I was summarily ignored when I posted this yesterday in another thread, so I will try it again here.

So I wasn't going to comment, but then this article kept showing up in my suggested reading. I happen to be a fan of Graham Priest and once upon a time he briefly participated in the old forums as a guest philosopher. This particular article is super accessible.

Graham Priest on Beyond True and False

On a less approachable note, see paraconsistent logic and dialethia.

In short form, there are lots of truth values out there besides true and false (some of which are useful in specific applications such as data analysis). Here is a discussion of some of it SEP on Truth Values. A major issue with rejecting the LNC is something called explosion. This objection is as simple as "anything can be proven from a contradiction" and is demonstrated by "negation introduction" and similar forms of indirect proofs. Based on logic as traditionally conceived, permitting something to be both true and false at the same time is a major no no.

As a historical aside, the problem of future contingents has been around since Aristotle and serves as an easy demonstration that our thinking is impoverished by imagining that any proposition must be true or false, but not both, at every moment.

I can add more if anyone wants.

EricH Cheers. — Banno

He gets a "cheers" and I get to envy the size of your lunch. Bloody favoritism.

While functionally we likely agree, there is this amusing thought about how it could be that there is but one particle in all of reality that constructs everything we understand as real. If there is no way (in principle, theory, fact, etc.) to establish the identify of something by reference to its context, then the omnipresent particle becomes the simplest explanation.

Random article about the idea on a much smaller scale (who said philosophy is useless?). Giant Molecules Exist in Two Places at Once

Two atoms of hydrogen or two molecules of water have the same structure, isotopes aside. They are impossible to distinguish from one another and therefore they are functionally the same thing. — Olivier5

But even my six-year old knows when I've drunk from her glass of water instead of mine. Otherwise fungible things are rendered discrete from one another by virtue of context.

It is hard to not completely change topics and respond to your point. Suffice it to say that minds are really hard stuff. This may be due to the fact that people are generally unwilling to treat the idea inclusively (things are in till proven out vs. things are out till proven in). Accepting for a moment that understanding is a function of an agent demonstrating a particular capability, I think it is easy enough to say that understanding can not be discrete, i.e. that a system that can only do one thing (or a variety of things) well lacks agency for this purpose. However, at some point, a thing can do enough things well that it feels a bit like bad faith to say that it isn't an agent because you understand how it was constructed and how it behaves (indeed, if determinism obtains, the same could be said of people). Being a bit aggressive, I might suggest that you can't rule out panpsychism and so despite your being responsible for the behavior and assemblage of a computer, it may very well be minded (or multiply minded) sufficiently to understand what it is doing. We have no present way to demarcate minded from non-minded besides interpreting behavior. If something behaves like it understands (however strictly or loosely you want to define demonstrating a skill/ability/competency), bringing up whether it has a mind sufficient for agency doesn't do much work - it merely states the obvious: we don't know what has a mind.

I suppose if being explicable renders a thing mindless, increasing number of things that previously were marginally minded (after we admitted that maybe more than just white men could have minds) would go back to not having them. I just don't know how our minds will survive the challenge 10,000 years from now (when technology is presumably vastly superior to what we managed to create in the last hundred or so years). Before you know it, we will be arguing about p-Zombies. For my part, I might approach the thing with humility and err on the side of caution (animated things are minded) rather than dominion (people are special and can therefore subjugate the material world aside from other people).

And just because I think only one person briefly mentioned it, let's be a bit express about the Chinese Room and how it relates to minds and understanding.

4.4 The Other Minds Reply

Related to the preceding is The Other Minds Reply: “How do you know that other people understand Chinese or anything else? Only by their behavior. Now the computer can pass the behavioral tests as well as they can (in principle), so if you are going to attribute cognition to other people you must in principle also attribute it to computers.”

Searle’s (1980) reply to this is very short:

The problem in this discussion is not about how I know that other people have cognitive states, but rather what it is that I am attributing to them when I attribute cognitive states to them. The thrust of the argument is that it couldn’t be just computational processes and their output because the computational processes and their output can exist without the cognitive state. It is no answer to this argument to feign anesthesia. In ‘cognitive sciences’ one presupposes the reality and knowability of the mental in the same way that in physical sciences one has to presuppose the reality and knowability of physical objects.

Critics hold that if the evidence we have that humans understand is the same as the evidence we might have that a visiting extra-terrestrial alien understands, which is the same as the evidence that a robot understands, the presuppositions we may make in the case of our own species are not relevant, for presuppositions are sometimes false. For similar reasons, Turing, in proposing the Turing Test, is specifically worried about our presuppositions and chauvinism. If the reasons for the presuppositions regarding humans are pragmatic, in that they enable us to predict the behavior of humans and to interact effectively with them, perhaps the presupposition could apply equally to computers (similar considerations are pressed by Dennett, in his discussions of what he calls the Intentional Stance).

But isn't the point that understanding is a demonstration of proficiency? To the extent that a fly can escape from a bottle by other than chance, is that evidence of understanding?

Not that I understand Wittgenstein or much of anything else.

When we turn to understanding, by contrast, some have claimed that a new suite of cognitive abilities comes onto the scene, abilities that we did not find in ordinary cases of propositional knowledge. In particular, some philosophers claim that the kind of mental action verbs that naturally come to the fore when we think about understanding—“grasping” and “seeing”, for example—evoke mental abilities “beyond belief”, i.e., beyond simple assent or taking-to-be-true (for an overview, see Baumberger, Beisbart, & Brun 2017). — SEP on Psychology of Understanding

As I recall, @Banno won’t play nicely with me if I start going on about brains in vats and epistemological anti-realism. He may say something like, “But whatever we are or aren’t, doesn’t the brain in the vat suggest that there is a reality of what your are, whether or not we are capable of knowing it?”

P.S. This is to say that Banno seems interested in taking "recognition-transcendent truth-conditions" head on in his discussions about truth.

And as a bit of an aside, this is a nice quote that harkens to some of the other threads floating around and @Banno’s comment that he is looking for an account of truth.

