ABSTRACT
An interesting way to raise questions about the relation between language and reality is to ask: how could we state a theory knowledge of which would suffice for understanding a language? Donald Davidson has urged that a central component in such a theory would be a theory of truth, in something like the style of Tarski, for the language in question.1 A Tarskian truth-theory entails, for each indicative sentence of the language it deals with, a theorem specifying a necessary and sufficient condition for the sentence to be true. The theorems are derivable from axioms which assign semantic properties to sentence<onstituents and determine the semantic upshot of modes of combination. Now Frege held that the senses of sentences can be determined by giving truth<onditions, and that the sense of a sentence<onstituent is its contribution to the senses of sentences in which it may occur. 2 The parallel is striking. It suggests a construal of Davidson's proposal as a proposal about the nature of a theory of (Fregean) sense for a language.
