Truth andMeaning

DONALD DAVIDSON

It is conceded by most philosophers of language,and recently evenby somelinguists, that a satisfactory theory of meaning must give an account of how the meanings of sentences depend upon the meanings of words. Unless such an accountcould be supplied for a particular language, it is argued, therc would be no explaining the fact that we can learn the language: no explaining the fact that, on mastering a finite vocabulary and a finitely stated set of rules, we are prcparedto produce and to understand any of a potential infinitude of sentences. I do not disputethesevagueclaims, in which I sense morc than a kernel of tmth.l Instead I want to ask what it is for a theory to give an account of the kind adumbrated. One proposal is to begin by assigning some entity as meaning to eachword (or other sigaificant syntactical featurc) of the sentence;thus we might assignTheaetetus to '"Theaetetus"and the property of flying to "flies" in the sentence "Theaetetusflies." The problem then ariseshow the meaning of the sentenceis generatedfrom thesemeanings. Viewingconcatenation asa significant piece of syntax, we may assignto it the relation of participating in or instantiating; however, it is obvious that we have herc the start of an infinite regr!ss. Frege sought to avoid the regressby saying that the entities corrcsponding to prcdicates(for example)are 'unsaturated'or 'incomplete' in contrast to the entities that cor-

respond to names, but this doctrine seems to label a difficulty rather than solve it. The point will emerge if we think for a moment of complex singular terms, to which Frcge's theory applies along with sentences "the fatherofAnnette"; Considerthe expression how does the meaning of the whole depend on the meaning of the parts? The answer would seemto be that the meaning of "the father of is such that when this expression is prefixed to a singular term the result refers to the father ofthe person to whom the singular term refers. What part is played, in this account,by the unsaturated or incomplete entity for which "the father of' stands? All we can think to say is that this entity 'yields' or 'gives' the father of r as value when the argument is x, or perhaps that this entity mapspeople onto their fathers. It may not be clear whether the entity for which "the father of is said to stand performs any genuine explanatory function as long as we stick to individual exprcssions; so think insteadof the infinite classof expressions formed by writing "the father of" zero or more times in front of "Annette."It is easyto supplya theorythat tells, for an arbitrary one of these singular terms, what it rcfers to: if the term is 'Annette" it refers to Annette, while if the term is complex, consisting of "the father of" prcfixed to a singular term t, then it rcfers to the father of the personto whom t rcfers. It is obvious that no entitv corre-

From synthc*.t7 (t95711.to4-323. copyright@ rg6z by D. Reidelpublishingcompany,Dordrecht, Holland.Reprinted by permission of the publisher. rl4

TRUTH A N DM E A N I N C spondingto "the father of" is, or needsto be, mentionedin statingthis theory. It would be inappropriateto complain that this little theory asesthe words "the father of" in giving the referenceof expressions containing those words. For the task was to give the meaningof all expressions in a certaininfinite set on the basis of the meaningof the parts; it wasnot in the bargainalsoto give the meanings of the atomicparts.On the other hand,it is now evident that a satisfactorytheory of the meanings of complex expressions may not require entitiesasmeanings of all the parts.It behooves us thento rephrase our demandon a satisfactory theoryof meaningso asnot to suggest that individual words must havemeaningsat all, in any sensethat transcends the fact that they have a systematiceffect on the meaningsof the sentencesin which they occur. Actually, for the caseat handwe can do betterstill in statingthe criterion of success: what we wanted.and what we got, is a theory that entailseverysentence of the form "t refers to x" where 'r'is replacedby of a singularterm, and a structuraldescription2 '-r'is replacedby that term itself. Further,our theoryaccomplishes this without appealto any semanticalconceptsbeyond the basic "refers to."Finally, the theoryclearly suggests an effective procedure for determining,for any singular termin its universe,what that term refersto. A theory with such evident merits deserves widerapplication. Thedeviceproposed by Frege to this end hasa brilliant simplicity: countpredicates asa specialcase offunctional expressions, andsentences as a specialcaseofcomplex singularterms.Now, however, a difficulty looms if we want to continue in our present(implicit) course of identifying the meaningof a singular termwith its reference.The difficulty follows uponmaking two reasonable assumptions: that : logically equivalent singular terms have the same reference;and that a singular term does : notchange its referenceif a containedsingular is replaced by anotherwith the samerefer; term .i:ence. But now suppose that 'R'and 'S'abbrevii ate any two sentencesalike in truth value. thefollowing four sentences havethe satne i Then fireference: #i (3) i(x=x.S)=a(a=a) (4) S

il5

n Ei rtl (2)
$i

G,

.f(x=.Y.R )=i(x=x)

