Ebook: Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938

Published with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Contains the only complete English-language text of The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages. Tarski made extensive corrections and revisions of the original translations for this edition, along with new historical remarks. It includes a new preface and a new analytical index for use by philosophers and linguists as well as by historians of mathematics and philosophy.


A mere reprinting of the volume would be a service, but the present project promises a much greater service. The historical significance of the papers can now be assessed in the perspective of the twenty-six productive years that have elapsed since the first printing of the volume, and the much longer interval―fifty years, on the average―since publication of the component papers. Concepts can be instructively glossed, renamed, and reinterpreted in the light of later literature. Corrections can be made, also, that were urgently wanted already in the first printing, to which Tarski had insufficient access when it was being prepared. Under the expert editing by John Corcoran in consultation with Tarski, a volume can be counted on that will constitute a definitive record and appraisal of Tarski’s monumental early contributions to the burgeoning domain of mathematical logic and its philosophy. -―W. V. Quine, Harvard University