4.1 Language Use and Understanding
We now turn to some realist responses to these challenges. The Manifestation and Language Acquisition arguments allege there is nothing in an agent’s cognitive or linguistic behaviour that could provide evidence that s/he had grasped what it is for a sentence to be true in the realist’s sense of ‘true’. How can you manifest a grasp of a notion which can apply or fail to apply without you being able to tell which? How could you ever learn to use such a concept? . . .

Anti-realists follow verificationists in rejecting the intelligibility of such states of affairs and tend to base their rules for assertion on intuitionistic logic, which rejects the universal applicability of the Law of Bivalence (the principle that every statement is either true or false). This law is thought to be a foundational semantic principle for classical logic. However, some question whether classical logic requires bivalence [e.g. Sandqvist 2009]. Others dispute the idea that acceptance or rejection of bivalence has any metaphysical (rather than meaning-theoretic) consequences [Edgington, 1981; McDowell 1976; Pagin 1998; Gaiffman 1996]. There is, in addition, a question as to whether the anti-realist’s preferred substitute for realist truth-conditions in verification-conditions (or proof-conditions) satisfies the requirement of exhaustive manifestability [Pagin 2009]. . . .

An apparent consequence of their view is that reality is indeterminate in surprising ways—we have no grounds for asserting that Socrates did sneeze in his sleep the night before he took the hemlock and no grounds for asserting that he did not and no prospect of ever finding out which. Does this mean that for anti-realists the world contains no such fact as the fact that Socrates did one or the other of these two things? Not necessarily. For anti-realists who subscribe to intuitionistic principles of reasoning, the most that can be said is that there is no present warrant to assert
S∨¬S: that Socrates either did or did not sneeze in his sleep the night before he took the hemlock. — “SEP on Challenges to Realism”

@Banno I imagine you are aware of this, and yet I am curious what your instinctual response is.

SEP on Realism and Independence

Dummett’s main line of argument against semantic realism is the manifestation argument. Here is the argument (See Dummett 1978 and the summary in Miller 2018, chapter 9):

Suppose that we are considering region of discourse D. Then:

We understand the sentences of D.
Suppose, for reductio, that

The sentences of D have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions.
Now, given

To understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions (Frege 1892, cf. Miller 2018 chapters 1 and 2).
We can conclude

We know the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions of the sentences of D.
We then add the following premise, which stems from the Wittgensteinian insight that understanding does not consist in the possession of an inner state, but rather in the possession of some practical ability (see Wittgenstein 1958):

To understand a sentence is to manifest the practical abilities that constitute our understanding of that sentence
For example, in the case of a simple language consisting of demonstratives and taste predicates (such as “bitter” and “sweet”), applied to foodstuffs within reach of the speaker, a speaker’s understanding consists in his ability to determine whether “this is bitter” is true, by putting the relevant foodstuff in his mouth and tasting it (Wright 1993).

It now follows that:

To know the truth-conditions of a sentence is to manifest the practical abilities that constitute our understanding of that sentence.
So:

Our knowledge of the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions of the sentences of D is manifested in our exercise of the practical abilities that constitute our understanding of the sentences of D.
Since

Knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is never manifested in the exercise of practical abilities
It follows that

Knowledge of the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions of the sentences of D is never manifested in the exercise of practical abilities.
So

We cannot exercise practical abilities that constitute our understanding of D.
So

(11) We do not understand the sentences of D.
This yields a contradiction with (1), whence, by reductio, we reject (2) to obtain:

The sentences of D do not have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions, so that semantic realism about the subject matter of D must be rejected.
The key claim here is (8). So far as an account of speakers’ understanding goes, the ascription of knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is simply redundant: there is no good reason for ascribing it. Consider one of the sentences introduced earlier as a candidate for possessing recognition-transcendent truth-conditions ‘Every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes’. The semantic realist views our understanding of sentences like this as consisting in our knowledge of a potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition. But:

How can that account be viewed as a description of any practical ability of use? No doubt someone who understands such a statement can be expected to have many relevant practical abilities. He will be able to appraise evidence for or against it, should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his possession bears on it. He will be able to recognize at least some of its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which commitment to it would follow. And he will, presumably, show himself sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to others, and sensitive to the explanatory significance of such ascriptions. In short: in these and perhaps other important respects, he will show himself competent to use the sentence. But the headings under which his practical abilities fall so far involve no mention of evidence-transcendent truth-conditions (Wright 1993: 17).

This establishes (8), and the conclusion (12) follows straightforwardly.

Here is a bit @Janus might appreciate regarding quietism, Wittgenstein, and McDowell:

Quietism about the ‘debate’ between realists and their opponents can take a number of forms. One form might claim that the idea of a significant debate is generated by unsupported or unsupportable philosophical theses about the relationship of the experiencing and minded subject to their world, and that once these theses are exorcised the ‘debate’ will gradually wither away. This form of quietism is often associated with the work of the later Wittgenstein, and receives perhaps its most forceful development in the work of John McDowell (see in particular McDowell 1994 and 2007). — “SEP on Realism”

Perhaps I will have to do more than wave in the general direction of SEP, but I doubt I will do a better job of getting at some of the tensions those articles are meant to highlight. What could realism be besides semantic realism? Why insist that such a realism could be intelligible (meaningfully talked about) if it requires semantic realism to discuss?




And for anyone that is interested - SEP on Challenges to Metaphysical Realism. Many good things in there that could be laid out in this discussion (and indeed, some of them hinted), but it would be nice if those nodding at the issues simply laid them out directly (e.g. references to competent speakers of English).

So I wasn't going to comment, but then this article kept showing up in my suggested reading. I happen to be a fan of Graham Priest and once upon a time he briefly participated in the old forums as a guest philosopher. This particular article is super accessible.

Graham Priest on Beyond True and False

On a less approachable note, see paraconsistent logic and dialethia.

In short form, there are lots of truth values out there besides true and false (some of which are useful in specific applications such as data analysis). Here is a discussion of some of it SEP on Truth Values. A major issue with rejecting the LNC is something called explosion. This objection is as simple as "anything can be proven from a contradiction" and is demonstrated by "negation introduction" and similar forms of indirect proofs. Based on logic as traditionally conceived, permitting something to be both true and false at the same time is a major no no.

