I don't know if I agree with it in general. I am dubious about words like 'anchoring'. But in this case it seems an OK question, the answer to which, I think, is that it is anchored in our nature: we are programmed by evolution to be inclined to follow the rules of the logic game. — andrewk

Witty didn't use the word "anchoring" when he noted that rule following can't go on forever. Logical positivists sought to externalize it. Quine showed that we can't externalize it. It's apriori.

And you're committing the Evolution fallacy: "Evolution explains p" while p is used to explain evolution.

I think the ability to see what is entailed by propositions and situations must be an intuitive capacity; entailment is simply knowable a priori and cannot be analyzed further. — John

That's a fascinating take. Why do you say that?

"Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves."

-Nietzsche

Water color.. kind of lucent. There was no face. Her head was a lightbulb. With very fine pen and ink all the boundaries were faintly marked out. I don't have that painting anymore.

If you're introverted it's odd that you create an image of a person who judges their own sincerity by what somebody else expects. People who are very strongly introverted may be only vaguely aware that other people exist.

We aren't all the same. My mind was blown when I discovered that.. so I'm not immune to that bias.

I should have clicked on "Reply" below your post. If I didn't, then you wouldn't have gotten a notification that I replied.

I think everyone reports on the character of his or her own experience. We tend to frame it as.. "This is the way it is for everybody..." because for some reason there's a strong bias toward believing that everybody is the same.

You're telling me that expectation is a big issue in your life right now. My initial speculation is that this means you're heavily extroverted (as Jung used the word.. not the popular meaning.) But I don't know if that's true or not.

I did a painting a long time ago of a person sitting on a floor. Her head was a giant lightbulb. She was plugged in by a cord that went from her bellybutton to an electric socket (I was an electronic engineer at the time.) The light was turned on and it mingled with the light from a spotlight that shone down on her.

Would that painting have any meaning for you?

I agree with him that it's relative to something--although it's relative to the logical "system" we're employing, not (just) a(ny) "model," — Terrapin Station

I think we do have to have some model because just logical possibility will become so open-ended that it's meaningless.

A: I said, "I have a dog."

All sorts of things are logically possible here.. but I don't think all those things are entailed. I think entailment is more about how any particular thing is related to everything else. Logic is on the scene, but only because models necessarily employ some sort of logic.

Do you think entailment is sense dependent or reference dependent. Sense dependent is epistemological and reference dependent is ontological. If you cannot understand a concept (A) without understanding another concept (B), then the concept (A) is sense dependent and a question of knowledge. If concept (A) cannot be without a concept (B) it is reference dependent, and a ontological issue. So, is entailment epistemological? — Cavacava

I think it's epistemological. For instance:

A: I said, "I have a dog."

If one knew everything about my dog, one would know all sorts of things about how she relates to aspects of the universe... that she likes tennis balls, that she weighs 15 lbs, how far she is from Neptune, and so on. These are truths entailed by A. Is that right?

That's sort of making use of Leibniz's complete individual concept.

So you're echoing what TGW said.. that it's an if/then situation.

Under that interpretation, the statement that A entails B just means that the two events, or propositions, satisfy a certain relationship that is specified in the language game we call logic. — andrewk

But rule following has to be anchored somewhere. Quine showed (in Truth by Convention) that in regard to application of logic, the anchor can't be anything external. It's apriori. Do you agree with that?

So let's say I have a model M of the actual world from start to finish. Any proposition that is true of M entails ALL other propositions that are true of M.

What is given could have always been otherwise. What does bringing other worlds into this context add? Must the positing of an absolutely contingent world entail the possibility of an absolutely necessary world? — Cavacava

Well true propositions represent aspects of the actual world.. What do false propositions represent? Some of them could be said to represent other possible worlds. Just as the actual world stands out in thought against a background of other possible words, true propositions stand out against a background of false ones.

I think they're already dead.

þanon untydras ealle onwocon
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas þa wið gode wunnon
lange þrage he him ðæs lean forgeald
—Beowulf, Fitt I, vv. 111–14[7]

Thence all evil broods were born,
ogres and elves and evil spirits
—the giants also, who long time fought with God,
for which he gave them their reward
—John R. Clark Hall tr. (1901)[8]

The compound orcneas is designated "evil spirits" above, but its accurate meaning is uncertain. Klaeber suggested it consisted of orc < L. orcus "the underworld" + neas "corpses" — wiki

You can define entailment model-theoretically. For any model, if if A is true relative to that model, then B is true relative to that model, then A entails B. — The Great Whatever

Would it be possible to model the actual world?

What is given could have always been otherwise. What does bringing other worlds into this context add? Must the positing of an absolutely contingent world entail the possibility of an absolutely necessary world? — Cavacava

I'll have to ponder this. Just as an aside.. you're sounding a little like Yoda.

When it comes to applying logic, there is certainty by virtue of the knowledge of necessity or uncertainty by virtue of ignorance.