For (l) and(2) arelogically equivalent, as are (3) and (4), while (3) differs from (2) only in containing the singular term f(x=x.S)'where (2) contains 't(x=x.R)'and these refer to the samething if S and R are alike in truth value. Hence any two sentences have the samereferenceif they have the sametruth value.3 And if the meaningof a sentence is what it refersto, all sentences alike in truth value must be synonymous-an intolerableresult. Apparently we must abandon the present approachas leading to a theory of meaning. This is the naturalpoint at which to turn for help to the distinction betweenmeaning and reference.The trouble,we are told, is that questions ofreference are, in general,settledby extralinguistic facts,questions of meaningnot, and the facts can conflatethe references of expressions that are not synonymous. If we want a theory that gives the meaning(as distinct from reference) of eachsentence, we must start with the meaning (as distinct from reference) of the parts. Up to herewe havebeenfollowing in Frege's footsteps; thanksto him, the pathis well known and even well worn. But now, I would like to suggest, we have reached an impasse: the switch from referenceto meaning leads to no useful account of how the meanings of sentencesdependupon the meaningsof the words (or otherstructuralfeatures) thatcompose them. Ask, for example,for the meaningof 'Theaetetus flies." A Fregeananswer might go something like this: given the meaningof "Theaetetus" as argument,the meaningof "flies" yields the meaningof "Theaetetus flies" as value.The vacuity of this answeris obvious.We wantedto know what themeaningof '"Theaetetus flies" is; it is no progress to be told that it is the meaning of '"Theaetetusflies." This much we knew before any theory was in sight. In the bogus accountjust given, talk of the structureof the sentence andof the meanings of wordswasidle, for it played no role in producing the given descriptionof the meaningof the sentence. The contrast here between a real and pretendedaccountwill be plainer still if we askfor a theory, analogousto the miniature theory of

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but difreference of singulartermsjustsketched, ferent in dealingwith meaningsin placeof refis a theorythat What analogydemands erences. ofthe form "s all sentences hasasconsequences meansrz" where 's'is replacedby a structural and'm'is replaced by description ofa sentence a singularterm that refersto the meaningof that a theory, moreover,that providesan sentence; effective methodfor arriving at the meaningof an arbitrary sentencestructurally described. Clearly somemore articulateway of referringto if meaningsthan any we have seenis essential thesecriteria are to be met.4Meaningsas entities, or the relatedconceptof synonymy,allow us to formulate the following rule relating senare synonytences and their parts: sentences mous whose correspondingparts are synonymous ("corresponding"here needsspellingout of course). And meanings asentitiesmay,in theoriessuchasFrege's, do duty,on occasion asrefthus losing their statusas entitiesdiserences, tinct from references.Paradoxically,the one thing meaningsdo not seem to do is oil the wheelsof a theoryof meaning-at leastas long aswe requireof sucha theorythat it nontrivially give the meaningof every sentence in the language.My objectionto meaningsin the theory of meaningis not that they are abstractor that their identity conditions are obscure,but that they haveno demonstrated use. This is the place to scotch anotherhopeful we havea satisfactory thought.Suppose theory of syntax for our language,consisting of an effective method of telling, for an arbitrary expression,whether or not it is independently meaningful (i.e., a sentence),and assumeas usual that this involves viewing each sentence as composed,in allowable ways, out of elementsdrawnfrom a fixed finite stockof atomic syntactical elements (roughly, words). The hopeful thought is that syntax, so conceived, will yield semanticswhen a dictionary giving the meaning of each syntactic atom is added. Hopes will be dashed, however,if semantics is to comprisea theory of meaningin our sense, for knowledgeof the structural characteristics that make for meaningfulnessin a sentence, plus knowledgeof the meanings of the ultimate parts, does not add up to knowledgeof what a sentence means.The point is easily illustrated

by belief sentences. Their syntax is relatively unproblematic.Yet, adding a dictionary does problem,which not touchthe standard semantic is that we cannot accountfor even as much as the truth conditions of such sentences on the basisof what we know of the meaningsof the words in them. The situation is not radically altered by refining the dictionary to indicate which meaning or meanings an ambiguous expression bearsin eachofits possiblecontexts; persistsafter the problem of belief sentences ambiguitiesare resolved. The fact that recursivesyntaxwith dictionary addedis not necessarily recursivesemantics has been obscuredin some recent writing on linguisticsby the intrusionof semantic criteriainto the discussion of purportedlysyntactictheories. The matter would boil down to a harmlessdifference criteria over terminologyif the semantic were clear; but they are not. While there is agreement that it is the centraltask of semantics to give the semanticinterpretation(the meaning) ofevery sentence in the language, nowhere in thelinguistic literaturewill one find, so far as I know,a straightforwardaccountof how a theory performsthis task,or how to tell when it has beenaccomplished. The contrastwith syntaxis striking. The main job of a modestsyntaxis to characterize meaningfulness(or sentencehood) We may have as much confidencein the correctness of sucha characterization aswe havein the representativeness of our sample and our ability to say when particular expressions are meaningful(sentences). What clear and analogoustask and test exist for semantics?s We decideda while back not to assume that partsof sentences have meaningsexceptin the ontologicallyneutralsense of making a systematic contribution to the meaning of the sentencesin which they occur. Since postulating meaningshas netted nothing, let us return to that insight.Onedirection in which it pointsis a certain holistic view of meaning.If sentences depend for their meaningon their structure, and we understand the meaningof eachitem in the structure from the totality only as an abstraction of sentences in which it features,then we can (or word) only give themeaningof any sentence (and by giving the meaning of every sentence word) in the language.Frege said that only in

