I took it as a symbol for the dawn of whatever it is that allows us to create and invent tools -- hence the shot shortly thereafter where the ape throws a bone in the sky, a clear indication of a tool separate from the ape, which cuts to a spaceship in the same position -- nothing has changed for the species since that moment of realization, the only difference between using the bone as a tool to accomplish things we want and a spaceship in the same manner is having enough generations to figure out the details of that same way of grasping the world (totally unlike prior to their cognizance of themselves and tools and desires -- sort of like a dawn of consciousness thing, but with a symbol that symbolizes the advent of technology)

I don't feel qualified to comment on the potential differences because I wouldn't claim to know very much about Kant's noumena. From a complete layman perspective though, Kant's noumena are often referred to as the thing-in-itself, yes? Taking that literally (perhaps erroneously, though) I think the difference would be in that hidden states do not posit any 'thing' at all, they are an informational construct, about data, not material composition. As such they can be an implication of a data model, whereas any thing-in-itself would be ontological? But as I say, I'm not sure as I don't have a deep understanding of noumena. — Isaac

Perhaps, with our powers combined, we could come up with something that works for us. Obviously to make these comparisons one has to have an interpretation of Kant, so there's going to be some controversy with respect to which interpretation we're favoring. But if we don't mind stirring that pot and wanting to have some kind of rough idea, I'd claim I have some knowledge of the noumena. (EDIT: heh, well... as a philosophical concept, at least! :D I'd be contradicting myself the other way...)


In my understanding of the distinction we have to step back and look at the philosophical landscape of the time to see what sorts of debates were being taken seriously by philosophers: Is space relative, or absolute? Are we free, or are we determined by the laws of physics? Does God exist? Is the soul immortal?

From the particular examples that Kant works through we can see that his target is metaphysical theories. Further, these metaphysical theories are demonstrated to be undecidable since the only way we settle whether some statement is true is by referring to what we collectively experience, and these particular theories and judgments attempt to get "outside" of our experience and assert the truth of things we have no connection to.

By "no connection", I always harp on the fact that one of the categories is "causation", and the noumena is outside of the categories, and so no we cannot make sense of the noumena by applying the category of causation to it -- it does not cause phenomena. With respect to our scientific knowledge, at least, it's a purely negative category (with respect to the other two powers of the mind, practical reason and aesthetic/teleological judgment, the noumena plays a different role -- but with respect to scientific knowledge, it's purely negative)

So given that, from your description of "hidden states" -- I'd say these things are absolutely not connected. First we don't even have concepts with your neural model, that's sort of just "assumed" to ride along with the firing of neurons. And then with all the causal language being used "noumena" seems wholly innappropriate as a boundary condition for this discussion. I'd say this falls under "empirical psychology", so the transcendental conditions of knowledge won't effect what we have to say here even if we are Kantians.

is that they're purposeful fictions. — Isaac

I like this notion of purposeful fictions.

I suppose the error theorist's task, then, is to lay out what discriminates a fantasy from a purposeful story -- "story" in the sense of our ability to parse the world into story form, ala "purposeful fiction". That might go some way to making this notion more appealing.

By "scientific", I meant according to the way biologists use the word. — Tate

I pulled a definition from this pdf claiming to be a post-secondary biology textbook: "mating system whereby one male and one female remain coupled for at least one mating season"

Given that human beings don't have a mating season, I'd say it's a hard sell on being useful to describe humans.

Nevertheless, it's held up as an ideal on a large portion of the earth. The question was: why? — Tate

I've supplied an answer, and answered your rebuttal: polygamy is an extension of monogamy, not a strike against monogamy as an ideal. The ideal is there because penis-havers make economic decisions over the household, and they don't want to be saddled with someone else's child.

If by scientific you just mean descriptive of human behavior, then human beings are simply not monogamous. There's nothing to explain because this is a false statement.

Historically patriarchs had multiple wives — Tate

I think you're starting from a false notion of patriarch here -- it's a picture of a man with his harem. While that is an example of patriarchy, it's not a definition. Patriarchy as I set it out: the social rule where the penis-haver of a household makes economic decisions for said household. So, "historically speaking", monogomous relationships count insofar that the penis-haver is the one who holds the power of the wallet within the household.