The world is physically ignorant? That appears to be word salad.

Surely there's some other way of thinking about truth, and believing in detectives, than believing in the existence of propositions which are never expressed and never known. — Moliere

Sure. You can be deflationist.

Well look at the pacifist now.. all hawk when it comes to the poor orcs who can't help being evil... like Germans.

So reasoning deductively is about boxing in uncertainty. — apokrisis

Uncertainty on the part of whom?

The given always appears against a background of other possible worlds?

"Proposition" sounds math-like and logical to me. And it's probably as close to philosophy of math as I ever really need to get. But you're right.. meaning and truth are different animals. Meaning is probably more of a social issue (holism, atomism, molecularism) with some logical and metaphysical stuff in the wings.

Logic is upfront when we're talking about truth. A truth realist will deny that the mechanics of meaning are ultimately significant with truth because a proposition can be true though it's never been expressed and no one knows it. This must be so. Otherwise there would be no detectives.

I'm disturbed by the fact that the enemy is hell-spawn, so our heroes can get their slaughter on without worrying about killing somebody's father or brother... somebody's son. It's just a monster. That's not how it really is.

My immediate thought is that we could just take meaning for granted. It seems more plausible, to me at least, to believe that our expressions are meaningful rather than to rely upon a belief in propositions to say what it is that makes them meaningful. We don't have to know what it is that makes a sentence meaningful to know that it is meaningful, after all. — Moliere

Again, you're sort of acting like propositions are objects of superstition... as if they're fairies magically making meaning where there was none. They're just content. You can deny that there really is any content to speech and writing. You can go behaviorist.. we're all just quacking ducks. Meaning is quacking.

I don't have the alternative figured out. I just know Hamlet's to be or not to be soliloquy is not the same as duck noises. :)

Because I would say that "It is 5:00 PM" is expresses the same proposition regardless of the speaker — Moliere

One doesn't even know what proposition is being expressed unless the context of utterance is known.

John said "2 is a prime number."
Bill said, pointing to the number 2 written on the blackboard "That is a prime number."

Different sentences, different utterances, same proposition.

An understanding of meaning without somehow incorporating context doesn't strike me as terribly helpful because meaning changes so much with context. — Moliere

Yep. As I said.. you identify the proposition expressed by an utterance by attending to context of utterance.

What's wrong with sounds or marks, vs. propositions? To me it seems that I know the former exist because I see them. But the latter strike me as convenient inventions that don't even account for language meaning, but only the meaning of very particular types of sentences which some philosophers have an interest in. Granted, these are the sorts of sentences we're usually interested in when talking about truth-apt sentences, and therefore truth, but still -- it seems to me that meaning is wider than truth, and truth is just one goal a sentence can accomplish. — Moliere

Sounds and marks won't work as primary truth-bearers in spite of their ready visibility. If you and I are in agreement, it's not sounds or marks we're agreeing to.

I get the objection to propositions based on ontological considerations, but as photographer would often say: reality is what we can't do without. Before you ditch propositions, recognize what you're saying you can do without. As I mentioned, it's communication itself that's undermined by that rejection.

But then suppose while I was in California I were to say, "It is 5:00 PM". And my cousin, who lives on the East coast, were to also say "It is 5:00 PM" at the same time in a telephone conversation. Only one of these utterances is true, — Moliere

Two different propositions were expressed. An utterance is sounds or marks, generally... not really a good candidate for truth-bearer.

One of the reasons I like the focus on utterances is that it seems, at least, to be a nice and neat way to accept all the messiness of context without getting lost in the mud of possible contexts — Moliere

Propositions don't operate on "possible contexts." A sentence is uttered to express a proposition. Listeners either understand what proposition was expressed or they don't. No malarky about computer generated poetry here.

And whatever the ontology of propositions might be (and it is quite the poser), Scott Soames lays out a pretty good argument which concludes that the price of denying propositions is giving up the possibility of agreement. And those who are fine with that probably don't bother to be understood, I would imagine.

After 9-11 I did a lot of speculation about why somebody would run an airplane into a skyscraper. My thought was that the notion of being all caught up in a cosmic plan would bring intensity and drama to life. I was sharing this with a friend who told me I was overthinking it. His view was that it was just aggression. Baboons don't attack one another because of a death complex or the need for drama. Humans aren't really much more complicated. I think there may be something to that.

No I suppose not. The showing there would be a matter of reviewing the history of Islam, talking about it's present manifestations in the world which include Turkey. Boring.

The cool story is the role separation plays historically... analyzing why union of church and state is such a strong social construct... and so what people are actually giving up when they accept separation.

Well, I don't want to boil semantics down to pragmatics, more than anything. So "attached" just means it's not merely the usage of an utterance which is the meaning, but that the meaning of some utterance can be determined by the extension of usage. — Moliere

I'm having trouble following this... sorry. Consider agreement. Two people are willing to assert the same truth-bearer. It can't be that they're willing to make the same utterance. I can't make your utterance and vice versa.