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the context of a sentencedoes a word have tencesgot from schemaZ when 's' is replaced meaning;in the samevein he might haveadded by a structuraldescription ofa sentence ofZ and 'p'by that sentence. that only in the context of the languagedoes a (andthereforea word) havemeaning. sentence Any two predicates satisfyingthis condition This degree of holism was alreadyimplicit in have the same extension,6 so if the metalanguageis rich enough,nothingstandsin the way the suggestion that an adequate theoryof meaning must entall all sentences of the form "s of putting what I am calling a theory of meaning meansm." But now, havingfound no more help into the form of an explicit definition of a predilhan in meaningsof in meaningsof sentences icate "is 7." But whether explicitly defined or words, let us ask whetherwe can get rid of the recursivelycharacterized, it is clearthat the sentroublesome singulartermssupposed to replace tences to which the predicate "is I" applieswill 'm' andto refer to meanings. In a way, nothing bejust the true sentences of I,, for the condition just write "s meansthatp," and could be easier: we have placed on satisfactory theories of Sentences, meaning is in essence imagine p'replaced by a sentence. Tarski's Convention Z as we have seen,cannot name meanings,and that tests the adequacyof a formal semantical with "that" prefixed are not namesat definition of truth.T sentences The path to this point has beentortuous,but all, unlesswe decideso. It looks as though we the conclusionmay be stated are in trouble on another count, however,for it simply: a theoryof to expectthat in wrestlingwith the is reasonable meaning for a languageL shows "how the "means meaningsof sentences logic of the apparentlynonextensional dependupon the meanproblemsashard as,or ings of words" if it containsa (recursive) that" we will encounter definiperhaps identicalwith, the problemsour theory tion of truth-in-L. And, so far at least,we have no other idea how to turn the trick. It is worth is out to solve. The only way I know to deal with this diffiemphasizing that the conceptof truth playedno ostensible role in statingour original problem. culty is simple,and radical.Anxiety that we are in the intensionalspringsfrom using That problem,upon refinement, enmeshed led to the view the words "means that" as filling between that an adequatetheory of meaning must chardescription of sentence and sentence, but it may acteize a predicatemeetingcertainconditions. of our venturedepends be that the success not It was in the nature of a discovery that such a predicatewould apply exactly to the frue senon the filling but on what it fills. The theorywill havedoneits work if it provides,for every sentences.I hope that what I am doing may be tences in the language under study,a matching described in part as defendingthephilosophical (to replace'p') that,in someway yet to sentence importance of Tarski's semanticalconcept of be made clear, 'gives the meaning' of s. One truth. But my defense is only distantlyrelated,if obviouscandidate for matchingsentence isjust at all, to the questionwhethertheconceptThrski s itself, ifthe objectlanguage is contained in the hasshownhow to defineis the (or a) philosophmetalanguage; otherwisea translation ically interesting conception of truth, or the of s in the metalanguage. questionwhetherTarskihascastanylight on the As a final bold step, let us try treatingthe position occupiedby p'extensionordinary use of such words as "true" and ally: to implementthis, sweepawaythe obscure "truth." It is a misfornrne that dust from futile "means that,"providethe sentence that replaces and confusedbattles over thesequestionshas 'p' with a propersentential preventedthose with a theoretical interest in connective, and supply the description that replaces's'with its own language-philosophers, logicians, psycholopredicate. The plausibleresult is gists, and linguists alike-from recognizingin the semantical conceptof truth (underwhatever (I) s is T if andonly if p. name) the sophisticated and powerfirl foundaWhat we require of a theory of meaning for a tion of a competenttheory of meaning. languaget is that without appeal to any (furThere is no need to suppress, of course,the ther)semantical notionsit place enoughrestricobvious connection between a definition of tions on the predicate"is Z" to entail all sentruth of the kind Tarski has shown how to con-

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struct,and the conceptof meaning.It is this: the and suffidefinition works by giving necessary cient conditionsfor the truth of every sentence, and to give truth conditionsis a way of giving To know the semanthe meaningof a sentence. tic concept of truth for a languageis to know what it is for a sentence-any sentence-to be true, and this amounts,in one good sensewe to understanding the lancan give to the phrase, guage.This at any rate is my excusefor a feadiscussion that is apt to shock ture ofthe present old hands: my freewheelinguse of the word "meaning,"for what I call a theory of meaning hasafter all turnedout to makeno useof meanings, whetherof sentences or of words. Indeed since a Tarski+ypetruth definition suppliesall we have askedso far of a theory of meaning, it is clear that such a theory falls comfortably within what Quine terms the "theory of reference" as distinguished from what he terms the "theory of meaning."So much to the good for what I call a theory of meaning,and so much, perhaps, againstmy so calling it.8 A theory of meaning (in my mildly perverse sense) is an empiricaltheory and its ambitionit to account for the workings of a natural language.Like anytheory it may be tested by comparing someof its consequences with the facts. In the present for the theoryhas casethis is easy, beencharacterized asissuingin an infinite flood of sentences eachgiving the truth conditionsof a sentence;we only need to ask, in selected cases,whetherwhat the theory aversto be the truth conditionsfor a sentence really are.A typical test case might involve deciding whether "Snow is white" is true if and only the sentence if snow is white. Not all cases will be so simple (for reasons to be sketched), but it is evidentthat this sort oftest doesnot invite countingnoses. A sharpconception ofwhat constitutes a theoryin this domain fumishes an exciting context for raising deep questionsabout when a theory of language is conect andhow it is to be tried. But the difficulties are theoretical,not practical.In application, the trouble is to get a theory that comes close to working; anyone can tell whetherit is right.eOne can seewhy this is so. The theory revealsnothing new about the conditions under which an individual sentenceis true: it does not make those conditions anv