Some patriarchs have multiple wives -- but I'd say that even most do not. Polygamy is just an extension of the logic taken to an extreme: if I can own one wife, then if I'm rich enough I should be able to own multiple wives. While we of modern, sensible tastes don't put it in terms of ownership, it wasn't so long ago that a man could have his wife put away for being "hysterical" in our purportedly modern world.

I don't think patriarchy answers the question, though. Patriarchy doesn't entail monogamy — Tate

Patriarchy is the enforced social rule of men as the head of the household who makes decisions with respect to household economic arrangements, at least with respect to this topic (it's much more than just this rule, but this is a simple enough beginning).

This balance of power has changed in parts of the world, but that tradition is still alive and well -- and I'd say that even if we choose to re-interpret monogamy in some other way, that this is where the ideal "comes from", so to speak -- its cultural genealogy comes from the fact that children are expensive, that it's harder to track who the father is, and monogamy makes tracking that economic responsibility much easier.



Oh, yes -- we're recently enlightened, you see. ;)

But, yeah, I believe human beings are creatures, more or less. Flesh, blood, bone, and brain, and related to all the life that we see before us through the evolutionary story.

I hear you. The fact is, I care about all those questions but they still 'don't matter' in practical terms, as far as I can tell. I'm not saying I want to change anything but I find it interesting that a transformative idea - like truth or the nature of reality - may not actually transform how I conduct myself. — Tom Storm

Yeah, true. There's something queer about philosophical theories -- they seem as if they should have transformative implications, but also that people can change their beliefs on these matters and go on about their day like nothing changed.

Two ways to tackle this: 1) a given philosophy is deemed useless, or 2) a given philosophy is deemed bad.

1) Whatever philosophy happens to be, we regularly see examples of people changing philosophical positions -- so it is reasonable to conclude that, insofar as our day-to-day is concerned, philosophy is useless because we are free to change beliefs without changing anything else.

2) Whatever philosophy happens to be, these philosophies on offer are bad because they do not address the concerns of human beings -- if they did, then changing a belief would have consequences for our activities.

Why not just have harems like gorillas? — Tate

In societies that don't have harems, at least (since some societies do have harems, hence the word harem) -- the women will have to agree to patriarchy as well as the men, but when you frame it like that it's a lot harder to catch on. So, monogamy.

I'll voice disagreement, but -- it's irrelevant too because I'm describing an ideal and giving a material reason for said ideal. Since I don't think people follow the ideal it doesn't really counter the description and explanation to say that people don't follow the ideal.

Ahh, OK.

For that I'd say the explanation is patriarchy. Men wanted ways to ensure that the children they were responsible for were actually their children, so monogamy was invented as an ideal. You can always tell who the mother is, but it's not so easy to tell who the father is. So, if my house is responsible to raise a child, I want to ensure that it is my child, and not someone elses child -- in effect, monogamy controls female bodies such that men know whose children is whose.

why did it ever come up at all? Biologically speaking, it probably shouldn't have. Does this imply that we're more than our biology? — Tate

I don't think so. We are able to posit ideals that we're unable to live up to. That's a large part of what makes people unhappy, in my estimation -- they want to be what they are not, and feel anxiety for not living up to their ideal. (hence why Christianity has a forgiveness-mechanism built in, to sustain the Christian identity in spite of not living up to the ideal)

Is monogamy an ideal for our species?

In the sense that people say they believe in it, of course, but the people who follow through on that belief are few enough that I'd say it doesn't really count as a species trait. And if we look at our closest cousins, the bonobos and chimpanzees, it's not a trait of theirs either.

I disagree! I think we've come to a better understanding of the discussants' perspectives. Wouldn't've happened without you facilitating it. — fdrake

I second this! You were a great aid in spurring on thoughts which I hadn't had before this! And while I didn't reply to everything, I did actually read everything -- and really enjoyed picking through people's thoughts and references (Got to page 4 of A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs today -- it just takes me time to read things)

I keep coming back to the question how would a given idea (in philosophy) change how I live? — Tom Storm

Wouldn't it have to talk about something you care about? So, rather than a philosophy of physicalism, or induction or truth -- a philosophy of love, or sex, political theory, or ethics (to decide what to do next ;) ).

