Document Type : Research

Author

• Saeid Pourdanesh

PhD in Western Philosophy, Allameh Tabataba'i University, saeidpourdanesh@gmail.comi

Abstract

Alfred Tarski is one of the principal founders of logical semantics. He founded representational approach in 30s and this approach is dominant in the logical semantics nowadays. But if we return to Tarski’s 20s works it seems in first glance there is no semantical approach in his 20s works. Current commentary of Tarski’s the 20s works is that he regarded logic with syntactical and proof theoretic approach in this periods. But one of Tarski’s commentators, Douglas Patterson, has showed in details that in Tarski’s the 20s works is seen a kind of semantical approach which can regard it as expressive approach. Tarski called this approach intuitionistic formalism, following his teacher Stanisław Leśniewski. In this article we are intend to address, according to Patterson’s interpretation, what is Tarski’s the expressive approach. we will attempt to establish two claims: (a) intuitionistic formalism, according to Tarski, is an approach about function of language not an articulated semantical theory in which the central concepts of expressive approach are defined and analyzed; (b) intuitionistic formalism has no conflict with representational approach about language and the former is present in background of Tarski’s works, even several years after establishment of representational approach by him.

Keywords

• Semantics
• Expressive Approach
• Representational Approach
• Intuitionistic Formalism
• Proof theoretic Approach

Main Subjects

• Philosophy of Logic