Guiding Questions for Putnam's "A Comparison of Something with Something Else"

1. What’s the title Putnam suggests for Tarski’s conception of truth? Why?

2. What’s Putnam’s main objection to Tarski’s theory?

3. What’s the problem Putnam sees in embracing Tarski’s theory as an account of truth with respect to the way we learn language?

4. What’s Quine’s position wrt language learning?

5. Why is Quine’s view on language learning “in trouble” with his claims that “Tarski has rehabilitated the notion of truth (and of reference)” and “there is no fact of the matter as to what the truth conditions of a sentence in an arbitrary "alien language" are”?

6. What is the problem in Quine’s view of truth and language that remains according to Putnam? Is it a problem involving the notion of truth?

7. Is Quine’s understanding of Tarski’s truth definitions a deviant one? How so?