I don't think anyone here has denied that there are true sentences.

Certainly not I.

@J?

@Moliere?

So now you allow for necessary truths that could have been otherwise. That's not what a necessary truth is.
— Banno

That's what you think. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. It's what "necessity" is. Something is necessarily so if it could not have been otherwise.

And more. Check out the SEP article on modal logic and you will see that the modal framework can be use din deontological and temporal situations; indeed, it has a general applicability. So those alternate"senses" you want to appeal to are also well catered for by modal logic.

..all things are contingent... — Metaphysician Undercover

Not if p(x)⊃□p(x), which is what you claimed at the start. :roll:

The bit in which you change your claims, not to correct yourself but to contradict those who point out your own errors.

I don't know if you are sincere or just a contrarian bot.

But there is a reason I usually ignore your posts.

Yes, hence my whole point that the water goes before the 'water'.* Without some contact with water the sign 'water' has nothing to signify. — Leontiskos

If I've understood you, you are saying that water is around before we learn about it. Yep.

What I've suggested is that learning what water is and learning to wash, cook drink and talk about water are the same.

That suggestion does not rely on water not being around until we learn to wash, drink and talk about it.

I hope that's clear. — Banno

...you want to take issue with the Aristotelian approach... — Leontiskos

Me? Never! :lol:

If dogs don't understand water, why do they go to the bowl? How is it that ducks manage to land on the pond so much more often than do Cockatoos? Random movement? You don't have a dog, I hope.

But now we can entertain the idea that the OG is a designer with free will, which is something the OP points to. — A Christian Philosophy

You've got bigger problems than that.

The OG is supposed to explain why things are as they are. If the OG is compatible with every possible world, it can't do this. If, the reason any particular university is as it is, is the OG made it so, then the OG can't explain why this universe rather than some other.

The problem here is that it commits you to the idea that dogs and ducks understand water, when in fact they don't. — Leontiskos

We'll have to disagree here.

Walker Percy's study of Helen Keller vis-a-vis his own deaf daughter bears out the fact that Helen's understanding of water was not present until she was seven years old—long after she had been interacting with water. — Leontiskos

That's a somewhat ableist misinterpretation.

“As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness...and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”

Notice "my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers", not "my whole attention fixed upon the cool stream gushed over one hand". Keller understood the difference between having water on her hand and not having water on her hand prior to understanding the sign for water. Percy emphasises that though Keller had felt water before, she lacked the symbolic framework—the naming of water via language—until that pivotal moment.

Ableist, becasue it minimises the intelligence and perceptiveness of pre-linguistic or non-verbal individuals, and misses the real problem, which is isolation from language, not failure to understand the world.

If I've understood you, you are saying that water is around before we learn about it. Yep.

What I've suggested is that learning what water is and learning to wash, cook drink and talk about water are the same.

That suggestion does not rely on water not being around until we learn to wash, drink and talk about it.

I hope that's clear.

Nice try.

Why do you think I deny that? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because you sad as much.

I haven't proposed a system. I'm just pointing out potential problems of application and interpretation of modal logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have proposed a system. We've been pointing out that the consequences of that system.

What has been shown is that you have a profound misunderstanding of modality, that you are incapable of recognising.

Oh, well.

Everything which has reached the present and is progressing into the past is necessarily the case. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet

"X could have been otherwise", and "X is necessarily true" are not inconsistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

So now you allow for necessary truths that could have been otherwise. That's not what a necessary truth is.

The bit where I said:

I'd caution agains attempting to show that there is an inconsistency in Meta's logic. He may simple add ad hoc hypotheses in order to escape. — Banno

Again, there is a point wee our conversation becomes too ridiculous to continue.

Perhaps. What is it the critic wants to conclude - that our use of the word is grounded in a pre-linguistic understanding of what water is? Perhaps we learn to drink and wash before we learn to speak. But learning to drink and wash is itself learning what water is. There is no neat pre-linguistic concept standing behind the word, only the way we interact with water as embodied beings embedded in and interacting with the world. Our interaction with water is our understanding of water.

So on one hand we have a triadic {water – concept-of-water – use of water}; on the other just water being used.