As a historical aside, the problem of future contingents has been around since Aristotle and serves as an easy demonstration that our thinking is impoverished by imagining that any proposition must be true or false, but not both, at every moment.

I can add more if anyone wants.

Just because I was thinking about it...

The Great Fact

. . .
Davidson used his own version of the “slingshot” (see the supplementary document to the entry “Facts”) to undermine a widespread view that true sentences correspond to facts. The line of reasoning in accordance with the slingshot schema forces us to admit then that all true sentences refer to one and the same fact, which Davidson (1969), nimbly enough, calls The Great Fact. This conclusion is often employed to make a case against the correspondence theory of truth. The idea is that facts—when related to a sentence—appear to be non-localizable, and thus any true sentence seems to correspond to the whole universe rather than to some of its “parts”. As it was suggested by C.I. Lewis (1943: 242), a proposition refers then not to some limited state of affairs, but to the “kind of total state of affairs we call a world”. — SEP on the Slingshot Argument

You can ask @Banno to explain it.

Perhaps your spell check is on to something - when it comes to this world, there may be only one truth that is undifferentiable from any other such that when we believe in truth about "our world" we are of necessity believing "the truth" about the Great Fact.

I think you have confused me with someone else. From this thread:
A fact is a truth-maker for at least one truth-claim.
— 180 Proof — 180 Proof

I don’t have you confused, but that doesn’t mean I am not confused.

Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for certainty. — “Tom Storm”

Ineluctability. — 180 Proof

Though I will certainly grant that the change from “reality” to “fact” was mine and not yours.

You have engaged in pleading for a special case for religious discussions, here and here. — Banno

There is a difference between arguing for a special case in the face of a universal and saying that there is no universal. You know this and it is why you avoid both the “ordinary language” point (reference to the dictionary) and the jargon point (reference to a philosophical discussion). “Fact” is neither well defined nor used in an exclusive sense. Different contexts use the word differently. Why is this so problematic for you?

Exactly, except we can of course acquire more facts as we go along, and we do. — Olivier5

But to your point, facts come at a cost, so we are likely to obtain only those facts that have a cost that we (or others) are willing to bear in order to obtain them. Unsurprisingly, then, many facts support power and undermine the powerless. As @180 Proof has said, facts are ineluctable, but not for the reasons he supposes.

A notable feature of facts as I defined them — Olivier5

This is often the problem of facts, not just the counter-factual nature of how most people engage with them, but the way that they simple suppose because they imagine something in their head it means that it is possible. If only logical possibility had any demonstrable relationship to facts, they might be on to something, but so far it seems like we have precisely the facts we have, no more, no less, and that logic serves as an interpretive tool rather than an imposition on what they can be.

@Banno maybe a simple example will illuminate the tension here: "It is a fact that Scrooge McDuck's nephew is Donald Duck." Is that an intelligible English sentence and is it true on your account? If it is false, are you saying that Donald Duck is not Scrooge McDuck's nephew?

1. The Nature of Fiction

In whatever way we characterize the fiction/non-fiction distinction, the distinction is widely recognized as important. We care which category a work belongs to. We read Lord Macaulay’s The History of England (1848) to learn about the overthrow of James II and its aftermath, and criticize Macaulay for departures from fact or for bias: these detract from its value as a work of non-fiction. Historical novels such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1865–1867) or Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009) also display bias and they depart in numerous ways from fact, but the bias and inaccuracies don’t lessen their value as works of fiction. And when a writer passes off a work as a work of non-fiction, deliberately hiding the fact that much of its content was made up, we see that as fraudulent. (There are numerous examples. One famous case is “Jimmy’s World”, written for the Washington Post in 1980 by journalist Janet Cooke; the article won her a Pulitzer Prize that she later returned.)

Not everyone agrees that the distinction matters. Some have argued that all discourse is on a par, that there is no writing that is per se fictional or non-fictional. According to Stanley Fish, for example,

when we communicate, it is because we are parties to a set of discourse agreements which are in effect decisions as to what can be stipulated as a fact. It is these decisions and the agreement to abide by them, rather than the availability of substance, that make it possible for us to refer, whether we are novelists or reporters for the New York Times. (Fish 1980: 242)
. . .

Whatever the right theory of the nature of fiction, (nearly) everyone agrees that there are paradigm cases of works of fiction. Many of the sentences in such works are, of course, not true since in paradigm cases of fiction much of the content is made up. For example, the sentence

It was the end of November, and Holmes and I sat, upon a raw and foggy night, on either side of a blazing fire in our sitting-room in Baker Street. (The Hound of the Baskervilles: ch. 15)

is not true at any real context of utterance since there is no Sherlock Holmes, and no Dr. Watson to utter the sentence. More generally, sentences that purport to describe the world depicted in a work of fiction are often false (or at least not true) since they misdescribe the world as it actually is; “Holmes was a detective living at 221B Baker Street, London”, for example. Still, this sentence sounds true, whereas a sentence like “Holmes was a short-order cook living in Paris” sounds false. — SEP on Fiction

And just because...

3. Truth Through Fiction

After his discussion of truth in fiction, Lewis acknowledged in Postscript B that some people value fiction “mostly as a means for the discovery of truth, or for the communication of truth” (Lewis 1983: 278), that is, genuine truth, not merely fictional truth. It is possible that Lewis simply meant that sentences like “In the Holmes stories, Holmes is a detective” are really, and not just fictionally, true, for this fact captures the sense in which it is really true, say, that Holmes is a detective and really false that he is a rockstar. But the problem of whether fiction-involving sentences communicate truths does not end here. There are various other ways of understanding how fiction might make such a contribution. To begin with, some statements true in a work of fiction are also genuine truths, included because the author wanted an appropriately realistic setting for the work (e.g., historical statements in works of historical fiction) or in order to acquaint readers with facts that the author regards as morally or politically significant (consider, for example, the fiction of Charles Dickens, Upton Sinclair, or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). Whatever the reason, such cases suggest that fiction can serve as a means for readers to discover genuine truths.

