Abstract

Austin's theory of truth is formulated in terms of a relation of correct description holding between a sentence and a situation. A recursive denition of correct description is provided for rst-order languages containing terms denoting situations and a predicate denoting correct-description. We examine a very strong logic of situations, by restricting our attention to situated consequence between descriptions of omniscient situations, arguing that weaker logics may be obtained using standard methods. Rules of natural deduction for the logic are introduced by way of examples of natural reasoning using spatial indexicals. Finally, a Gentzen-style sequent calculus is oered. Keywords: Austin, truth, correct description, situation, indexical, natural deduction, sequent calculus. 1 Truth and Correct Description A basic tenet of situation semantics ([BP83, BE87, Bar89]), deriving from Austin's theory of truth ([Aus50]), is that every statement is about a situation. To make a statement by...

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