It's an obviously Wittgensteinian approach, focusing on the use rather than invoking a perhaps mythical "concept of water". It's also much closer to how we learn - by doing.

Since we are talking about Searle an Semiotics, it is worth noting that Searle's formalisation of speech acts - a semiotic theory - has had considerable influence in areas of AI. It's apparently widely used in dialogue systems, multi-agent communication, natural language processing, and in formal languages. You might enjoy this: What is Speech Act Theory in AI?

There seems to be an assumption amongst some folk here that we have to understand what water is before we can begin to make use of the word "water". That either we understand what water is, and then learn to use the word, or we have the word, and learn to apply it.

But is that right? That "Water before word" or "Word before water" exhausts all the possibilities?

Couldn't we learning to use the word be learning what water is? So being given a glass of water and told "this is water", or being asked to "go and draw some water at the creek" or someone saying "I have warmed the water in the bath for you" - these are both learning what water is and learning how "water" is used.

I'd suggest, and have done previously, that learning to use a name and learning what it is it stands for are pretty much the same thing.

And I'll stretch this to concepts in general.

If I'm right, we might be dubious about triadic models that want to have a third thing between the name and the named. But this is a whole 'nuther thing.

(added: This is basically Wittgensteinian, but good constructivist pedagogy, too. )

There are other examples we can use. Hesperus=Phosphorus is common; concluding that the star seen in the evening is the same object as that seen later in the morning required some astute observation and plotting of the position of the star. Now we think that ☐(Hesperus=Phosphorus).

Or that Gold has atomic number 79. Not known until the notion of atomic numbers was developed and found useful. But thereafter a necessary fact.

What's salient is that being gold, or Hesperus, or water, is not determined in the same way as having atomic number 79, or being Phosphorus, or being H₂O. It's discovered, by looking about the world. Previously modal theorists had supposed that no necessities were to be discovered in this way, supposing instead that they were all artefacts of language, and so found just by thinking.

Does that help?

So support that contention.

Or leave the vague ad hominem hanging, in your increasingly tedious passive aggressive fashion.

John Searle says, “I take it to be an analytic truth about language that whatever can be meant can be said.” — Richard B

He visited us here, long ago. I asked him about that aphorism, and if I recall correctly he expressed some regret towards it, not becasue it was wrong but becasue it caused considerable misunderstanding. I understood him to be saying that many folk had misunderstood him as claiming that for instance children could not use meanings becasue they had not developed the ability to use language. That is, folk missed the implicit conditional - if it can be meant then it can be said - to be claiming that only speech had meaning.

Must have been in the previous incarnation of this forum.

added: the stuff just said appeared while I was writing this post - another coincidence. It may be an example of the sort of thing Searle was complaining about.

I'll take this a step further and say that at least arguably, supposing that analytic methods are exclusive to Analytic philosophy is to misunderstand the state of philosophy today. Analytic methods haven’t disappeared—they’ve become ubiquitous. Their success in clarifying argument, uncovering presuppositions, and enforcing rigor made them so effective that even their critics adopted them. The real consequence is not that philosophy is split into Analytic and non-Analytic camps, but that the distinction itself has lost relevance. What matters now is not whether someone is ‘Analytic’ but whether they’re philosophically serious—and that seriousness nearly always involves some analytic rigor.

I don't think I agree with this. The nature o time explains both, why things could have been otherwise, and also why whatever is, is necessarily the case. Everything which has reached the present and is progressing into the past is necessarily the case. The past cannot be changed. However, the future is full of possibility, so there was the possibility that before the last bit of time passed, different possibilities could have been actualized, therefore things could have been otherwise. — Metaphysician Undercover

Events in the past are not necessarily true. They still might have been otherwise. You might not have written the thread to which this is a response, for example. It makes sense to discuss such possibilities, and to make inferences about them. So if you had not written that post, I would not be writing this reply. That's a sound argument. The sort of sound argument that your system denies.

For someone who argues that formalisms are merely tools selected for based on usefulness, you sure do like to appeal to them a lot as sources of authority and arbiters of metaphysics a lot though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, they are very good tools. And used not so much for authority as clarity and coherence.

The suggestion that formal logic is restricted to analytic philosophy is demonstrably ridiculous

I stand by that, and the rest, even if you pull funny faces at me.