iself does.The work clearerthan the sentence of the theory is in relating the known truth conditions of each sentence to those aspects ('words') ofthe sentence that recurin othersentences,and can be assignedidentical roles in Empirical power in sucha theother sentences. in recoveringthe strucory depends on success ture of a very complicatedability-the ability to We can tell speakand understanda language. easily enoughwhen particularpronouncement of the theorycomportwith our understanding of the language;this is consistentwith a feeble insight into the design of the machineryof our linguistic accomplishments. The remarks of the last paragraph apply directly only to the special case where it is assumedthat the languagefor which truth is used being characterized is part of the language and understood by the characterizer. Under thesecircumstances, the framer of a theory will as a matterof courseavail himself when he can of the builrin convenience of a metalanguage guaranteed with a sentence equivalentto each in the object language.Still, this fact sentence ought not to con us into thinking a theory any morecorrectthat entails"'Snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white" than one that entailsinstead:

(,9) "Snowis white" is trueif andonly if grass is green,

provided,of course,we are as sureof the truth of (S) as we are of that of its more celebrated predecessor. Yet (,9) may not encouragethe same confidence that a theory that entails it deserves to be called a theory of meaning. The threatenedfailure of nerve may be counteractedas follows. The grotesqueness of (S) is in itself nothingagainsta theoryof which it is a providedthe theorygivesthe corconsequence, (on the basisof its rect resultsfor every sentence structure,there being no other way). It is not easy to seehow (,9)could be party to such an enterprise,but if it were-if, that is, (.I) followed from a characterization of the predicate "is true" that led to the invariable pairing of truths with truths and falsehoodswith falsehoods-then there would not, I think, be anything essential. to the idea of meaning that remainedto be captured.

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What appears to the right of thebiconditional 't in sentences of the form is true if and only if p," when such sentences are consdquences ofa theory of truth, plays its role in determining the meaningof r not by pretendingsynonymybut by adding one more brush-stroketo the picture which, taken as a whole, tells what there is to know of the meaning of s; this stroke is added by viroe of the fact that the sentencethat replacesp'is true ifand only ifs is. It may help to reflect that (,S)is acceptable,if it is, becausewe are independently sure of the truth of "snow is white" and "grassis green"; but in caseswhere we are unsureof the truth of we can haveconfidence in a characa sentence, terization of the truth predicate only if it pairs with one we havegood reasonto that sentence believeequivalent.It would be ill advisedfor someonewho had any doubts aboutthe color of snowor grassto accepta tlleory that yielded (.9), unless evenif his doubts were of equal degree, he thought the color of the one was tied to the color of the other. Omnisciencecan obviously afford more bizarre theories of meaning than ignorance;but then, omnisciencehas less need of communication. It must be possible,of course,for the speaker to constructa theoryofmeaning ofone language for the speakerof another,though in this casethe empirical test of the correctrressof the theory will no longer be trivial. As before,the aim of theorywill be an infinite conelatioh of sentences alike in ruth. But this time the theory-builder mustnot be assumedto have direct insight into Iikelyequivalences his own tongueand between thealien.What he must do is find out, however hecan,what sentences the alieh holds true in his own tongue (or better, to what degreehe holds themtrue). The linguist then will attemptto construct a characterization of truth-for-the-alien i,which yields, so far as possible,a mapping of i'sentences held true (or false) by the alien onto sentences held true (or false) by the linguis;q. Supposing no perfect fit is found, the residue of held true translated by sentences held (andvice vena) is the margin for error (foror domestic). Charity in interpreting the and thoughtsof othersis unavoidable in directionaswell: just as we must maxiagreement, or risk not making senseof

what the alien is talking aboui,so we must maximize the self-consistencywe attribute to him, on pain of not understanding ftin. No single principle of optimum chariryemerges; the constraints therefore determine no single theory. In a theory of radical translation (as Quine calls it) there is no complbtelydisentanglingquestions of what the alien meansfrom questionsof what he believes. lVe do not know what someone meansunlesswe know what he believes;we do not know what someonebelieves unless we know what he means.In radical translation we are able to break into this circle, if only incompletely, because we can sometimes tell that a person accedesto a sentencewe do not understand.lo In the past few pagesI have been asking how a theory of meaning that takes the form of a truth definition can be empirically tested, and haveblithely ignoredtheprior questionwhether thereis any seriouschancesucha theorycan be given for a natural language. What are the prospects for a formal semantical theory of a natural lahgUage? Very poor, according to Tarski; and I believe most logicians, philosophersof language, and linguistsagree.ltl-et me do what I can to dispel the pessimism.What I can in a gerieral and programmatic way, of course; for lidre the proof of the pudding will certainly be ih the proof of the right theorems. Tarski concludesthe first sectionof his classic essayon the concept of truth in formalized languageswith the following remarks, which he italicizes: Theverypossibilityof a consistent useof theexpression'truesentence'which is in harmony with thelaws of logicand the spiritof everyday language seems to be very questionable, and consequently the same doubtanaches to thepossibility ofconstructing a correctdefnition of thisexpression.r2 I-ate in the sameessay,he returns to the subject: the concept of truth(aswell asotherscmantical concepts)whenappliedto colloquiallanguage in conjunction with the normal laws of logic leads inevitablyto confusions andcontradictions. Whoever wishes,in spite of all difficulties, to pursuethe semantics of colloquial language with the help of