Philosophers and literary theorists by and large agree with this claim (Friend 2006; Lamarque & Olsen 1994). Even on imagination-based theories of fiction, there is nothing to prevent statements that readers are invited to imagine as true from also being known as fact. This is consistent, however, with acknowledging that learning from fiction is not always easy, since it requires an ability to tell whether an apparently factual claim in a work of fiction has been included in the fiction because of its truth or for other reasons. More generally, a number of psychological studies suggest that readers often lack the ability to tell truth from falsehood in fiction, failing to adequately scrutinize information when engaging with fiction while being more careful in the case of non-fiction (see, for example, Prentice & Gerrig 1999; Wheeler et al. 1999; Butler et al. 2012). While this propensity on the part of readers doesn’t show that they are never able to gain factual knowledge rather than mere (true) belief from engaging with works of fiction, it may make it harder than it first appears. One plausible suggestion is that where there is knowledge rather than mere belief, this happens because readers have acquired a competence at reliably discriminating truth from falsity in works of that genre (Friend 2014).

But learning factual truths is not what philosophers and literary theorists usually have in mind when they think of fiction as a means for the discovery, or communication, of truth. They have in mind truth that has deeper human significance, like the universals that Aristotle claims in The Poetics to find in the works of poets, or the kind of truth about human nature, for example, that Samuel Johnson finds in Shakespeare (“he has not only shewn human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be exposed”; Johnson 1765). Many philosophers thus embrace what is commonly called (literary) cognitivism, which claims that literary fiction can contribute to readers’ knowledge in a way that adds to the literary or aesthetic value of a work (Davies 2007; Gaut 2005).

↪TheMadFool
Yes, that's it. Also the double standard, the noble lie, the special pleading... take your pick... previously noted in MU and EE, shows itself again. If religion doesn't attempt to be factually correct, then it is not answerable to anything. — Banno

At some point it feels like you are willfully misreading, Banno. I have not advocated a noble lie nor have I engaged in special pleading. It would be like saying that I am engaged in a case of special pleading because I call the guy in a red hat a bishop and a chess piece a bishop. Words are used different ways in different contexts.

Please demonstrate that "fact" is used in the same way in all cases and that any uses that differs from yours is special pleading.

something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.
something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.
Law.Often facts. an actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence.Compare question of fact, question of law. — Fact from Dictionary.com

1.1 Facts, Facts & Facts

The word “fact” is used in at least two different ways. In the locution “matters of fact”, facts are taken to be what is contingently the case, or that of which we may have empirical or a posteriori knowledge. Thus Hume famously writes at the beginning of Section IV of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding: “All the objects of human reason or inquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact”. The word is also used in locutions such as

It is a fact that Sam is sad
That Sam is sad is a fact
That 2+2=4

is a fact.

In this second use, the functor (operator, connective) “It is a fact that” takes a sentence to make a sentence (an alternative view has it that “It is a fact” takes a nominalised sentence, a that-clause, to make a sentence), and the predicate “is a fact” is either elliptic for the functor, or takes a nominalised sentence to make a sentence. It is locutions of this second sort that philosophers have often employed in order to claim (or deny) that facts are part of the inventory of what there is, and play an important role in semantics, ontology, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind.

We may, then, distinguish between Humean facts and functorial facts. With the help of this distinction, two philosophical options can be formulated. One may think that there are facts in the functorial sense of the word which are contingent—the fact that Sam is sad—and facts in the functorial sense which are not contingent—the fact that 2+2=4. Or one may think that all facts in the functorial sense are contingent, are Humean matters of fact. The latter option is expounded in the influential philosophy of facts to be found in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921). Wittgenstein there announces that the world is the totality of facts and that every fact is contingent (Wittgenstein TLP: 1.1). — SEP on Facts

Despite felling a bit loath to indicate a percieved error in someone I have come to consider my philosophical better, I must say, Ennui, that I think you wrong on this particular point. — Michael Zwingli

Don’t be so loath. I’m glad to have the chance to reconsider things as new information/view points become available. And as the saying goes, flattery will get you everywhere.

Fact and reality exist apart from subjective valuation and agreement, and are the philosopher's object of scrutiny. — Michael Zwingli

Just as I do not discuss religion as being unified, I would also not discuss philosophy as being unified. In this instance, I was speaking for myself. As a general proposition, I think you will run into trouble if you consider philosophy (or philosophers) to think of fact and reality as their object of scrutiny. It isn’t so much that metaphysics (ontology and the like) aren’t fields within philosophy, but that they do not exhaust the fields of philosophy. Further, I think you’ll find that many contemporary philosophers don’t really focus on facts and reality as such, but sort of assume the contingent nature of theories/beliefs about facts and reality and adapt to the circumstance in which facts/reality are invoked.

In any event, I wasn’t intending to sound like a utilitarian/consequentialist (in ethical terms). I was speaking for myself and how I approach philosophy. I very much agree that people have different causes for being happy and that one person’s joy can be another’s pain. I understand the appeal to something like objectivity to settle disputes, but not everyone agrees about objectivity or that disputes hinge on a particular objective fact. Problematically, we only ever have language and people do what they do in response to it independent of whether that language accomplishes your purpose. Words about facts are never facts themselves (something like “the map is not the territory”), and so appealing to words as if they are facts obscures what is happening rather than providing additional information/warrant. In the end, we have symbols and behaviors. To the extent that we are in society (a world of other minds), we have symbols and behaviors that lead to mutual interest/benefit and symbols and behaviors that do not. All we can ever do is assume that our personal interpretation of the symbols and behaviors is sufficiently similar to other minds that we can organize our worlds. Saying that there is a “fact” in this context does little for me beyond adding rhetorical flourish.

I’m not sure that what I wrote matches what you have described, but I’m happy to respond to specific quotes if you find they deviate too much from what I am writing now.

My definition of “truth” is that there is none, i.e. that when we say “is true” it adds nothing to the statement (uttered in the context of an assertion) - a position that is in the ball park of the redundancy theory of truth. So I am not saying that someone saying something makes it true in the traditional sense, but that the assertion of something is done because it advances the utterer’s purpose. I don’t want to go too far down this path because I think what I wrote earlier was about how people can use “truth” in multiple senses with the sense largely dependent on the context in which it is uttered.