[

I think it is a graphic illustration of the tension that exists between democratic institutions and the essentially theocratic nature of Islam, which doesn't recognize the separation of religion and state. — Wayfarer

I think that's a mischaracterization. Separation of church and state is a strategy for creating social stability. It was hard for some Christians to let go of political authority to allow that separation. They fought against it and some continue to to this day... not because Christianity is inherently theocratic, but for both elevated and vulgar reasons.

Union of church and state can also create a very strong social foundation. Europe enjoyed that kind stability until the Protestant Reformation. Where there is no need for separation, forces will probably tend to drive toward union.

Yeah, as truth-bearers. And it would differ, at least from my understanding of Propositions, because the meaning is attached to utterances -- the extension of usage. Propositions, from what I understand, are semi-Platonic entities. — Moliere

What do you mean by "attached" there?

Sorry Mongrel for the divergence. If you think it's not quite applicable, we could move this to another thread. My thought was that "meanings" could actually serve as one half to the correspondence theory -- meanings could correspond to facts, whether those facts be about English or otherwise. — Moliere

You mean use meaning as truth-bearers? How would that differ from using propositions? And it's cool if you want to continue the conversation here. I recently discovered that I'm not too clear on what entailment is. I think I'll start a thread on that shortly. :)

As in, the whole process of definition relies on truth, so trying to define truth will necessarily result in circularity? Or just a general skepticism, given the results so far? — Moliere

In Frege's argument an infinite regress appears with any attempt to define truth. It's not just Correspondence. It's any definition. I wrote out Frege's argument on the old forum and went through it. I guess that's all in the bit bucket, huh?

You have a Trump-complex. I'm just sayin'

M: My dog exists.

D: Dogs have two ears.

P: My dog has two ears.

My dog is a truthmaker for P. The representation M entails P. Right?

I'm not following you. Propositions that haven't been judged are neither true nor false?

Certainly doesn't look as what I imagine by mental illness. — Agustino

I didn't read BC as saying Trump is mentally ill. My diagnosis is that you defend him because you want to be him. His father taught him that there are two kinds of people in the world: losers and killers. After his brother committed suicide, Trump swore to himself that he would never be such a loser.

Devoting oneself to being a "killer" is a sign of imbalance. That's not a judgment anymore than noting that a hermit doesn't have a particularly balanced personality.

My favorite Kierkegaard translator uses "virtue" that way. "There was one who was great by virtue of his power." and so on.

"By virtue of" is apt to mean "because of." Truthmakers do not have a causal relationship with truth-bearers. Maybe the motivation for avoiding "virtue" is in virtue of the causality issue.

The SEP article explores the pros and cons of a number of truthmaker candidates. Entailment is one that gets shot down. I was trying to understand what it says before I explain why it goes down in flames. :)

So entailment:

(Entailment-T)
a truth-maker is a thing the very existence of which entails that something is true.
So x is a truth-maker for a truth p iff x exists and another representation that says x exists entails the representation that p. — SEP truthmakers

"My dog just got her rabies vaccination." Let's call that utterance p.

My dog is a truth-maker for p IFF my dog exists, and if I say "My dog exists." this entails that my dog just got her rabies vaccination. Is p entailed by the existence of my dog?

Entailment:

The concept of entailment depends on a more fundamental concept, the concept of immediate entailment. Once you grasp the concept <immediate entailment>, the concept <entailment> is easy to understand.

In particular, to say that one or more propositions “entail” some proposition Q is to say that those propositions are related to proposition Q by a chain of immediate entailments. This means that like immediate entailment, entailment is a relation between propositions and relates one or more propositions to a given proposition.

Some examples

Consider the following list of propositions:

A. <Socrates is a person>
B. <all people are mortal>
C. <Socrates is mortal>
D. <all mortal things have parts>
E. <Socrates has parts>
F. <all things that have parts are made of particles>
G. <Socrates is made of particles>

Here, propositions A and B immediately entail proposition C. This is a chain of immediate entailment one link long, so propositions A and B entail proposition C. Similarly, propositions C and D immediately entail proposition E and propositions E and F immediately entail proposition G. It follows that propositions C and D entail proposition E and that propositions E and F entail proposition G. It also follows that propositions A, B, D and F are linked to proposition G by a chain of immediate entailments. So it follows that propositions A, B, D and F together entail proposition G. — https://systematicphilosophy.com/2011/05/27/what-is-entailment/

It's not super clear to me that my dog's existence does entail that she recently got her vaccines. So per entailment, either:

1. My dog is not a truthmaker for p or
2. There's some chain of entailment from her existence to the vaccines.

Hmm.

That argument makes sense to me. But it doesn't seem to answer the question, ya'know? It seems more like an argument for the possibility of answering the question, "What is truth?" — Moliere

Deflationists don't expect an answer to that question to be forthcoming, but they aren't truth anti-realists. Truth is a concept that's too basic to define.