For it to change how you live, it'd have to first talk about something you care about, I'd say. (Though do we want to change the way we live? Is that desirable? If not, then it should be obvious that nothing will change the way you live -- you're doing good! :D )

When we point to another and say 'they are wise' are we not reporting about our own values, recognizing something of ourselves rather than the nature of the other? In other words, can those without wisdom identify the wise? — Tom Storm

Great question. I think I'd say no! At least to whether the unwise can identify the wise. To the former I think you're right to say that we use our own values to identify people who we consider wise, though I'd say that doesn't mean we'd be wrong in our belief about who's wise, per se -- only that wisdom is value-laden. And I think your colloquial definition is good. Having good judgment is value-laden: Meaning that one cannot have wisdom without also having a commitment to something normative. (EDIT: I should have also added, "And likewise for judgment")

Since we who are not wise cannot identify the wise, and here we are wondering what wisdom is that puts us in the curious position of the lover in the quote: we are asking after what wisdom is (desire to have wisdom, even if just out of curiosity -- a kind of desire), and we don't have it. We'd like to satisfy that curiosity.

I find philosophy endlessly interesting because of the question you opened up with: What does that quote really mean?

I think that I'd compare it with Socrates describing himself as a midwife in the Theaetetus :

Theaetetus: I have often set my myself to study that problem [about the nature of knowledge]...but I cannot persuade myself that I can give any satisfactory solution or that anyone has ever stated in my hearing the sort of answer you require. And yet I cannot get the question out of my mind.

Socrates: That is because your mind is not empty or barren. You are suffering the pains of childbirth...Have you never heard that I am the son of a midwife...and that I practice the same trade? It is not known that I possess this skill, so the ignorant world describes me in other terms: As an eccentric person who reduces people to hopeless perplexity...

The only difference [between my trade and that of midwives] is that my patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is experiencing birth pangs. And the highest achievement of my art is the power to try by every test to decide whether the offspring of a young man's thought is a false phantom or is something imbued with life and truth.

(From here, but I wanted to link to the whole text above too just for accessibility -- but note they are different translations)


The position of the lover is like that of Theaetetus in the above -- in between knowing and ignorance.


So I'd say that you and I are in the same boat: I don't really understand philosophy, either. One of the reasons I find it so interesting. But then, I couldn't play midwife, according to what I exactly said -- since I couldn't identify the wise, either.

Also, as much as I would like to love wisdom, Im not sure if I really do. Its more that I seek wisdom as a practical matter to avoid ruin, than out of love for it. — Yohan

I like the following passage from The Symposium:

No god is a philosopher. or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want." "But-who then, Diotima," I said, "are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?" "A child may answer that question," she replied; "they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher: or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant.

Now, these days I think we mean more than this by "philosopher" -- and given my usual way of looking at the world, I tend to think of these labels as social honorariums and titles: so one doesn't really claim the title of philosopher unless they are quite certain of themselves and their role or function within a group. But perhaps one would claim to be a philosopher in the above sense? One who is not wise, nor ignorant, but is seeking after wisdom in the way that Love does: And upon obtaining said wisdom, one ceases to be a philosopher.

@Srap Tasmaner -- I keep thinking it through-- since this is a thread on truth, it doesn't make sense to assume truth to explain meaning, thus denying (2) even though it's what makes the most sense. Which leaves me with (3) if I don't want to beg the question --

What does it really mean to "assume meaning"? In the broadest sense, a poem has meaning. And really I'd want to include that sort of thing in any understanding of meaning, which has nothing to do with truth. "assuming meaning" gives us more powers than truth-telling. Natural languages are absurdly powerful in terms of what they can do with meaning, to the point of creating new words wholesale, it can be tooled into scientific disciplines or epic poems or rarified philosophical thoughts or recipes or the fleeting thoughts of our everyday life.