What I said was uninteresting is metaphysics - that if we conceive of a fact as being what is out there ( a state of affairs), that fact becomes important only in-so-far as it interacts with our will. As we can only have theories about “out there” (which we can discuss elsewhere at length), we end up in a situation where what we think about/discuss is a theory and not a fact. If we theorize “wrong” (that is, our theory fails to adequately account for a fact) but accomplish our will, I am not sure what it is that would let us know that we got it wrong. (Consider the case of true belief with incorrect justification rather than no justification.). We could certainly try to theorize right and spend lots of effort at being right, but for reasons of testability/falsifiability I think you quickly run into epistemic problems that renders such efforts a waste of time.

“Facts” are similar to “truths” in-so-far as they are both just symbols. Facts are important things in our language, so things that are perceived as important tend to be called facts. “It is a fact that” and “it is true that” both accomplish the same sort of trick - to amplify the assertion that follows. It isn’t important to parse the word because in most circumstances, I am not sure that anyone cares what the difference is. So “it is true that X” and “it is a fact that X” when talking in a bar are not likely to convey a different message. Again, the context dictates what work “fact” does in that statement - is it the sort of statement that is about mining or about meaning? In my view, there is no reason to reconcile the two contexts and insist upon uniformity of linguistic function.

Getting to your question about X, Y, and Z, if I state, “It is a fact that my keys are in my pocket”, it isn’t immediately clear what that sentence does in the context in which it was uttered. If I am alerting someone where to find my keys, it tells them where to look. If I am trying to get you stop asking me where they are, it tells you to stop asking. So now I say it and my keys aren’t in my pocket, is the statement false? Sure. Did it accomplish the key finding purpose? No. Did it accomplish the stop asking me purpose? Sure. Could it be that there are other contexts that render the utterance more or less useful? Absolutely.

What does my utterance have to do with belief? Potentially nothing. I might have uttered it as a result of reading a piece of paper that I don’t understand. I might have uttered as a result of repeating what you just said to me. This all gets a bit complicated and far afield, but I am trying to highlight that language does something independent of what I think.

Now let’s say I believe out there is in some way but I want to accomplish something that either necessitates that out there is otherwise or is irrelevant to out there. The latter case is easy, my belief is neither here nor there. And the former? Well, that is where @Banno’s imposition of the world comes in. Either I can’t get what I want or if I do get what I want, my belief was “wrong”. The thing is, why I am frustrated may be because my belief about out there was right or that some other fact (which I hold a false belief about) is so. Frustration is not, therefore, a way to confirm my beliefs, just an obstacle to be overcome or moved on from.

I am sure this has confused things more than clarified them. I am absolutely not saying that statements or beliefs make things facts, I am saying that people use language how they want and that we can use language differently in different language communities. When we say that the story of Noah’s ark is true, it isn’t that we are parsing metaphor from non-metaphor and simply equivocating on the interpretation of the story, but that we are equivocating on what “is true” means. Noah’s ark being literally true is meaningless when discussing the balance of my bank account but useless (and even counterproductive) when trying to make a coherent narrative about the archeological/geological record. Using truth in the religious context in a non-religious context is like trying to move a bishop diagonally on his own color when directing a guy in a red hat down a hallway with a variegated carpet to the pope’s chamber. You’ve failed to change your language game.

Now telling @Banno he is wrong in this thread is easy, whether I’ve given him latitude or not. Banno, you’re wrong. My saying it doesn’t mean much and merely announces my judgement to people capable of making their own. Appealing to my own authority for getting you to agree with me that Banno is in error is likely a bad rhetorical flourish.

In the end, facts are not about me, but about us. Insisting that people use language the same in all contexts is amusing, but misguided.

Without going around the tree again, yes - we like virtue. But we (you and I) don’t agree about truth or that grunts (or other symbols) convey meaning (which seems necessary for their to be true statements). Our symbols are assessed by whether they do our bidding, not whether their meaning comports with “out there.” Scientific and religious language are held to precisely the same standard on my account rather than having separate standards for each.

It was a joke as you accused me of nonsense.

"Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!" ~Wolfgang Paul — 180 Proof

So you think he would agree that statements are not truth apt, that historical facts don’t exist to make statements true, or that in the absence of a potential observer, we can’t figure it out?

...what if the goal of a science isn't to be factually correct? — Banno

Funny thing is, I don’t think the goal is to be factually correct, I think it is to get funding and/or make money, but call me a cynic (not that we know if I would qualify since the Christians burned all their writings).

My issue isn’t with your judgment, Banno, it is with the scope of your judgment. When a starving man finds a barrel of rotten apples he might eat a few or spend sometime looking for one that isn’t rotten. A well fed man is likely to walk by and wait for a more obviously enticing selection. You aren’t wrong for calling it a rotten barrel and my finding a good apple or two is more a quibble than a convincing reason for you to have lingered longer before passing judgment. But again, if we care about an accurate description of the barrel (rather than our culinary preferences), my quibble may save the starving man from food poisoning or you a trip to a far off restaurant.

In the end this is political and probably not philosophical. Or maybe it is about a difference in approach to efficacy. Facts, to me, are uninteresting. What is interesting is what matters and whether we can accomplish our goals. To you, perhaps lingering on a fact is pleasing and observation and truth is inherently a worthy goal. I see all of philosophy in service to a purpose with no reason to invest in an idea beyond its utility. Is there a tea cup circling the sun? If it might hit our rocket ship it is something worth considering, if it is just a thought experiment meant to satisfy our need for there to be an out there there, I won’t linger.

So if a group of people get together and engage in meaning making via a story that flies in the face of what makes for good predictions about where to find more oil (geology is probably more sensible when you think of it as being the result of a process more than a few thousand years old), pointing out that the story won’t help them find oil is a distraction. Insisting that there is value in both positions - the story and the systematized observations and theories (“science”) - and using language intended to convey that value (like “truth”) is utterly unproblematic for me. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, they say. I think I once heard of a mind that observes everything at once so that when people look away those things don’t stop existing and so facts are merely the collection of things that the great mind observes. Good story to some. How is it functionally different than your world of unobserved facts? And yet, conflating the god story fact with your realist fact misses the point of the god story and why its explanatory functions are important in ways that your realist descriptions are not.

