Truth and Meaning
E289480
Truth and Meaning is a seminal philosophical essay by Donald Davidson that argues for understanding meaning through a formal theory of truth inspired by Tarski.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Truth and Meaning canonical | 2 |
| essay "Meaning" | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2709470 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Truth and Meaning Context triple: [Donald Davidson, notableWork, Truth and Meaning]
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A.
Truth and Reality
Truth and Reality is a psychological and philosophical work by Otto Rank that explores the nature of the self, creativity, and human experience beyond traditional Freudian theory.
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B.
Truth and Usefulness
Truth and Usefulness is the English motto of Western University, emphasizing a commitment to both the pursuit of knowledge and its practical application.
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C.
Dignity and Truth
Dignity and Truth is the official motto of the Royal Academy of Arts, encapsulating its commitment to integrity and excellence in the arts.
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D.
The Criterion between truth and falsehood
"The Criterion between truth and falsehood" is the English rendering of the title of Surah Al-Furqan, a chapter of the Qur’an that emphasizes the distinction between guidance and misguidance through divine revelation.
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E.
Truth and Power
"Truth and Power" is a significant work by political theorist Hans Morgenthau that explores the relationship between political authority, moral responsibility, and the pursuit of truth in international affairs.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Truth and Meaning Target entity description: Truth and Meaning is a seminal philosophical essay by Donald Davidson that argues for understanding meaning through a formal theory of truth inspired by Tarski.
-
A.
Truth and Reality
Truth and Reality is a psychological and philosophical work by Otto Rank that explores the nature of the self, creativity, and human experience beyond traditional Freudian theory.
-
B.
Truth and Usefulness
Truth and Usefulness is the English motto of Western University, emphasizing a commitment to both the pursuit of knowledge and its practical application.
-
C.
Dignity and Truth
Dignity and Truth is the official motto of the Royal Academy of Arts, encapsulating its commitment to integrity and excellence in the arts.
-
D.
The Criterion between truth and falsehood
"The Criterion between truth and falsehood" is the English rendering of the title of Surah Al-Furqan, a chapter of the Qur’an that emphasizes the distinction between guidance and misguidance through divine revelation.
-
E.
Truth and Power
"Truth and Power" is a significant work by political theorist Hans Morgenthau that explores the relationship between political authority, moral responsibility, and the pursuit of truth in international affairs.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical essay
ⓘ
work on philosophy of language ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst | meaning theories based on reference to meanings as entities ⓘ |
| arguesFor | truth-conditions as central to meaning ⓘ |
| assumes |
a systematic relation between syntax and semantics
ⓘ
that a theory of meaning should be learnable by speakers ⓘ |
| author | Donald Davidson ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticizes |
intensional meaning theories that posit meanings as abstract entities
ⓘ
verificationist theories of meaning ⓘ |
| field |
analytic philosophy
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ |
| hasImpactOn |
debates about the nature of meaning
ⓘ
debates about truth and interpretation ⓘ formal approaches to natural language semantics ⓘ |
| hasKeyClaim |
a satisfactory theory of meaning for a language can be given by a suitably constrained theory of truth for that language
ⓘ
a theory of meaning should be finitely axiomatizable and compositional ⓘ a theory of meaning should entail all T-sentences for the object language ⓘ knowledge of meaning is knowledge of truth-conditions ⓘ semantic structure of sentences can be captured via a formal truth theory ⓘ |
| hasKeyConcept |
T-sentences
ⓘ
compositionality of meaning ⓘ radical interpretation ⓘ semantic theory ⓘ truth-conditions ⓘ |
| hasMethod |
formal semantic analysis
ⓘ
model-theoretic inspiration from Tarski ⓘ |
| hasReception | widely regarded as a seminal paper in philosophy of language ⓘ |
| influenced |
Davidsonian semantics
ⓘ
contemporary philosophy of language ⓘ formal semantics in linguistics ⓘ theories of radical interpretation ⓘ truth-conditional semantics ⓘ |
| influencedBy | Alfred Tarski ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
formal theories of truth
ⓘ
theories of meaning ⓘ truth-conditional semantics ⓘ |
| partOf | Donald Davidson’s collected essays ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy of language ⓘ |
| proposes | understanding meaning via a theory of truth ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1967 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | Synthese ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
ⓘ
Radical Interpretation ⓘ |
| usesConcept |
Tarskian object-language/metalanguage distinction
ⓘ
surface form:
Tarskian truth theory
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Truth and Meaning Description of subject: Truth and Meaning is a seminal philosophical essay by Donald Davidson that argues for understanding meaning through a formal theory of truth inspired by Tarski.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
essay "Meaning"