120 the will be drivenfint to undertake exactmethods He will taskof a reformof this language. thankless to overcome to defineits structure, find it necessary of the termswhich occurin it, and the ambiguity intoa series of languages finallyto splitthelanguage of which stands in extent, each andgreater of greater the samerelationto the nextin which a formalized It may,however to its metalanguage. stands language life, of everyday be doubtedwhetherthe language 'rationalized' in this way,wouldstill preafterbeing andwhether it would not rather its naturalness serve features of the formalized takeon the characrcristic languages.l3 Tlvo themesemerge:that the universal charleadsto contradiction acter of natural languages (the semantic paradoxes),and that natural lanto perguagesaretoo confusedand amorphous application of formal methods. direct the mit a seriousanswer,and I The first point deserves wish I had one.As it is, I will say only why I think we are justified in carrying on without havingdisinfectedthis particularsourceofconceptual anxiety. The semantic paradoxes arise when the range of the quantifiers in the object in certainways.But it is too generous language how unfair to Urdu or to Hindi clear really is not it would be to view the rangeoftheir quantifiers as insufficientto yield an explicit definition of 'true-in-Urdu'or 'true-in-Hindi'. Or, to put the matter in another,if not more serious way, there may in the natureof the casealways be somethe language of thing we graspin understanding another (the concept of truth) that we cannot communicateto him. In any case,most of the problemsof generalphilosophicalinterestarise within a fragment of the relevant natural lanascontainingvery guagethat may be conceived little set theory. Of coursethesecommentsdo not meet the claim that natural languages are universal.But it seemsto me this claim, now that we know such universalityleads to paradox, is susPect. point is thatwe would haveto Tarski'ssecond out of all recognition reform a naturallanguage methbeforewe could apply formal semantical ods.If this is true,it is fatal to my project,for the task of a theory of meaningas I conceiveit is not to change,improve or reform a language, and understand it. Let us look at but to describe the positive side.Thrski has shown the way to

TRUTH AND MEANIN

giving a theoryfor interpreted format tanguage of variouskinds; pick one as much like English as possible.Since this new languagehasbeen explainedin EnglishandcontainsmuchEnglish we not only may,but I think must,view it aspart of Englishfor thosewho understand it. For this fragment of English we have, ex hypothesi, a theory of the required sort. Not only that, but in interpretingthis adjunctof English in old English we necessarilygave hints connectingold and new. Wherever there are sentencesof old English with the sametruth conditionsas sen tencesin the adjunctwe may extendthe theory to cover them.Much of what is calledfor is just to mechanize as far aspossiblewhat we now do by art when we put ordinaryEnglish into oneor anothercanonicalnotation.The point is not that canonical notation is better than the rough original idiom. but rather that if we know what pr, idiom the canonicalnotation is canonical we haveas good a theory for the idiom asfor its kept companion. Philosophershavelong beenat the hard work of applying theory to ordinary languageby the device of matchingsentences in the vernacula with sentences for which they have a theory Frege'smassivecontribution was to show how "all," "some," "every," "each," "none," and associatedpronouns, in some of their uses could be tamed;for the first time, it was possible to dream of a formal semanticsfor a significant part of a natural language.This dream came true in a sharp way with the work of Tarski. It would be a shameto miss the fact that as a result of these two magnificent achieve ments,Frege'sand Tarski's, we have gaineda deep insight into the structure of our mother tongues. Philosophersof a logical bent have tended to start where the theory was and work out towards the complicationsof natural language. Contemporary linguists,with an aim that cannot easily be seento be different, start with the ordinary and work toward a general theory. If either party is successful,there must be a meeting.Recentwork by Chomsky and others is doing much to bring the complexitiesof natural languages within the scope of serious semantic theory. To give an example: suppose success in giving the nuth conditionsfor some significant range of sentencesin the active