But, really, that's just asking my conversation partner if they'd like to beg the question on truth with me without specifying that we're begging the question on truth to see if there's some other way to put the matter.

EDIT: More or less I think I'm starting to see my own dead-end, but I'm not sure which turn along the way got me here. The opposite of aporia -- constipated confusion :D

I lean toward (2), but I just don't know enough to say. — Srap Tasmaner

Eh, I'm just feeling around here too. One thing I'm leery of with (2) is that I've been saying I assume meaning -- so really I'm asking my interlocutor if they agree that we understand English sentences. Insofar that we agree upon that then the rest follows. But if you ask me to specify a semantics, then I can no longer specify truth. Here we'd be taking the tactic of assuming truth to spell out meaning.

But I think I'm still thinking (3) since I'm assuming meaning to spell out truth with English. (2) because of the actual history of semantics, though, has weight. And starting at something so specific as the English predicate ". . . is true" is much more at my level of being able to conceptualize. (L1? L2? What? :D)

I keep thinking there's something of interest there in truth as a sort of identity function. Have you noticed that it works for anything you might count as a truth-value? It works for "unknown," it works for "likely" or "probably," even for numerical probabilities. Whatever you plug in for the truth-value of p, that's the truth-value of p is true. If you think of logic as a sort of algebra, that makes the is-true operator (rather than predicate) kind of interesting.

Hah, no I had not noticed. I think what keeps what I've been trying to say from collapsing into an algebra, where is-true is an operator on propositions, is the actual history. I like the relationship that's spelled out by the T-sentence which shows how truth is embedded within used language. When using a statement -- that's what has a truth-value. That's what's truth-apt. When naming a statement, that's what we assign truth-value. It's a judgment. But the used statement is what counts as the truth-apt statement.

It seems to me that in the history of ". . .is true" truth conditions are a part of it. But "something else" is too. So 3 to circumvent 1 and allow for creative uses, however for the most part 2.

The T-schema states:

"p" is T iff p

Using English to provide an interpretation to the schema:

p is any statement in English
" " is the mention operator, where a statement is converted into a name for that same statement.
is T is "... is true", as understood by us as speakers of English.
iff is the familiar logical connective from baby logic.

In general, I'd accept any natural language though. I'm using English because we are. I imagine some natural languages which don't have this structure which this doesn't work for. Also, note, that there isn't some concept securing truth here -- it's really just the history of the predicate "... is true".

The dialogical game I posited with this, when it comes to natural languages, has basically already taken place. There's a few hundred years worth of English usage which gives "... is true" its sense.

This is all I meant by a natural language semantics -- the meaning one gets by understanding a language. If you grant that English sentences have meaning, at least.

If so not... eh... I guess it's just squeeks and squawks all the way down? I'm not really sure there. It's an intriguing notion, but one that doesn't make a lick of sense to me really.

Not if you include natural language semantics, as far as I can tell. You just also inherit the liars paradox with that.

The T-schema doesn’t say much and is compatible with more substantial theories of truth, — Michael

Sure. I mean, I said exactly that earlier in the thread :D

The problem is that they aren't universal. And, in order to evaluate "better fit" for any given theory of truth, you'd have to understand truth already. So the very act of being able to evaluate correspondence/coherence in particular circumstances means we must already have some understanding of truth that is neither correspondence or coherence, at least if by "better fit" we mean "seems to be about the right description"

Just to set out where my mind is headed at the moment, then:

Everything is text, even if in the beginning there was no word. I'm thinking this is more a transcendental condition of understanding rather than a metaphysical thesis -- language is how we come to understand the world. Before we were linguistically adept we had very little in the way of understanding. And as we develop our linguistic powers we're able to see more of the world than we were before. Even on an individual level, that can be experienced.

However, unlike Kant, I don't think I'd say this "cuts us off" from the really real -- rather, what's really real is just right there before us always-already changing. To understand is to grasp the world with language. But the world changes and we have to go back out into it, dip into the elementality constituted by my own desire to build again my edifice of understanding-grasping the world.

Language as a specific thing is English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, sign language . . . the natural languages each have their names, and they have specific traits as you say. And in the broad sense they all count as writing.

