Truth in Popper's Philosophy of Science and Tarski's Semantic Theory of Truth

Subject Areas : Philosophy

Received: 2019-09-23 Accepted : 2019-10-13 Published : 2019-09-23

Keywords: Truth, Popper, Tarski’s theory of truth, correspondence, Keuth, Haack,

Abstract :

Concept of truth has a unique importance in Popper’s philosophy of science and this is mainly because of his acquaintance with Tarski and his semantic concept of truth. In Popper’s view, Tarski’s theory is a correspondence theory and this viewpoint has been criticized from different perspectives. For example, some philosophers criticized the correspondence theory of truth, regardless of who its proponent is; and some others mentioned that Popper’s interpretation of Tarski’s theory of truth is not consistent with other parts of Popper’s philosophy. In this paper, I’ll try to answer to the following questions: Did Tarski himself regard his semantic theory as a correspondence one? In spite of Tarski's own view, was Popper right in using Tarski’s theory of truth as a correspondence theory? First, the main core of semantic theory of truth is introduced and is continued by Popper’s interpretation and its two main criticisms by Herbert Keuth and Susan Haack.