A N DM E A N I N G TRUTH voice. Then with a formal procedurefor transforming each such sentenceinto a corresponin the passivevoice, the theoryof ding sentence truth could be extendedin an obvious way to this new setof sentences.la Oneproblemtouchedon in passingby Tarski haveto doesnot, at leastin all its manifestations, be solvedto get aheadwith theory: theexistence of "ambiguousterms."As in naturallanguages long as ambiguity does not affect grammatical ambiguityfor ambiform, andcanbe translated, guity, into the metalanguage, a truth definition will not tell us any lies. The trouble,for systemwith the phrase"believesthat" in atic semantics, English is not its vagueness,ambiguity, or unsuitabilityfor incorporationin a seriousscibe English, and all ence:let our metalanguage theseproblemswill be translatedwithout loss or gaininto themetalanguage. But thecentralproblem of the logical grammar of "believesthat" will remainto hauntus. The exampleis suitedto illustrating another, and related,point, for the discussionof belief hasbeenplaguedby failureto observe sentences distinctionbetweentasks:uncova fundamental ering the logical grammiu or form of sentences (which is in the provinceof a theoryof meaning as I construeit), and the analysisof individual (which aretreated wordsor expressions asprimitive by thetheory).ThusCamap,in the first ediwe tion of Meaning and Necessiry,suggested render"John believesthat the earthis round" as "John responds affirmatively to "the earth is round'as an English sentence." He gavethis up whenMatespointedout thatJohnmight respond affirmativelyto one sentence and not to another no matterhow close in meaning.But there is a confusion here from the start. The semantic structure of a belief sentence, accordingto this ideaof Carnap's, predis given by a three-place icatewith placesreserved for expressions referring to a person,a sentence, It is anda language. a different sort of problem entirely to attempt an analysis of this predicate,perhapsalong betpvioristic lines. Not least among the merits of Tarski's conception of a theory of truth is that the purity of methodit demandsof us follows from theformulationof the problem itself, not from theself-imposed restraintof someadventitious puritanism. Philosophical

'l2l

I think it is hard to exaggerate the advantages to philosophy of languageof bearing in mind this distinction between questions of logical form or grammar, and the analysisof individual concepts. Another examplemay help advertise the point. questionsof logical grammar If we suppose like "Bardot is good" raiseno settled,sentences specialproblemsfor a truth definition.The deep differencesbetweendescriptiveand evaluative (emotive, expressive, etc.) terms do not show here. Even if we hold there is some important sense in which moral or evaluative do sentences not have a truth value (for example, because they cannotbe 'verified'), we ought not to boggle at "'Bardot is good' is true if andonly if Bardot is good"; in a theory of truth, this consequence should follow with the rest, keeping track, as must be done,of the semanticlocation of suchsentences in the languageas a wholeof their relation to generalizations,their role in as "Bardot is good such compound sentences and Bardot is foolish," and so on. What is special to evaluativewords is simply not touched: the mystery is transferredfrom the word "good" in the object languageto its Eanslationin the metalanguage. But "good" as it features in "Bardot is a good actress"is anothermatter.The problem is not is not in the that the translationof this sentence metalanguage-letus suppose it is. The problem is to frame a truth definition suchthat "'Bardot is a good actress' is true if andonly if Bardotis a good actress"-and all other sentences like itare consequences. Obviously "good actress" doesnot mean"good and an actress." We might think oftaking "is a good actress"as an unanalyzed predicate.This would obliterateall connection between"is a good acfress"and "is a good mother,"andit would give us no excuseto think of "good," in these uses, as a word or semanticelement.But worse, it would bar us from framing a truth definition at all, for there is no end to the predicateswe would have to treat as logically simple (and hence accomodate in in thedefinitionofsatisfaction): separate clauses "is a good companionto dogs," "is a good 28year-old conversationalist," and so forth. The problemis not peculiarto the case:it is the probgenerally. lem of attributiveadjectives

A N DM E A N I N G TRUTH It is consistentwith the attitude taken here to deem it usually a strategic error to undertake philosophicalanalysisof words or expressions which is not preceded by or at any rate accompaniedby the attempt to get the logical grammar in snaight.For how can we haveanyconfidence our analysesof words like "right," "ought," "can," and "obliged," or the phrases we use to talk ofactions, events,and causes, when we do not know what (logical, semantical)parts of speech we haveto dealwith? I would say much the sameaboutstudies of the 'logic'of theseand other words,andthe sentences containingthem. Whether the effort and ingenuity that has gone into the study of deontic logics, modal logics, imperativeand erotetic logics has been largely futile or not cannot be known until we have acceptable semanticanalysesof the sentences purport to treat. Philosophers such systems and logicians sometimestalk or work asif they were free to choosebetween,say,the truth-functional conditional and others, or free to introduce nontruth-functional sententialoperatorslike "Let it be the casethat" or "It ought to be the casethat." But in fact the decision is crucial. When we depart from idioms we can accomodate in a truth definition, we lapse into (or create) languagefor which we haveno coherentsemantical account-that is, no accountat all of how such talk can be integrated into the languageas a whole. To retum to our main theme: we have recognized that a theory of the kind proposedleaves the whole matter of what individual words mean exactly where it was. Even when the metalanguageis differentfrom the object language, the theory exertsno pressurefor improvement,clarification or analysisof individual words,except when, by accident of vocabulary, sraighrforward translation fails. Just as synonomy, as between expressions,goes generally untreated, so also synonomyof sentences, and analyticity. Even such sentences as 'A vixen is a female fox" bearno specialtag unlessit is our pleasure to provide it. A truth definition doesnot distinguish between analytic sentences and others, exceptfor sentences that owe their truth to the presence aloneofthe constants thatgive the theory its grip on structure: the theory entails not only that these sentences are Eue but that they will remaintrue underall significantrewritings