Language in the broad sense includes gesture as outside of even sign-language. Sign-language, after all, is just writing with a medium other than ink or sound, and the person speaking-writing in sign-language can also point and wave and jump for joy and clap and smile and so on. And we are even able to distinguish between sign-language and gesture when someone is signing to us!

BUT -- as you say:

Probably a bad idea — Srap Tasmaner

I'm just writing the above to get at where I was coming from. I'm fine with not using this way of talking, and keeping "language" for the narrow sense to keep things clear, especially as I am uncertain how to be super specific in the broad sense. It just seemed relevant to truth is all.

Ah, OK. I guess I'm just looking for something a little more universal from a theory of truth, and I see the T-sentence as setting out that universal relationship effectively for all sentences other than the liars -- including sentences like the kettle.

But I should add that I don’t think it’s a given that I’m talking about the correspondence theory. I’m not saying that some sentences correspond to material objects; I’m only saying that some sentences depend on material objects.

As a rough analogy to explain the difference, speech depends on a speaker, but it doesn’t correspond to a speaker. — Michael

I think that sentences depending on material objects is close enough to count for my purposes. For me I'm getting caught up in the notion that it's us who decide what counts as "material object" -- "us" historically, at least, since "Kettle" is a word with that kind of history. Yes, the material object matters to truth, but that's because we're using "truth" just like that.

Maybe this is just something we'd go back and forth on though :D -- maybe it's nothing.

But we still have to check the material world because it is the material world that determines whether or not the sentence is true. All you’re saying is that we decide what the sentence means. The meaning of a sentence isn’t the truth of the sentence. — Michael

I agree. I suppose what's still got me is the abstracta -- if we have any sentences in English which do not refer to material conditions, and that sentence is true, and correspondence is true, then the abstract sentences must correspond to some fact that is not-material. I don't think there is such a fact, so I'd reject correspondence theory as a universal theory of truth -- since 7 + 5 is 12, and "7 + 5 = 12" is true.

Would you say that significance is equivalent to what matters to me, what is relevant and how it is relevant to me ( or to us)? — Joshs

I think so. That makes sense to me at least. I'd say there's both a relevant-to-me and relevant-to-us: We let go of some of ourselves in joining a group, and even change ourselves as we stay within a group. There's both what's significant to me, and the significance generated by being a part of a group, and the interaction between those two layers of significance, and the history of cares which brought the group to the point where I first encounter it.

And arent these terms equivalent to the sense of a meaning?

Maybe. I've been taking "meaning" as primary for this thread -- so rather than having a theory of meaning, I've been attempting to use the semantics of English to get at truth. So I'd probably do the same here -- assume meaning to spell out significance.

In Wittgenstein’s example of workers establishing the sense of meaning of their work-related interchanges( requests , corrections, instructions, questions, etc) , the words they send back and forth to each other get their sense in the immediate context of how each participant responds to the other. It seems to me the ‘we’ of larger groups must be based, as an abstractive idealization, on this second-person structure of responsive dialogic interaction. The particular sense of meaning of a consensus-based notion can never simply refer back to the dictates of an amorphous plurality we call a community. A community realizes itself in action that , as Jean-Luc Nancy says, singularizes itself as from
one to the next to the next.

I definitely had the slab-brothers in mind in saying what I've said about including gesture in language. And I think I agree that a community realizes itself in action. And I agree that no one in a community could say "well the community says" or something along those lines -- I'm not sure communal meaning fits within dictates, or even entirely fits within beliefs (aren't there communal stories, myths, feelings, or relationships at least in addition to communal belief?)

"In the beginning was the word" is false. — Srap Tasmaner

I should have replied to this too -- ah well.

I agree with this entirely.

That just strikes me as clearly false. I understand the point you're making, but lately on this forum people making that point use the phrase "forms of life" more often than they use "language-games" to try to mitigate its implausibility — Srap Tasmaner

"Forms of life" is a phrase I try not to use because I don't feel like I really understand it too well -- "language-games" I feel comfortable with, though.

Would it help if I called gesture linguistic in a broad sense, whereas "kettle" is linguistic in a narrow sense? Or does that just seem obviously wrong-headed, to you? Better to keep "language" to refer to the written word?

