Alfred Tarski - Logical Consequence

Logical Consequence

In 1936, Tarski published Polish and German versions of a lecture he had given the preceding year at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy in Paris. A new English translation of this paper, Tarski (2002), highlights the many differences between the German and Polish versions of the paper, and corrects a number of mistranslations in Tarski (1983).

This publication set out the modern model-theoretic definition of (semantic) logical consequence, or at least the basis for it. Whether Tarski's notion was entirely the modern one turns on whether he intended to admit models with varying domains (and in particular, models with domains of different cardinalities). This question is a matter of some debate in the current philosophical literature. John Etchemendy stimulated much of the recent discussion about Tarski's treatment of varying domains.

Tarski ends by pointing out that his definition of logical consequence depends upon a division of terms into the logical and the extra-logical and he expresses some skepticism that any such objective division will be forthcoming. "What are Logical Notions?" can thus be viewed as continuing "On the Concept of Logical Consequence".

Read more about this topic:  Alfred Tarski

Famous quotes containing the words logical consequence, logical and/or consequence:

    Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)

    Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
    John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)