Please, fell free to address my arguments, when you have time.

Go on then, point them out.

I assume the unstated premises here are that the "One True Explanation of Everything" isn't really true and is only not criticized out of force, otherwise, it sounds like a world that would be immeasurably better—a world free from error and ignorance and in harmony. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's the thing. Supose I come across the One True Explanation of Everything, and I convince everyone else that I'm right - after all, if it is the One True Explanation of Everything, I am right.

But supose also that you think we are wrong.

What should I do? Is it OK for us to just shoot you, in order to eliminate dissent? Should we do what the One True Explanation of Everything demands, even if that leads to abomination?

Or should we adopt a bit of humility, and perhaps entertain the possibility that we might be mistaken?

Authoritarianism or Liberalism?

Funny, how here we are now moving over to the ideas entertained in the thread on Faith. I wonder why.

I think the reason Analytic philosophy likes "possible worlds" is because its reified formalism is logically manipulable in a very straightforward way. — Leontiskos

Trouble with this is that the folk you and Tim are are fond of citing are making use of formal modal logic and possible world semantics. Please understand that possible world semantics is wha shows that the formalisations are consistent. If your academic friends did not make use of the formal systems, their work would have very little standing in the community of philosophers.

You and Tim objecting to formal modal logic robs you both of the opportunity to present your arguments clearly.

The suggestion that formal logic is restricted to analytic philosophy is demonstrably ridiculous. Moreover, the people you cite make use of analytic techniques.

Sometimes I think that all of this resembles the functioning of road rules. They are somewhat arbitrary, but they work if applied consistently and are understood by the community of road users. They change over time, as situations change. They are an ongoing conversation. We seek to avoid accidents and death and aim to get to places efficiently and the road rules facilitate this, but none of this means the road rules have a transcendent origin. Nor can they be explained away as subjective and therefore lacking in utility. — Tom Storm

Think I'll steal that analogy.

It's not a stone tablet, it's a conversation.

I think @Janus' question remains. — J

Yeah. But perhaps what we can agree on is that there are ambiguities in asking "what if water had none of the characteristics it actually has?" that need ironing out in order to understand what is being asked.

Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! — J

Yep. That's what I'm after.

Sure.

I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan — Tom Storm

Not likely.

I like my chances against Rorty since I still have a heart beat — Count Timothy von Icarus

I rather think his influence will outweigh your heart beat.

Weighing in on "But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't" is a good move. I was going to point out that this again presumes a merely binary logic, but your response covers that.

Yes, that the one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sometimes it is better to go with a clear stipulation than to muddle around in ambiguity.

If what you mean by "one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial" is that it doesn't lead to the confusion of forms or triviality of what makes it what it is, then I will take that as an advantage to the stipulation.

And it doesn't presume nominalism.

You're not keen on taking up any of the seven counterpoints I made? Good, that'll save time.

No — Relativist

Ok. Then we'll leave it there. Seems you haven't followed what I wrote anyway, so I'll cut my losses.

Let's emphasis what is being argued. It's is not that there cannot be one monolithic Explanation of Everything, one explanation that encompass in a consistent binary logic everything we know from physics and biology through to love and relationships.

We might be able to produce such a system. But we do not have such a system now. Nothing like it. And there are reasons to think it pretty unlikely that knowledge could be presented in this way without loosing quite a bit.

What is being argued is the lesser point, that we might do well not to assume that there is such an Explanation of Everything, even if we don't know what it is.

This seemed to go missing in our earlier discussion, Tim, about Logical Nihilism.

FIrst, some comments on a few specific points.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here the principle of noncontradiction is being used as a wedge. But making use of non-contradiction is already presuming one logical system over others. Non-contradiction does not apply, or is used quite differently, in paraconsistent logic, relevance logic, intuitionistic logic and quantum logic, for starters. Perhps your argument holds, and if we presume PNC then there must be One True Explanation Of Everything (the caps are indicative of a proper name - that this is an individual). But to presume only classical logic is to beg the question. It is to presume what is being doubted. As is the shallow response seen before - I thin form Leon rather than you - that these are not real logics; it presumes what is at questions - that there is only one real logic.

