The contribution of Tarski was to define the idea of truth in a model of a theory and to show that one could finitely define truth in a model. Separately, he also showed no consistent theory can include a truth predicate for itself.
As for the issue of truth-conditions this is really a matter of philosophy of language. The mere insistence that there is some objective fact out there that my words hook on to doesn’t seem enough. If I insist that “There are blahblahblah in my room.” but that “There are no blahblahblah in your room.” and when asked to clarify I only explain that blahblahblah are something that can’t ever be experimentally measured or defined but I know when they are present and no one else does then my insistence that my words reflect some external reality really shouldn’t be enough to convince you that they indeed do. Less extreme examples are the many philosophies of life people adopt that seem to have no observable implications.
One might react by insisting that only testable statements are coherent but this leads one down the rabbithole of positivism. Testable by who, when? Do they actually have to be tested? If not then in what sense are they testable, especially in a deterministic universe in which untested claims are automatically physically impossible to have tested (the initial conditions plus the laws determine they will not be tested). Taken to any kind of coherent end you find yourself denying everyday statements like “There wasn’t a leprachan in my fridge yesterday,” as nonsense since no one actually performed any measurement that would determine the truth of the statement.
Ultimately, I take a somewhat deflationary view of truth and philosophy of language. IMO all one can do is simply choose (like your priors) what assertions you take to be meaningful and which you don’t. There is no logical flaw in the person who insists on the existence of extra facts but agrees with all your conclusions about shared facts. All you can do is simply tell them you don’t understand these extra facts they claim to believe in.
This gunk about postmodernism is nothing but fanciful angst. You do in fact use language and make choices. If they are going to say there are extra facts about whether ‘truth’ is meaningful that amount to more than the fact that I might be a brain in a vat and that the disquotational biconditional holds then they are just another person insisting on extra facts I have to say I simply fail to understand (to the extent they are simply attacking the existence of shared interpersonal experience/history this is simply a disagreement over priors and no argument will settle it....however, since that concern exhausts the sense I understand the notion of truth and further worry is talking about something I’m not).
First a little clarification.
The contribution of Tarski was to define the idea of truth in a model of a theory and to show that one could finitely define truth in a model. Separately, he also showed no consistent theory can include a truth predicate for itself.
As for the issue of truth-conditions this is really a matter of philosophy of language. The mere insistence that there is some objective fact out there that my words hook on to doesn’t seem enough. If I insist that “There are blahblahblah in my room.” but that “There are no blahblahblah in your room.” and when asked to clarify I only explain that blahblahblah are something that can’t ever be experimentally measured or defined but I know when they are present and no one else does then my insistence that my words reflect some external reality really shouldn’t be enough to convince you that they indeed do. Less extreme examples are the many philosophies of life people adopt that seem to have no observable implications.
One might react by insisting that only testable statements are coherent but this leads one down the rabbithole of positivism. Testable by who, when? Do they actually have to be tested? If not then in what sense are they testable, especially in a deterministic universe in which untested claims are automatically physically impossible to have tested (the initial conditions plus the laws determine they will not be tested). Taken to any kind of coherent end you find yourself denying everyday statements like “There wasn’t a leprachan in my fridge yesterday,” as nonsense since no one actually performed any measurement that would determine the truth of the statement.
Ultimately, I take a somewhat deflationary view of truth and philosophy of language. IMO all one can do is simply choose (like your priors) what assertions you take to be meaningful and which you don’t. There is no logical flaw in the person who insists on the existence of extra facts but agrees with all your conclusions about shared facts. All you can do is simply tell them you don’t understand these extra facts they claim to believe in.
This gunk about postmodernism is nothing but fanciful angst. You do in fact use language and make choices. If they are going to say there are extra facts about whether ‘truth’ is meaningful that amount to more than the fact that I might be a brain in a vat and that the disquotational biconditional holds then they are just another person insisting on extra facts I have to say I simply fail to understand (to the extent they are simply attacking the existence of shared interpersonal experience/history this is simply a disagreement over priors and no argument will settle it....however, since that concern exhausts the sense I understand the notion of truth and further worry is talking about something I’m not).