You see, religious communities are what people find important in ways that your types of “fact” fall short. And the people in those communities, whether they invoke the language of “fact” in a way that seems to smash face first into your “facts” or not, are not there to establish your facts as the point of being in those communities. Their use of fact language is in service to something else. And for people starved of meaning outside of community, chewing on the corpse of god may be enough even if they have to talk in ways that would make them sound like an idiot if they walked into a conference of geologists. (That was a call back to the rotten apple - I happen to think there are religions that have pushed the necrotic god bits out of the way and found some perfectly edible apples underneath.)

It isn’t that you have to agree with them (or me), Banno, but in your fullness of meaning in the absence of community (especially those communities feasting on putrifying deity), you can’t pretend as if your judgment (your aesthetic preference) is the necessary judgment.

I've pointed to the discussion of Confirmable and influential Metaphysics previously. Religious beliefs can be assessed by their outcomes. Christianity resulted in charities, hospitals, schools, persecution and oppression. — Banno

And the enlightenment resulted in hospitals, schools, general enfranchisement and Hitler. Lots of ideas lead to lots of places, so judging by the results seems a selective exercise.

Science, for instance, lead to the mustard gas, the atom bomb, flame throwers, paper shredders, tnt, LRAD, and the electric chair. Or maybe science led to the whole scale destruction of most of the “natural” world. What candle does Christian destruction hold to the destruction wrought by science?

How many new words do we have since Austin wrote that? Are each of them useless because they didn’t survive the lifetime of many generations?

Facts are sort of like knowledge, Banno. I am well aware of what will satisfy someone in a conversation when they are speaking about whether George Washington was president and whether or not I know George Washington was president because I can provide that as an answer to a Jeopardy question. So is it a fact that George Washington was president and that I know that he was a president because I am able to play nice socially? Is there anything more to be said about the topic?

When discussing philosophy, I suppose there is more to be said. When playing Jeopardy I don’t. When speaking to you I am aware that invoking nihilism will result an eye roll and an accusation of incoherence, so if I want to speak to you, I am better off discussing cats on mats.

Now if you ask me what the point is of willfully maintaining multiple language communities, I could give you a variety of answers that may appeal to your sensibilities or may not. The truth is, you are studied enough to know most of what I will say and we will just retread old territory - a bit like playing a chess game where we know the opening book, most of the mid-game, and much of the end game. Sure, each game goes a little differently, but the end is the same - resignation, check-mate, a draw, or people stop playing.

So tell me what you would like me to say. The dictionary is replete with words that have multiple senses/definitions. There are words that sound the same and are spelled the same but are different words because they have unique etymologies and meanings. Even in ordinary language people found utility in what you might call equivocation. A mouse is a thing that moves a cursor and that scuttles across the floor. It would be nice if when I asked for the mouse when trying to use your computer you knew that I didn’t mean the same thing as when I asked for the mouse when feeding your snake.

“Fish fish fish fish fish.” Did we learn anything?

How is life different if we entertain the possibility that we are a brain in a vat? Does George Washington stop being the first president?

All of that is lovely, but has nothing to do with the topic - that not all religious people describe the point of their religion as being a source of accurate information about historical facts. The Romans were assholes. The Christian Romans probably no more so than the non-Christian ones, but the Christian ones burned your precious classics. Facts, to be sure, if we are in a bar. Why what religious people actually claim about their own religions is irrelevant to the “fact” of whether the goal of religion is to be factual but a scroll which has evidence of being from 1,500 years ago is evidence for the “fact” of the Christian’s destruction of the classics isn’t a case of special pleading on your part is a bit mysterious.

So make like we are in a bar and forget philosophy. Why is it a fact that Christians burned the classics but not a fact that goal of religion is not to be factual?

What you have done is provided further evidence of special pleading, of a double standard, a public conversation and a somehow distinct, evasive religious one. — Banno

It isn’t a religious conversation, it is debatably a philosophical one (but so far few people are interested in philosophy) or perhaps an anthropological one (what is religion as a human phenomenon?). In any case, what is being evaded? Why should “fact” mean the same thing in a bar as it does in this forum? What clarity of thought do we gain by impoverishing our thinking to the lowest common denominator of English speakers?

Yes; you engaged in special pleading. — Banno

Are we really going to argue about ordinary language philosophy here? How I speak in a bar to people I suppose to be unsophisticated (or perhaps just uninterested) in things like epistemology is not the same as I would speak to you (even though I know better). It is called code switching and involves language communities rather than special pleading. Or if you prefer, it is jargon.

As for my reference to W, I think we are best off letting you decide whether anything W said would support my claim that when discussing a word, we should look for how it is used rather than how we wish it to be defined.

And a bit more, because wouldn't it be nice of we did some philosophy of religion in the philosophy of religion section?

SEP on Religion and Science

There is some reason to think that Pinker’s case may be overstated, however, and that it would be more fair to characterize the sciences as methodologically agnostic (simply not taking a view on the matter of whether or not God exists) rather than atheistic (taking a position on the matter). First, Pinker’s examples of what science has shown to be wrong, seem unsubstantial. As Michael Ruse points out:

The arguments that are given for suggesting that science necessitates atheism are not convincing. There is no question that many of the claims of religion are no longer tenable in light of modern science. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Flood, the sun stopping for Joshua, Jonah and the whale, and much more. But more sophisticated Christians know that already. The thing is that these things are not all there is to religions, and many would say that they are far from the central claims of religion—God existing and being creator and having a special place for humans and so forth. (Ruse 2014: 74–75) — SEP on Philosophy of Religion

I think I said what is fine for a conversation in a bar is not necessarily fine for a conversation about philosophy. And since I was thinking about you in any event (not that this is related to your post), here is an amusing bit about dear W in the context of religion not being about factual claims (anti-realism, if you will). Some people here treat what I am saying as if I am the first to have said it or something like it.

