Post-Tarskian truth (Q5931292)

The author outlines his program that challenges the often assumed status of Tarski's theory of truth as a model of a truth theory of natural language. The details of this project have been developed by \textit{J. Hintikka} [The principles of mathematics revisited, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996; Zbl 0869.03003)] and others elsewhere. It is argued that standard first-order logic is defective because it does not allow for informationally independent quantifiers, e.g., in the case of branching quantifiers. Hintikka argues for his IF (independence friendly) logic as a natural extension of classical first-order logic. The use of IF logic blocks Tarski's theorem on the undefinability of truth, and a truth definition of a theory within the theory itself becomes feasible. In contrast to standard first-order logic, IF logic is not compositional, at least not in a straightforward sense. This is the reason why Tarski's theorem does no longer apply. Consequently Hintikka rejects the need for theories of self-referential truth such as \textit{S. Kripke}'s theory [J. Philos. 72, 690-716 (1975; Zbl 0952.03513)] as philosophically valuable contributions. The author points out that there are some analogies between his theory of truth and disquotational truth theories.