of their nonlogical parts. A notion of logical truth thus given limited application, related notions of logical equivalenceand entailment will tag along. It is hard to imagine how a theory of meaningcould fail to reada logic into is objectlanguage to this degree;and to the extent that it does, our intuitions of logical ruth, equivalence, andentailmentmay be calledupon in constructingand testingthe theory. I tum now to one more, and very large, fly in tJle ointment: the fact that the same sentence may at one time or in one mouth be true and at anothertime or in anothermouth be false.Both logicians and those critical of formal methods here seemlargely (thoughby no meansuniversally) agreedthat formal semanticsand logic are incompetentto deal with the disturbances caused by demonstratives. Logicianshaveoften reactedby downgradingnatural languageand trying to showhow to get along without demonstratives; their critics react by downgrading logic and formal sbmantics.None of this can makeme happy:clearly,demonstratives cannot be eliminatedfrom a natural languagewithout loss or radical change,so thereis no choicebut to accommodate theoryto them. No logical errors result if we simply treat demonstratives as constantsl5;neither do any problemsarisefor giving a semantictruth definition. "'I am wise' is true if and only if I am wise," with its bland ignoring of the demonstrative elementin "I" comesoff the assembly line alongwith "'Socratesis wise' is true if andonly if Socrates is wise" with irs bland indifference to the demonstrative elementin "is wise" (the tense). What suffersin this treatmentof demonstrativesis not the definitionof a truth predicate, but the plausibility of the claim that what has been definedis truth.For this claim is acceptable only if the speakerand circumstancesof utteranceof each sentencementioned in the definition is matched by the speaker and circumstancesof utteranceof the truth definition itself. It could also be fairly pointed out that part of understanding demonstratives is knowing therulesby which they adjust their reference to circumstance;assimilatingdemonstratives to constant termsobliterates this feature.Thesecomplaints can be met, I think, though only by a fairly farreachingrevision in the theory of truth. I shall

TRUTH A N DM E A N I N G how this could be done,but bare barely suggest the idea is techis all that is needed: suggestion nically trivial, and quite in line with work being doneon the logic of the tenses.16 We could take truth to be a property, not of or speechacts,or but of utterances, sentences, times,andpersons; orderedtriplesof sentences, but it is simplestjust to view truth as a relation a p!rson,and a time. Under betweena sentence, such treatment, ordinary logic as now read applies as usual, but only to sets of sentences relativized to the samespeakerand time; further spoken at logical relations between sentences may be different times and by different speakers by new axioms.Suchis not my conarticulated cern. The theory of meaning undergoesa systematicbut not puzzling change:corresponding to each expressionwith a demonsfrativeelement there must in the theory be a phrase that relates the ruth conditions of sentencesin occursto changingtimes which the expression Thus the theory will entail senand speakers. tenceslike the following: by p "I am tired" is true as(potentially) spoken at t if andonly ifp is tired at t. '"Thatbook was stolen" is true as (potentially) spokenby p at t if and only if the book demonby p at f is stolenprior to /.17 strated Plainly, this course does not show how to eliminate demonstratives;for example, there is no suggestionthat "the book demonsnatedby ubiquitouslyfor can be substituted the speaker" "that book" sclva veritate. The fact that demonstratives are amenable to formal treatment ought greatly to improve hopes for a serious semantics of natural language,for it is likely that many outstanding puzzles, such as the analysis aboutpropoor sentences of quotations sitionalattitudes,can be solvedif we recognize a concealed construction. demonstrative Now that we have relativized truth to times andspeakers, it is appropriate to glance back at the problem of empirically testing a theory of meaning for an alien tongue.The essence ofthe methodwas,it will be remembered,to correlate held-true with held-truesentences by sentences wayof a truth definition, and within the bounds of intelligible error. Now the picture must be elaboratedto allow for the fact that sentences aretrue, and held true, only relative to a speaker

123 and a time. The real task is therefore to translate each sentenceby another that is true for the same speakersat the same times. Sentences obviouslyyield a very senwith demonstratives of a theoryofmeansitivetestof thecorrectness ing, and constitutethe most direct link between objects language and the recurrentmacroscopic of humaninterestand attention.l8 that the speakers ln this paperI haveassumed of a language can effectively determine the meaningor meaningsof an arbitrary expression (if it has a meaning),and that it is the cenfral task of a theory of meaning to show how this is possible. of I haveargued that a characterization a truth predicate describesthe required kind of structure, and provides a clear and testablecriterion of an adequatesemantics for a natural language. No doubt there are other reasonable that may be put on a theory of meandemands ing. But a theory that doesno more than define truth for a languagecomesfar closer to constituting a completetheoryof meaningthansuperso, at least,I have ficial analysismight suggest; urged. Since I think there is no alternative,I have taken an optimistic and programmatic view of the possibilities for a formal characterizationof a truth predicate for a natural language. But it list of diffrculmustbe allowedthat a staggering remains. To namea few: we tiesandconundrums do not know the logical form of counterfactual sentences, nor of sentences about or subjunctive probabilities andaboutcausalrelations;we have no good idea what the logical role ofadverbsis, nor the role of attributive adjectives;we haveno theory for mass terms like "fire," "water," and about belief, percep"snow," nor for sentences tion, and intention, nor for verbs of action that imply purpose.And finally, there are all the sentencesthat seemnot to havetruth valuesat all: optatives,interrogatives, and a the imperatives, theory of meaning hostmore.A comprehensive for a natural languagemust cope successfully with eachof theseproblems. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was read at the Eastem Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Decernber, 1966; the main theme traces back to an unpublished paper delivered to the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1953. hesent