SEP on Philosophy of Religion and Wittgenstein

2.2 Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion

Wittgenstein’s early work was interpreted by some members of the Vienna Circle as friendly to their empiricism, but they were surprised when he visited the Circle and, rather than Wittgenstein discussing his Tractatus, he read them poetry by Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), a Bengal mystic (see Taliaferro 2005b: chapter eight). In any case, Wittgenstein’s later work, which was not friendly to their empiricism, was especially influential in post-World War II philosophy and theology and will be the focus here.

In the Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously in 1953) and in many other works (including the publication of notes taken by his students on his lectures), Wittgenstein opposed what he called the picture theory of meaning. On this view, statements are true or false depending upon whether reality matches the picture expressed by the statements. Wittgenstein came to see this view of meaning as deeply problematic. The meaning of language is, rather, to be found not in referential fidelity but in its use in what Wittgenstein referred to as forms of life. As this position was applied to religious matters, D.Z. Phillips (1966, 1976), B.R. Tilghman (1994), and, more recently, Howard Wettstein (2012), sought to displace traditional metaphysical debate and arguments over theism and its alternatives and to focus instead on the way language about God, the soul, prayer, resurrection, the afterlife, and so on, functions in the life of religious practitioners. For example, Phillips contended that the practice of prayer is best not viewed as humans seeking to influence an all powerful, invisible person, but to achieve solidarity with other persons in light of the fragility of life. Phillips thereby sees himself as following Wittgenstein’s lead by focusing, not on which picture of reality seems most faithful, but on the non-theoretical ways in which religion is practiced.

To ask whether God exists is not to ask a theoretical question. If it is to mean anything at all, it is to wonder about praising and praying; it is to wonder whether there is anything in all that. This is why philosophy cannot answer the question “Does God exist?” with either an affirmative or a negative reply … “There is a God”, though it appears to be in the indicative mood, is an expression of faith. (Phillips 1976: 181)

At least two reasons bolstered this philosophy of religion inspired by Wittgenstein. First, it seemed as though this methodology was more faithful to the practice of philosophy of religion being truly about the actual practice of religious persons themselves. Second, while there has been a revival of philosophical arguments for and against theism and alternative concepts of God (as will be noted in section 5), significant numbers of philosophers from the mid-twentieth century onward have concluded that all the traditional arguments and counter-arguments about the metaphysical claims of religion are indecisive. If that is the case, the Wittgenstein-inspired new philosophy of religion had the advantage of shifting ground to what might be a more promising area of agreement.

While this non-realist approach to religion has its defenders today, especially in work by Howard Wettstein, many philosophers have contended that traditional and contemporary religious life rests on making claims about what is truly the case in a realist context. It is hard to imagine why persons would pray to God if they, literally, thought there is no God (of any kind).

Interestingly, perhaps inheriting the Wittgenstein stress on practice, some philosophers working on religion today place greater stress on the meaning of religion in life, rather than seeing religious belief as primarily a matter of assessing an hypothesis (see Cottingham 2014). — SEP on Philosophy of Religion

With a screen name like yours, I expected better. — baker

Minimal information, jumping to conclusions, and judging me for my failure to be as you expected. Seems like a pattern for your way of thinking. Go pat yourself on the back for correctly identifying that the world does not change just because you demand it.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying earlier. — Ciceronianus

You wouldn't be the only one. :razz:

I agree with you that different people at different times have made claims of fact and certainty regarding religious myth/legend/etc. My point was merely that claims of people are different than the defining feature of religion generally or of a specific religion. The issue is one of descriptivism versus prescriptivism, perhaps.

This is more a discussion for the other thread of what a fact is, but here is an approximation of what I might say in a more robust discussion. Facts generally sound in metaphysics - states of affairs, ontology, etc. To the extent that facts are metaphysical, I have no use for them. If, however, we are to understand "facts" as part of epistemology and the sort of thing that plays a role in our beliefs, they are useful in the contingent sort of way you mentioned. Saying that there are no historical facts in this context is similar to saying that there is no present observation we can make that will naively demonstrate it as a fact (compare having a rock in your hand which you can observe/evaluate in any way you like verses looking at intermediary evidence such as other people's testimony or purported presentations of instrumental/personal observations about the rock). In essence, a historical fact is always a deeper level of interpretation/theory than a present fact.

What makes human history even harder is that history is political - what exists today is directly related to what those that came before decided should be preserved and/or endure. For instance books are burned, stories re-written, buildings destroyed, cultures spread to the winds (or wiped out). Even those writings that survive were written with an agenda - to glorify, to demonize, to legitimize, etc. What we do today is try to interpret what is inherited in hopes that it gives a glimmer of information about what "really" happened. So yes, contingency is inherent in any discussion of facts, but not all facts share the same level of uncertainty. Historicty as a concept seems to be about intellectual humility and the recognition that we have special problems when discussing the past.

Soteriology? God secular Christians suck at talking about anything besides Christianity. Stop selling the shortcomings of Christianity. I get it. Why be Christian without heaven and hell? Who cares? Christianity is not the only religion. Yes, yes, Islam can go in that bucket, too.

It seems a whole lot like when you die you are dead and suffering ceases, so maybe Buddhism hits the nail on the head.

In any event, one need not believe in heaven or hell, reward and punishment, or any other divine judgment to be religious.

What does it promise?

If you prefer, Baker, pretend like all of history were otherwise and someone said to you, suffering is unfilled desire, life involves unfulfilled desire and therefore suffering, the only way to end suffering is to end life, and the way to end life is to kill yourself. What fact is important in that scenario? Does someone sitting under a tree 2,500 years ago change the value in those four statements? If people built a religion around those four statements, does it matter what came before to the current adherents of the religion aside from aesthetic sensibilities?

This is why "truth" and "Truth" are given nuance in some conversations. Whether someone sat under a tree in the past is "true" or not. Whether there is wisdom in the story of someone sitting under the tree is about "Truth" and that "Truth" doesn't change because the story does. People who find wisdom in the story do not find that wisdom impotent, ineffective, or non-factual just because you quibble about whether they are properly called Buddhists or posers or whether you think their community is a religion or not. They don't even care if you scream, "YOU'VE GOTTEN IT WRONG! THAT IS NOT WHAT BUDDHA SAID!" That isn't the point of their presence or participation.