English can also be set up like this:

"7 + 5 = 12" is true

My suggestion is that "the kettle" works in a similar manner as "7" -- they are both abstract names. It's not like I go about saying "kettle00110292910" or some other unique identifier. And in fact it'd be confusing if I did do that. In a particular conversation we understand that we're using the abstract name as a particular name. The only difference is what we decide to use the names for, and which predicates link said name to the set of "true propositions" and which predicates link said name to the set of "false propositions"

Most of the sentences, should we choose to go through it, about the kettle I bet we'd say we'd agree upon. In this scenario the only one we disagree upon is the predicate "...is boiling"

So what makes it true or false is, in fact, its boiling. But "...is boiling" is also linguistic. It's understood in a wider sense. After all "...is boiling" as applied to a kettle really just means whatever is inside it is in the state of boiling, transitioning from a liquid to a gas. The kettle itself isn't boiling at all, if we choose to use the general name "kettle" to only refer to the metallic kettle, and not the water inside. It's only because we agree upon what "the kettle" picks out that we can even check the material world in the first place.

It’s the existence of a material object (or set of material objects if you need prefer) an its behaviour that determines which of us is speaking the truth — Michael

Only because we care about truth in relation to the material world, though. English is set up like that: Here we have a language with a truth predicate and a false predicate. We're able of expressing opposition. We already agree that there are kettles, that boiling is something they can or cannot do, that negation of a proposition indicates that both cannot be true at the same time. There's a lot of conceptual work that comes "along with" understanding a language, and evaluating whether a propositions is true or false. So much so that we're not really sure how much language is doing and how much the world is doing. Individuation, in particular, is something I'm really not sure about being a mental or material phenomena. if it's a mental phenomena, then quite literally it's not the material world -- which could be just one big fact -- that makes the sentence true. It's that we have minds that can individuate parts of a world that is, in fact, wholly connected and not individuated at all.

if you understand all the T-sentences of a language, do you also understand a world? — Srap Tasmaner

I'd say no. My first instinct is to deny the scenario because it's impossible :D But that's no fun.

I mean, at the least, you'd have to understand all the T-sentences of all languages, it seems to me. "a world" appears different depending on the natural language I use. At the very minimal way, the phonic substance differs, which creates different relationships between concepts through phonic relationships.

I think the problem I have with "non linguistic stuff" is our using language to point to it, which seems to incorporate it into language already. So it's not the definitions of words which make it true, as you say, but it's still how we use language that makes a particular sentence true or false -- it's only because we care about the kettle boiling that we speak of it. So we incorporate the kettle into our language by naming it and predicating things of it.

Then, suppose we were in the same room -- me picking up the kettle is also already linguistic. Language is embedded in the body; gesture is often as important as the written word in determining the meaning of a sentence. And by picking up the kettle I'm showing we've already individuated it, named it, have a handful of predicates we might use -- I can't not see the kettle as a kettle, for the most part. It's always-already linguistic, as an individuated thing that I'm thinking about and predicating things of.

Basically the same problem I've been criticizing correspondence: every instance of explaining something non-linguistic will be done linguistically, even if we include gestures and kettles and such into our language. So "fact" starts to take on a place-holder position more than being an actual thing, a placeholder to mean "the real" or "true sentences" or something like that -- all understood by us being able to speak.

I agree that the world is not a conversation. But I believe our activity in the world is linguistic, in the bigger sense of language: to include kettles and gestures and such.

Upon re-reading you and I, my thoughts keep getting stuck on "deciding" -- we decide, yes, but I'm less certain that I decide. However, I'd agree with your picture in your second paragraph -- I don't deny individuality, only de-emphasize it. I'd say that the communal meaning supersedes individual meaning insofar that the community decides what counts as "significant": we and not I, as much, decide upon significance, and what counts as significant is what binds together communities (significance is that layer of interpretation that allows us to have conflicting beliefs and see one another as belonging still).

