Hillary Putnam and Realism with a Human Face (Part 3): Tarski's Theory of Truth and How Mere Aristocratic Brain Teasers Became Philosophical Obsessions

On The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast

In this final episode of a three part installment on Hillary Putnam's lecture Realism with a Human Face, I look at Alfred Tarski's Theory of Truth developed to answer the Liar Paradox. I show how Tarski's hierarchal splitting of language into object language and the meta-language that describes and analyzes it creates the same problem encountered by quantum theory - the need for an observer that always stands outside the system. This leads to the impossibility of one ever being able to develop a god's eye view of the world. This cognitive barrier is a bit of a disappointing harness for the intellectual as they must always keep a certain modesty of scope in developing their theory within these confines. Lastly, I briefly look at the history of logical puzzles like the Liar Paradox in the history of philosophy and am surprised to learn that these puzzles were seen as mere parlour games prior to the advent of analytic philosophy and the movement towards a logic and linguistic-based endeavour from a more broader epistemelogical project found in earlier centuries.