ABSTRACT
The idea that reference must be reduced to physicalistic terms if it is not to seem in some way mysterious gets one of its most influential statements in Hartry Field's paper "Tarski's Theory of Truth". On Field's account reference and truth are to be treated as phenomena on a par with chemical valence. Michael Devitt's insistence on the "objective, mind-independent nature of reality" builds metaphysical realism right into the correspondence theory of truth. Unless the metaphysical realist can give a reason for choosing one specific correspondence between the terms of T1 and one specific domain of objects—one way of "carving up" the world—then, Hilary Putnam claims, there is no reason to think that truth is independent of theory interpretation. In fact, Putnam claims that there are interpretations according to which the truth-value of every statement will remain unchanged in every possible world from the truth-value it is assigned under the intended interpretation.