Now, as an individual member of a community, yes -- this here:

Rather ,the responsive engagement of mutual adjudication is a shifting reciprocal adjustment of significance of claims and their justification. — Joshs

is a good description. I'd say this is a "closer" view from where I've been sitting, which is assuming some amount of "fixidness" from the history of English itself. But I think I agree with you in saying that the history is changeable, that it morphs with our usage. It's just got an incredible amount of momentum at this point. It's not a fresh abstraction that we get to define. Rather, we trace with the tools we've inherited.

So I'm hesitant to use "decision" when it comes to "how to" -- "decision" might give the impression that we have libertarian freedom with respect to our beliefs. I'm not sure I'd say my beliefs are like that. I'd say they are partially inherited, though certainly I've changed them too with time (and mis-use). Perhaps what I'd say is that an individual has their way of doing things, and "how to" or "significance" can change by presenting one's viewpoint to the group, but the signification only changes if enough people within a group adopt the belief about significance that an individual offers.

That is, there is something that makes (2) true - a truthmaker - which is . . . — Luke

that what counts as a part of the kettle is up to us. — Banno

Maybe another way to put it is that the truthmaker, whatever it is, is decided by the people in a conversation. So rather than there being an eternal truth-maker which secures our true sentences, we are the ones who get to decide what counts as a truthmaker.

The issue remains as to when we ought be convinced that the kettle is boiling or mercy is a virtue. But these are obviously very different questions than the nature of truth. — Banno

I agree with the overall thrust here though. Thinking on it I believe the above what i posted above is a quibble, in the grand scope of the conversation. A thread for another day.

I've little problem with values being true or false. — Banno

Sure, I agree.

The error theory would just say they're all false.

Yes! And moreover, we tend to consider far too few examples of T-sentences and correspondence to get a good grasp or their variety. — Banno

I'm always glad to find when things make sense together. :)

it's probably better for some folk to think of deflation as widening correspondence rather than denying it. — Banno

I like this notion. From my current thinking: the T-sentence allows for some substantive theories, if we wish.

And it's true that mercy is a virtue IFF "mercy is a virtue" is true; yet there are volumes on what it is to be a virtue. — Banno

This is a fun idea. I don't even know what it would look like developed.

it seems to me that it'd go along with my notion on facts -- there's a communal aspect. Not that I think we'd disagree on that, from all I've gathered. Just noting the obvious wig-wammy fact/value distinction.

But if I were to take a shot at it, I would say that the “Great Fact” that true sentences refer to is the world. — Michael

Yup! This is what I love about the screw in the drawer example -- it gave an intuitive example of the slingshot.

So when you say "The kettle is black" is true because it corresponds to the world, I'd say "The kettle is red" is true because it corresponds to the world -- there's only one world, so there's no "part" that counts as corresponding to any one sentence. When I say it's true, I'm referring to the screw in the drawer which is a part of the kettle -- but that's all the same fact.

Hence why substitution is attacked.

We agree to fix the meaning of the sentence "the kettle is black" such that it is unambiguously true at T1 and unambiguously false at T2 — Michael

Well, I didn't agree to that. I counted the screw at T1 and T2 -- I wouldn't want you saying false things, after all.

I agree. What I’m arguing against is the deflationary view that there is never any material component to facts; that facts are no more than language use. — Luke

I think the suspicion is that the only way we'd be able to set out material facts is through language, and that's what the RHS is purportedly doing, but it's funny because we're really just imagining the scenario. It doesn't add anything, or say anything, when in addition to the T-sentence we have:

"The kettle is boiling" is true iff the kettle is boiling AND that the kettle is boiling is a material fact.

The latter meaning is already contained in an actual utterance, if one is a materialist or correspondence theorist. If one is an idealist, though --

"The kettle is boiling" is true iff the kettle is boiling AND the kettle in our intuition is boiling

Whether the kettle is material or ideal "drops out", regardless of the speaker -- the sentence works whether you append the metaphysical belief onto it or not. And, in fact, it'd be more confusing if we appended our metaphysical beliefs to our theories of truth because then we'd just be begging the question in favor of what we already believe (one motivation for developing truth sans-metaphysics is that it might allow us to actually talk metaphysics in a more productive way)