124 formulations owe much to John Wallace, with whom I have discussed these matters since 1962. My research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

TRUTH AND MEANINC Paradox (NewYork 1966), p. 82. Since a truth definition determines the truth value of every sentence in the object language (relative to a sentence in the metalanguage), it determines the meaning of every word and sentence.This would seem to justify the title Theory of Meaning. 9. To give a single example: it is clearly a count in favor of a theory that it entails "'Snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white." But to contrive a theory t$at entails this (and works for all rclated sentences) is not trivial. I do not know a theory that succeeds 'mass with this very case (the problem of terms'). 10. This sketch of how a theory of meaning for an alien tongue can be tested obviously owes its inspiration to Quine's accountofradical translation in chapterII of Wotd and Object (New York: I 960). In suggesting that an acceptable theory of radical translation take the form of a recursive characterization of truth, I go beyond anything explicit in Quine. Toward the end of this paper, in the discussion of demonstratives, another strong point of agreement will turn up. I l. So far as I am aware, there has been very little discussion of whether a formal truth definition can be given for a natural language. But in a more general vein, several people have urged that the concepts of formal semantics be applied to natural language. See,for example,the contributions ofYehoshua BarHillel and Evert Beth ta The Philosophy of Rudolph Camap, Paul A. Schilpp, ed., (La Salle, I1l.: 1963), and Bar-Hillel's "Logical Syntax and Semantics," Language 30,230-237. 12. Tarski,ibid., p. 165. 13. [bid,.,p.267. 14. The rapprochement I prospectively imagine between bansformational grarnmar and a sound theory of meaning has been much advanced by a recent change in the conception of transformational grammar described by Chomsky in the article referred to above (note 5). The structures generated by the phrase-structurc part of the gralnmar, it has been rcalized for some time, are those suited to semantic interpretation; but this view is inconsistent with the idea, held by Chomsky until recently, that recursive operations are introduced only by the transformation rules. Chomsky now believes the phrase-stnrcturc rules are recursive. Since languages to which formal semantic methods directly and naturally apply are ones for which a (recursive) phrase-structuregrammar is appropriate,it is clear that Chomsky's present picture of the relation between the structures generated by the phrase-structure part ofthe grammar, and the sentences ofthe language, is very much like the picturc many logicians and philosophers have had of the relation betwe!n the richer formalized languages and ordinary language. (ln these remarks I am indebted to Bruce Vermazen.) 15. Quine has good things to say about this in Methods of logb (NewYork: 1950). See 8. 16. For an upto-date bibliography, and discussion, see A. N. hior, Past, Present, and Future (Oxford: 196il.

NOTES
l. Elsewhere I have urged that it is a necessary condi tion, ifa languageis to be leamable, that it have only a finite number of semantical primitives: see "Theories of Meaning and Leamable Languages," in Proceedings of the 1964 Intentational Congress for Logic, Metlndolog and Philosophy of Science (North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam: l96s), pp. 383-394. 'structural 2. A description'ofan exprcssion describes the exprcssion as a concatenation of elements drawn from a fixed finite list (for example of words or letters). 3. The argument is essentially Frcge's. See A. Church, Intmduction to Mathematical logic, vol.I (hinceton: 1956), pp. 24-25. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the argument does not depend on any particular identification of the entities to which sentences are supposed to refer. 4. It may be thought that Church, in'A Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation," in Structure, Method and Meaning: Essays in Honor of H. M. Shcffer,Henle, Kallen and L:nger, eds. (LiberalArts hess, NewYork: l95l), pp.3-24, has given a theory of meaning that makes essential use of meanings as entities. But this is not the case: Church's logics of sense and denotation are interpreted as being about meanings, but they do not mention expressions and so cannot of course be theories of meaning in the sensenow under discussion. 5. For a recent and insmrcdve statement of the role of semanticsin linguistics, see Noam Chomsky,'"Ibpics in the Theory of Generative Grammar," in Current Trends in Linguistics, Thomas A. Sebeok, ed., vol. III (Ihe Hague: 1966). In this article, Chomsky (1) emphasizes the central importance of semantics in linguistic theory (2) argues for the superiority of transformational grarnmars over phrase structur! grammars largely on the grounds that, although phrase structure gmmmani may be adequate to define sentencehood for (at least) some natural languages, they are inadequate as a foundation for semantics, and (3) comments repeatedly on fte 'rather primitive state' of the concepts of semantics and remarks that the notion of semantic interpretation "still resists any deep analysis". 6. Assuming, of course, that the extension of these prcdicates is limited to the sentences of Z. 7. Alfred Tarski, 'The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages," in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics (Oxford: 1956), pp. 152-278. 8. But Quine may be quoted in support of my usage: ". . . in point of meaning. . . a word may be said to be determined to whatever extent the truth or falsehood of its contexts is determined." '"Truth by Convention," first published in 1936;now inThe Waysof