Abstract:
This paper is a miscellany of exegetical and historiographical remarks about Tarski's classic monograph on truth. In general, the remarks are about how I think it is best to approach a number of passages in the monograph which have given rise to conflicting interpretations. I concentrate especially on some recent exegeses according to which Tarski had a confused view of his claim that "truth for a language can only be defined in a metalanguage of higher order"; I offer an opposing exegesis, charitable to Tarski. I also offer remarks on the issue of whether or in what sense Tarski had priority over Gödel in the establishment of indefinability results; I pay special attention to the import of the fact that Tarski's "Theorem I" does not mention any semantic notion. Also discussed is the problem of whether or in what sense Tarski did or did not have in mind the notion of "truth in a model" in his monograph (and in his work of this period).