more from Alfred Tarski

Single Idea 18756

[catalogued under 5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 1. Semantics of Logic]

Full Idea

Tarski discovered how to give a compositional semantics for predicate calculus, defining truth in terms of satisfaction, and showing how satisfaction for a complicated formula depends on satisfaction of the simple subformulas.

Gist of Idea

Tarski built a compositional semantics for predicate logic, from dependent satisfactions

Source

report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Vann McGee - Logical Consequence 4

Book Reference

'Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophical Logic', ed/tr. Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R [Bloomsbury 2014], p.37


A Reaction

The problem was that the subformulas may contain free variables, and thus not be sentences with truth values. 'Satisfaction' can handle this, where 'truth' cannot (I think).