But even if there was no wisdom in the story and no fact in the story, sometimes it is enough that it is the story that your mother told to you and that reminds you of her when you tell it to your children. Or that a familiar tune brings a smile to your face. Or that your favorite teachers are at a particular school. Or that you want to associate with a particular group of people but need a context. The reason to be in religious community may have nothing whatsoever to do with the doctrine of the theologians or the wit of the academics. And it may be utterly unreflected participation as simply that which the person has always done. You don't get to define people away so that you can feel comfortable that language does what you want it to do or so that some concept you lay claim to fulfills your requirements.

You simply cannot account for religion by pointing to dogma generally or dogma of a particular religion.

So in the name of the politically correct love of novelty and "moving on", we should summarily envision religion as impotent, ineffective, and most of all, non-factual, so that we can come up with a theory of religion that is currently fashionable and enables us to stay relevant in the current business of academic writing about religion? — baker

I am not sure why the mushiness of language leads you to that view of religion, but that is your choice. Again, there are people who identify as religious that actively participate in religious communities that do so fully aware that religious myth does not match the historic facts as we currently understand them (or are likely to ever understand them). So if you ask them what the point of religion is, they will not say that the point is to be factually correct in their religious myth. Holding up your definition of what religion (or their religion) should be is not critical thinking, philosophy, or good faith observation - it is mental masturbation. Speak to religious people about the goal of their religion and you will find that the goal is varied. The variety of the goals does not render that person (or that religious community) as a non-religion just because you have decided that "religion" must mean "makes factual claims that when shown to be false nullifies everything about them."

If you and I were having a chat at a bar, I'd undeniably be a pedant if I denied that it is fact that George Washington was the first president of the United States. There is no quibble.

On a philosophy forum in the context of making broad statements about "religion" with a selective recounting of "facts", I am not sure that my highlighting that we can only look to things that exist now to support our claims about what happened in the past is being a pedant. Further, I am trying to steer away from a summary treatment of "religion" as a defined term in this thread that that is easily brushed because someone has a compelling objections to that definition that someone then takes to be a proper dismissal of religion in any other context. I have, therefore, attempted to introduce current information about the ambiguity of religion (or even specific religions) in order to force nuance and broader relevance of the topic.

In part, the contrast of historicity with historical fact is intended to demonstrate two things: a) that no claim about the past can ever be factual, so objecting that religion is non-factual is trivial, and b) that any serious contemporary thinker must acknowledge that the prevalence or paucity of information about a historical fact is a function not of whether it ever was a fact, but our current epistemic criteria and evidence. I am not trying to be anachronistic and insert historicity into the thinking of the 11th century thinkers, but I am pointing to writings of the time that make it obvious that they recognize the problem of reading religious texts as a literal recounting of facts. So while people like @Banno will insist upon seeing historic claims as facts and lies, that isn't the way that religious people (after all, such people will conflate Western religion with all of religion throughout the world for all of time) actually saw them a thousand years ago or today.

We must agree on a meaning of a term (in this case, of "Christian"), or we better cease discussing. — baker

We don't have to agree on what the word means for other people, we merely have to use the word in a way that facilitates further conversation. There is no meaning "out there", just whatever you mean in your head and whatever I mean in mine (if we even have a discrete idea about meaning in the first place). One can speak of Christianity usefully without drawing distinct boundaries around its usage. This is always the nature of language and your wish for it to be otherwise won't change that.

Of course. A discussion of religion should be about what is normative in it. Focusing merely on the descriptive is an exercise in politically correct futility, for that way, anything goes, and anything can pass for anything. — baker

So when the Protestants claimed that the Catholics weren't Christian and the Catholics claimed that the Protestants weren't, one of them magically ceased to be Christian? Or maybe you think that the Catholics never created their own litmus test for what a true Christian was that is in opposition to what other groups defined as a true Christian?

For your reading pleasure - the Catholic Church in response to the Reformation...

ON BAPTISM

CANON I.-If any one saith, that the baptism of John had the same force as the baptism of Christ; let him be anathema.

CANON II.-If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost; let him be anathema.

CANON III.-If any one saith, that in the Roman church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism; let him be anathema.

CANON IV.-If any one saith, that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church doth, is not true baptism; let him be anathema.

CANON V.-If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema.

CANON VI.-If any one saith, that one who has been baptized cannot, even if he would, lose grace, let him sin ever so much, unless he will not believe; let him be anathema.

CANON VII.-If any one saith, that the baptized are, by baptism itself, made debtors but to faith alone, and not to the observance of the whole law of Christ; let him be anathema.

CANON VIII.-If any one saith, that the baptized are freed from all the precepts, whether written or transmitted, of holy Church, in such wise that they are not bound to observe them, unless they have chosen of their own accord to submit themselves thereunto; let him be anathema.

CANON IX.-If any one saith, that the resemblance of the baptism which they have received is so to be recalled unto men, as that they are to understand, that all vows made after baptism are void, in virtue of the promise already made in that baptism; as if, by those vows, they both derogated from that faith which they have professed, and from that baptism itself; let him be anathema.

CANON X.-If any one saith, that by the sole remembrance and the faith of the baptism which has been received, all sins committed after baptism are either remitted, or made venial; let him be anathema.

CANON XI.-If any one saith, that baptism, which was true and rightly conferred, is to be repeated, for him who has denied the faith of Christ amongst Infidels, when he is converted unto penitence; let him be anathema.

CANON XII.-If any one saith, that no one is to be baptized save at that age at which Christ was baptized, or in the very article of death; let him be anathema.

CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that little children, for that they have not actual faith, are not, after having received baptism, to be reckoned amongst the faithful; and that, for this cause, they are to be rebaptized when they have attained to years of discretion; or, that it is better that the baptism of such be omitted, than that, while not believing by their own act, they should be bapized in the faith alone of the Church; let him be anathema.

CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that those who have been thus baptized when children, are, when they have grown up, to be asked whether they will ratify what their sponsors promised in their names when they were baptized; and that, in case they answer that they will not, they are to be left to their own will; and are not to be compelled meanwhile to a Christian life by any other penalty, save that they be excluded from the participation of the Eucharist, and of the other sacraments, until they repent; let him be anathema. — Council of Trent Session 7