The very existence of these non-classical systems shows that rational discourse can persist without universal adherence to PNC.

A better point is your "Orwellian Nightmare":

As I mentioned earlier, a difficulty with social "usefulness" being the ground of truth is that usefulness is itself shaped by current power relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. And this is an excellent reason to keep a close eye on those power relations, and to foster the sort of society in which "might makes right" is counterbalanced by other voices, by compassion, humility, and fallibilism. You know, those basic liberal virtues. How much worse would a world be in which only the One True Explanation Of Everything was acceptable, uncriticised?

Pluralists can accept many truths within different practices - physics, literature, religion, without affirming logical contradictions. But this doesn’t mean that "2+2=5" and "2+2=4" are both true. Pluralism has limits, governed by coherence, utility, and discursive standards.

I think this a much more wholesome response than supposing that some amongst us have access to the One True Explanation and the One True Logic.


seems to be thinking along similar lines. Thanks, Tom. I wonder who else agrees?

Take a look at the contents of the SEP article on Metaphysics. It contains two sections:

2. The Problems of Metaphysics: the “Old” Metaphysics
2.1 Being As Such, First Causes, Unchanging Things
2.2 Categories of Being and Universals
2.3 Substance

and

3. The Problems of Metaphysics: the “New” Metaphysics
3.1 Modality
3.2 Space and Time
3.3 Persistence and Constitution
3.4 Causation, Freedom and Determinism
3.5 The Mental and Physical
3.6 Social Metaphysics

It does this becasue what metaphysics is changed somewhat dramatically with the advent of both modern physics and modal logic.

To restrict oneself to the "old" metaphysics is to do oneself an injustice.

can you sketch-out --- informally --- what "formalized" Modal Logic has to do with Platonic Forms — Gnomon

Modal logic became involved in this thread as soon as it was supposed that things have essences, and we asked what an essence is.

There is a clear way of talking about essences, as those properties had by an object in every possible world in which it exists. We can deal with the consequences of essences using this stipulation.

There are other ways that folk use "essence", and very often they choose not to define it in anything like as clear a way as the above. Now that is fine, so far as it goes. It leaves open the question of what an essence is, and also the question of how the way they are using "essence" fits in with the clear stipulation given by modal logic.

Now since the stipulation of essence as "those properties had by an object in every possible world in which it exists" is consistent with a consistent modal logic, we know that it is consistent.

We can't say that about other proffered definitions.

Unless we can compare them to the modal definition.

But to do that, one has to first have a grasp of modal logic.

So one issue here is, if platonic forms are the "essence" of each... thing..., is it just that the platonic forms set out or embody the properties held by that thing in every possible world?

If so then we can drop the theory of forms and get one with this conversation in modal terms.

and if not, then what more is it that forms contribute to essence?

And it has proves difficult to get a clean answer to this question.

, is it worth my time to reply? There's a lot in your post, which I appreciate, but as a result there are multiple issues to discuss. Is there a point in my proceeding? Are you open to attempting to express your ideas in a more standard form? Let's look at just the first point.

1. An OG exists autonomously. This means without dependencies of any kind (causal or otherwise). If it had such a dependency it could not be the OG — Relativist

You introduce "autonomous" and "dependent". Perhaps we can get more clarity by sticking to truth functional operatives.
So you have here something like that nothing implies an OG; that nothing else has to be true in order for an OG to be true. That is, for any fact p, both p and ~p imply the OG.

This gives us (p v ~p)⊃OG. That is, regardless of what other states of affairs hold, OG will be true. Stated otherwise, OG is a necessary truth. So you do not need to show that OG is necessary, since you have assumed it. ☐OG. See the tree proof.

All that just for Point one.

Now look at point two.

2. For an object, X, to be ontologically contingent, there must be some C that accounts for X, but C could have accounted for ~X. Example: assume quantum collapse is not determinate, and C is a quantum collapse in which X emerged. X is contingent because C could have collapsed to Y. I express this as:
C accounts for (X or Y), or more generally: C accounts for (X or ~X). — Relativist

Here you have C⊃(X v ~X). Now (X v ~X) is a tautology, and so necessarily true. If the consequent of an implication is true, then the whole implication is true. That is, ☐( X v ~X), and so ☐(C⊃(X v ~X)).

