in large part methodological, having to do with the common philosophical conception of “providing a foundation”. I offer an alternative to the common methodology which combines a strong foundational requirement (veridical justification) with the use of non-traditional, holistic tools to achieve this result. In Part Two I delineate an outline of a foundation for logic, employing the new methodology. The outline is based on an investigation of why logic requires a veridical justification, i.e., a justification which involves the world and not just the mind, and what features or aspect of the world logic is grounded in. Logic, the investigation suggests, is grounded in the formal aspect of reality, and the outline proposes an account of this aspect, the way it both constrains and enables logic (gives rise to logical truths and consequences), logics role in our overall system of knowledge, the relation between logic and mathematics, the normativity of logic, the characteristic traits of logic, and error and revision in logic.