Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
by Alfred Tarski
T
he subject of this article is an old sentence.) Moreover, when speaking of Here and in the subsequent discussion
one. It has been frequently dis sentences, we shall always have in mind the word "false" means the same as the
cussed in modern logical and phil what are called in grammar declarative expression "not true" and can be re
osophical literature, and it would not be sentences, and not interrogative or im placed by the latter.
easy to contribute anything original to perative sentences. The intuitive content of Aristotle's
the discussion. To many readers, I am Whenever one explains the meaning formulation appears to be rather clear.
afraid, none of the ideas put forward in of any term drawn from everyday lan Nevertheless, the formulation leaves.
the article will appear essentially novel; guage, he should bear in mind that the much to be desired from the point of
nonetheless, I hope they may find some goal and the logical status of such an ex view of precision and formal correctness.
interest in the way the material has been planation may vary from one case to an For one thing, it is not general enough;
arranged and knitted together. other. For instance, the explanation may it refers only to sentences that "say"
As the title indicates, I wish to discuss be intended as an account of the actual about something "that it is" or "that it is
here two different though related no use of the term involved, and is thus sub not"; in most cases it would hardly be
tions : the notion of truth and the notion ject to questioning whether the account possible to cast a sentence in this mold
of proof. Actually the article is divided is indeed correct. At some other time an without slanting the sense of the sen
into three sections. The first section is explanation may be of a normative na tence and forcing the spirit of the lan
concerned exclusively with the notion of ture, that is, it may be offered as a sug guage. This is perhaps one of the rea
truth, the second deals primarily with the gestion that the term be used in some sons why in modern philosophy various
notion of proof, and the third is a dis definite way, without claiming that the substitutes for the Aristotelian formula
cussion of the relationship between these suggestion conforms to the way in which tion have been offered. As examples we
.
two notions. the term is actually used; such an ex quote the following:
planation can be evaluated, for instance,
The Notion of Truth from the point of view of its usefulness A sentence is true if it denotes the
but not of its correctness. Some further existing state of affairs.
The task of explaining the meaning of alternatives could also be listed. The truth of a sentence consists
the term "true" will be interpreted here The explanation we wish to give in the in its conformity with ( or corre
in a restricted way. The notion of truth present case is, to an extent, of mixed spondence to) the reality.
occurs in many different contexts, and character. What will be offered can be
there are several distinct categories of treated in principle as a suggestion for Due to the use of technical philo
objects to which the term "true" is ap a definite way of using the term "true", sophical terms these formulations have
plied. In a psychological discussion one but the offering will be accompanied by undoubtedly a very "scholarly" sound.
might speak of true emotions as well as the belief that it is in agreement with the Nonetheless, it is my feeling that the
true beliefs; in a discourse from the do prevailing usage of this term in everyday new formulations, when analyzed more
main of esthetics the inner truth of an language. closely, prove to be less clear and un
object of art might be analyzed. In this Our understanding of the notion of equivocal than the one put forward by
article, however, we are interested only truth seems to agree essentially with Aristotle.
in what might be called the logical no various explanations of this notion that The conception of truth that found its
tion of truth. More specifically, we con have been given in philosophical litera expression in the Aristotelian formula
cern ourselves exclusively with the mean ture. What may be the earliest explana tion (and in related formulations of more
ing of the term "true" when this term is tion can be found in Aristotle's Meta recent origin) is usually referred to as
used to refer to sentences. Presumably physics: the classical, or se m a n t ic conception of
this was the original use of the term truth. By se mantics we mean the p art of
"true" in human language. Sentences logic that, loosely speaking, discusses
To say of what is that it is not, or
are treated here as linguistic objects, as the relations between linguistic objects
of what is not that it is, is false,
certain strings of sounds or written signs. while to say of what is that it is, or (such as sentences) and what is ex
(Of course, not every such string is a of what is not that it is not, is true. pressed by these objects. The semantic
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QUIESrA
sometim es called a self-referential sen
tence, that is, a sentence S which asserts
the fact that S itself is true or that it is
false . In case S asserts its own falsity we BOX 120, NEW HOPE, PENN, 18938
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theless, what we eventually obtain is
in some intuitive sense equivalent to
the imaginary infinite conjun ction . Very
roughly speakin g, we proceed as fol Sel ect the o n e you need from these permanently
lows . First, we consider the simplest
al i g ned, adj u stment-free He-Ne l asers.
sentences, which do not include any
other sentences as parts ; for these sim
plest sen tences we m anage to define
truth directly (using the same idea that
leads to partial definitions) . Then, mak
ing use of syn tactical rules which con
cern the formation of more complicated
sentences from simpler ones, we extend
the definition to arbitrary compound
sentences; we apply here the method
kn own in mathematics as definition by
recursion . (This is merely a rough ap
proximation of the actual procedure. For
some technical reasons the method of
recursion is actually applied to define,
not the n otion of truth, but the related
semantic notion of satisfaction . Truth is
then easily defined in terms of satisfac
tion . )
O n the basis o f the definition thus con
structed we can develop the en tire theo
ry of truth. In particular, we can derive
from it, in addition to all equivalences of
form (3), some consequences of a g,::n
eral nature, such a s the famous laws o f
contradiction and o f excluded middle.
