Did Tarski refute Frege?

Karen Green (Monash University)

Karen Green (Melbourne) will present "Did Tarski refute Frege?" at 11 on 18 May in Babel 217.

Abstract: Frege claimed that truth is sui generis and indefinable. Tarski provided a definition of the semantic concept of truth. Thus is would seem that Tarski refuted Frege. However, matters are not so simple. It is argued that Tarski’s definition of semantic truth presupposes a more fundamental concept, ontic truth, and this is the concept that Frege claimed to be indefinable. So Tarski did not refute Frege. The distinction between semantic and ontic truth is clarified through some historical examples, and it is argued that a number of philosophically contentious disputes, such as that between realism and Dummettian anti-realism, are not very substantive, but result from their proponents not thoroughly distinguishing between the two concepts of truth.