Truth and sense

Gabriel Segal

pp. 15-24

in: John Biró, Petr Kotatko (eds), Frege, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

In Frege's account of reference we find that the referent of a singular term is the object that it applies to, the referent of a sentence is its truth value and the referent of a predicate is a function that maps referents of singular terms onto truth values. It is attractive and natural to think of a Tarskian truth- theory ("T-theory") for a particular language as providing a theory of reference for that language (Tarski 1956). A T-theory for a language, L, consists in a finite number of rules assigning semantic values -- referents -- to the simple expressions of L, a finite number of rules for deriving the values of complex expressions from the values of their simpler components and their syntactic configuration, and a finite number of deduction rules for carrying out such derivations.

Cited authors

Frege Gottlob