So again you do not need to demonstrate that C⊃(X v ~X) is necessary. You have assumed it. But you cannot conclude that C is necessary. Nor that it is contingent. See the tree proof.

3. If an object is not contingent (as identified in #2) then it is necessary. — Relativist

Take care here. Contingency is not the same as possibility. An object that is not contingent may also be impossible.

4. Compare this to the outcome of a deterministic law of nature: the law: C causes X. Because it's deterministic, it means: C necessarily causes X. If C is contingent, then there X inherits this contingency (whatever accounts for the contingency of C, also accounts for the contingency of X). — Relativist

Here we run into the problem of what it is for A to cause B. IF it's just A⊃B, then all sorts of things we would not usually call causes will count as causes. So "cause " is not often understood as "implies".

We do not know if C is necessary or contingent or impossible.

So you cannot get to your point five.

5. An OG is not contingent because there is no C that accounts for the OC (that would entail a dependency - see#1). Therefore it exists necessarily. — Relativist

But that doesn't matter, since you assumed that OG is necessary at step one.

What this shows is that you haven't proved ☐OG, but assumed it.

Now, was that worth my time?

Yep.

I'd caution agains attempting to show that there is an inconsistency in Meta's logic. He may simple add ad hoc hypotheses in order to escape.

But also, his premise, p(x)⊃□p(x) does not lead to an inconsistency within the logic.

it does lead to modal collapse. There can be no modal statements in such as system.

p(x)⊃□p(x) says that nothing can be other than it is. It describes a world in which there is no change.

Also, p(x)⊃□p(x) ↔︎□p(x)⊃p(x), so all truths are necessary truths. All truths in this system are necessary, and all falsehoods are impossible.

There are no counterfactuals, no contingency and as a result, there can be no free will. Given that maintaining free will was one of the reasons Meta gave for adopting this system, that's a big problem for him. Look out for the ad hoc reply.

So his system is consistent, but useless for any sort of modal reasoning, and leads directly to fatalism.

, , you have been continuing your discussion here, independently of thel parallel discussion of modality. I'd like to bring the two back together.

If we presume the accepted modal logics with a possible worlds interpretation, what can we say about ontological grounding and the principle of sufficient reason?

First let's look at the idea of ontological grounding. What we want is for an explanation as to why the world is as it is, and not some other way. If something could have been otherwise, it cannot explain why something is necessarily the case. So any ontological grounding must be necessary. But then it would be the same in every possible world. And in that case, it could not explain why this world is as it is.

Hence any explanation strong enough to constitute an ontological grounding must thereby fail to explain why the world is as it is.

Next, the principle of sufficient reason. Much the same argument holds here. Either the sufficient reasons are necessary but too weak to explain why the actual world is as it is; or the reasons explain why the world is as it is, but are contingent, and so are insufficient to explain why out of all the possible worlds, this is the actual world.

.
~~

Yep. A ways back. Perhaps he hasn't changed his mind.

I'd take a different path, more in line with looking at use, but taking on some of Searle's other work on status functions and collective intent.

Well, perhaps recent experience has led me to appreciate Way's integrity, at least compared to others hereabouts. Might leave it at that.

I'll pay that.

On the proviso that their disagreement is coherent and well defended, and that they talk to the criticisms presented. As indeed, you do.

Others are not so obliging.

I didn't say 'we' — Wayfarer

No. But I did.

The result? You can happily indulge in the idiosyncratic use of "philosophical perspective" that you envision, but others need not agree.

it still leaves me wondering whether we can coherently say something is water in some logically possible world if we were to remove its defining characteristics. — Janus

In some possible world, water has none of the characteristics it has in our world.

But we know that water is H₂O, so that characteristic could not be removed and water still be water. But this is a metaphysical impossibility, not a logical impossibility. Logically,, assuming rigid designation, we can posit a possible world in which water has none of the characteristics it has in the actual world.

But that would be doing something a bit different. It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H₂O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation.

That is, if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word.

Or, a philosophical perspective that you can't fathom. — Wayfarer

If we can't fathom it, then we have no basis on which to think it a philosophical perspective... :wink: