Panu Raatikainen

Philosopher’s judgements on the philosophical value of Tarski’s contributions to the theory of truth have varied. For example Karl Popper, Rudolf Carnap, and Donald Davidson have, in their different ways, celebrated Tarski’s achievements and have been enthusiastic about their philosophical relevance. Hilary Putnam, on the other hand, pronounces that “[a]s a philosophical account of truth, Tarski’s theory fails as badly as it is possible for an account to fail.” Putnam has several alleged reasons for his dissatisfaction,1 but one of them, the one I call the modal objection (cf. Raatikainen 2003), has been particularly influential. In fact, very similar objections have been presented over and over again in the literature. Already in 1954, Arthur Pap had criticized Tarski’s account with a similar argument (Pap 1954). Moreover, both Scott Soames (1984) and John Etchemendy (1988) use, with an explicit reference to Putnam, similar modal arguments in relation to Tarski. Richard Heck (1997), too, shows some sympathy for such considerations. Simon Blackburn (1984, Ch. 8) has put forward a related argument against Tarski. Recently, Marian David has criticized Tarski’s truth definition with an analogous argument as well (David 2004, p. 389-390).2 This line of argument is thus apparently one of the most influential critiques of Tarski. It is certainly worthy of serious attention. Nevertheless, I shall argue that, given closer scrutiny, it does not present such an acute problem for the Tarskian approach to truth as many philosophers think. But I also believe that it is important to understand clearly why this is so. Moreover, I think that a careful consideration of the issue illuminates certain important but somewhat neglected aspects of the Tarskian approach.

Lucas and Redhead ([2007]) announce that they will defend the views of Redhead ([2004]) against the argument by Panu Raatikainen ([2005]). They certainly re-state the main claims of Redhead ([2004]), but they do not give any real arguments in their favour, and do not provide anything that would save Redhead’s argument from the serious problems pointed out in (Raatikainen [2005]). Instead, Lucas and Redhead make a number of seemingly irrelevant points, perhaps indicating a failure to understand the logico-mathematical points at issue

Englantilaissyntyinen, pitkään Yhdysvalloissa vaikuttanut ja täällä hetkellä New Yorkin maineikkaan Columbia-yliopiston filosofian professorina toimiva Philip Kitcher (s. 1947) on vakiinnuttanut paikkansa tieteenfilosofien kirkkaimmassa kärjessä. Uransa alkuaikoina hän työskenteli lähinnä matematiikanfilosofian parissa, mutta sittemmin hänen tuotantonsa painopiste on ollut yleisessä tieteenfilosofiassa ja biologianfilosofiassa. Hänen teoksensa The Advancement of Science (Oxford University Press, 1993) on viimeaikaisen yleisen tieteenfilosofian perusteos. Kitcherin sosiobiologian heikkoudet ja ongelmat perinpohjaisesti osoittava Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature (MIT Press, 1985) on jo aihepiirinsä klassikko. Kitcher on myös mm. puolustanut evoluutioteoriaa fundamentalistikristillisiä kreationisteja vastaan (Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. (MIT Press, 1982)) ja tarkastellut bioteknisen vallankumouksen ja geenitutkimuksen mukanaan tuomia eettisiä ongelmia (The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities (Simon.and Schuster [U.S.], Penguin..

The minimalist view of truth endorsed by Paul Horwich denies that truth has any underlying nature. According to minimalism, the truth predicate ‘exists solely for the sake of a certain logical need’; ‘the function of the truth predicate is to enable the explicit formulation of schematic generalizations’. Horwich proposes that all there really is to truth follows from the equivalence schema: The proposition that p is true iff p, or, using Horwich’s notation, ·pÒ is true ´ p. The (unproblematic) instances of the schema form ‘the minimal theory of truth’. Horwich claims that all the facts involving truth can be explained on the basis of the minimal theory. However, it has been pointed out, e.g. by Gupta (1993), that the minimal theory is too weak to entail any general facts about truth, e.g. the fact that..

Toisaalta ennennäkemätön äärettömien joukko-opillisten menetelmien hyödyntäminen sekä toisaalta epäilyt niiden hyväksyttävyydestä ja halu oikeuttaa niiden käyttö ovat ratkaisevasti muovanneet vuosisatamme matematiikkaa ja logiikkaa. Tämän kehityksen vaikutus nykyajan filosofiaan on myös ollut valtaisa; merkittävää osaa siitä ei voi edes ymmärtää tuntematta sen yhteyttä tähän matematiikan ja logiikan vallankumoukseen. Lähestymistapoja, jotka tavalla tai toisella hyväksyvät äärettömän matematiikan ja perinteisten logiikan sääntöjen (erityisesti kolmannen poissuljetun lain) soveltamisen myös sen piirissä, on tullut tavaksi kutsua klassiseksi matematiikaksi ja logiikaksi erotuksena nämä hylkäävistä radikaaleista intuitionistisista ja konstruktivistisista opeista.

It has sometimes been suggested that the so-called new theory of reference (NTR) would provide an alternative picture of meaning and reference which avoids the unwelcome consequences of the meaning-variance thesis and incommesurability. However, numerous philosophers of science have been quite critical towards the idea and NTR in general. It is argued that many of them have an over-simplified and, in part, mistaken understanding of what NTR amounts to. It is submitted that NTR, when correctly understood, can be an important ingredient in the realist toolkit for defending the rationality of science.