By the first of these laws, no two sen
tences one of which is the negation of
the other can both be true ; by the sec
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ing whether particular sentences in this cat i o n a l a n d expe r i m e n ta l u s e .
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Consider, for example, a sentence in the i nc l u d e d . the world!
language of elementary high school MAIL COUPON TODAY!
geometry, say "the three bisectors of U n i versity Laborato r I e s / 733 A l l s ton Way, B e r k e ley, C a l i f . 94 7 10
o P l e a se send c o m p l et e i nf o r m a t i o n o n H e - N e l a s e r s
are interested in the question whether a n d accessor ies.
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main of any other particular science : to
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So.ols. on So.ols.
on 'Polaroid Land fFilm
Polaroid color film . And i t That's what's so good about
works beautifully . Polaroid color film . It has a
I n commercial photography, palette of its own , that gives
the usual m ethods involve a me th e quality I ' m looking
l oss of tim e that's really from for. I t's warmer, more human.
th e Stone Age . Yet everyone And to m e, m ore real .
wants their stuff in a h urry. Of course I try to get
With Polaroid Land film, I realism through candidness
Mel Sokolsky, a major can give it to them . and naturalness too, as you
photographic talen t and But to me, the big advan can see in th is picture which
innovator, did the cover and tages are color quality, and I did on the Tim es assign
feature photos for 3 issues of wha t my own idea of men t. I don ' t go for the ex
Th e New York Sunday Times realism is. cessively posed and arranged
women 's fashion supplemen t . M ost modern film emulsions fashion shots .
The m o s t recen t o n e w a s a l l in are th in . The resul ts are hard, And with Polaroid film, I
Polacolor film . sharp, slick . can see wha t I 've just taken . If
But o u r eyes see th ings I don ' t get what I wan t the
< ' 1 ' m really in terested in com more softly, with more first time, I simply try again till
mun ications as a whole. All of 3 -dimensional ity . The way I do get it.
it. In all forms . I ' m a talker, th ings look in old-tim e ph otos I'd l ike to make a prediction .
as you see. with their th ick emulsions. Before long, th e engraving
Photography is a means of The nostalgia we feel when of Polaroid shots for
com munication, so I ' m in it. we look at them isn ' t j ust commercial production will
B u t I try new approaches so because of the subject m a tter, spread like wildfire. Because
I don ' t get bored . That's one but because it's the way we m ore and more professionals
of the reasons I switched to really see th ings . are seeing the advantages . "
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\IL
an adequate instrument for establishing
truth of all m athema tical statem ents has
prove d to be unfounded . The original
triumph of form a l methods has been ......
followed by a serious setback .
Whatever can be said to con clude this
discussion is bound to be an anticlim ax.
/, \
Yo u ' l l g et a b o n g
The n o tion of truth for form alized theo
ries can n o w be introduced by means of
o u t o f wo r ki n g a t J P L.
a precise and adequ ate definitio n . It can
therefore be used w i thout any restric
tions and reservations in metalogical dis W e ' r e l o o k i n g fo r a ra r e m a n - w h o wi l l b e r e s p o n s i b l e fo r t h e d e s i g n a n d
cussion . I t has actually become a basic
d e v e l o p m e n t o f l i q u i d p r o p u l s i o n e l e m e n ts a n d c o n t r o l s f o r p l a n e t a ry e x p l o r a
metalogical notion involved in important
t i o n s p a c e c ra ft a p p l i ca t i o n s . I f y o u h a v e a d e g r e e i n M e c h a n i c a l E n g i n e e r
problem s and results. On the other hand,
i n g a n d fi v e y e a rs ' a p p l i c a b l e e x p e r i e n c e , s e n d y o u r r e s u m e i n c o n f i d e n c e
the notion of proof has not lost its sig
to M r . Wa l l a c e P e t e r s o n , J P L ' s s u p e r v i s o r o f E m p l oym e n t .
n ificance either. Proof is still the o n ly
I!kRG,adi!lO
method used to ascertain the truth of
sen tences within any specific m athe
matical theory. We are now aware of the
fact, however , that there are sentences
Attention: Professional Staffing Department 6
" A n e q u a l o p p o r t u n i ty e m p l o y e r . " J e t P r o p u l s i o n l a b o r a t o r y is o p e ra t ed by t h e Ca l i f .
formulated in the lan guage of the theory o r n i e I n s t i t u t e o f T e c h n o l ogy f o r t h e N a t i o n a l A e r o n a u ti c s a n d S p a c e A d m i n i s t r a t i o n .
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