Re: Logic As Formal Semiotic

I need to read Donald Davidson [1] again, but he had a very  
interesting observation taken from Tarski, namely that truth is a  
predicate that applies to sentences.

"Snow is white" is true in English if and only iff Snow is white .

in the general case

"S" is true in L <=> S

Truth is therefore disquotational . It is a way of removing the  
quotes from a statement.

Another way of looking at it is as follows. You have a resource  
<http://john.eg/foaf.rdf>.
You get a representation back of which you can say

<http://john.eg/foaf.rdf> log:semantics { :joe a foaf:Person } .

if you believe it is true then you can add it to your database.

:joe a foaf:Person .

Now the other way of looking at truth is that there is a relation  
between statements and reality.
That still holds. If you accept as true statements that are wrong,  
reality will soon remind you of your mistake.

Henry

[1] Truth and Interpretation

On 1 Aug 2007, at 15:26, Jon Awbrey wrote:
> What is truth?  It's a property of a sign, or a representation,
> that makes it a good sign, a representation that is so natured
> or so designed as to further the achievement its proper object.