I know SophistiCat added the SEP article — Moliere

Oh, yeah - sorry, @SophistiCat. Good move.

There's a break in the symmetry that I think some have not recognised - that □∀y(Gy → Fy) does not give us □∀y(Fy → Gy).

'that the universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart' — Wayfarer

Yeah, understood; hence my previous reference to Hegel.

But there are all sorts of issues. The parsing makes it look as if we only need negation, but that's not so. And there's an odd slide in the Appendix from propositions to individuals. And fuck knows what is happening in chapter eleven, where moving out of a plane is equated with bending time... or something.

I think there are good reasons that the book did not catch on.

For example mental state A supervenes upon brain state B in that without A there is no B and without B there is no A, meaning if and only A then B, but it's a correlation where dependency isn't necessitated. — Hanover

Davidson, I think, would tend to say that mental state A is the result of brain state B, but that it might also be the result of brain states C and D. Hence mental state A is not dependent on brain state B; and the need for a novel term.

you're not defending physicalism — Wayfarer

Well, I'm not rejecting it either.

as the physical is ultimately what is real. — Wayfarer

That strikes me as an error. Mind is as real as brain.

Supervenience is a modal relation. Take the forgery example from the SEP article. Some particular tone and texture in the forgery might well be produced by a different microstructure to that of the original. That tone and texture is not dependent on the microstructure. It might be produced by a very different paint and process.

Hence the new term is useful.

The tone and texture supervenes on the physical structure.

Similarly, for Davidson, some particular intention (a mental state) may have different physical sources (a physical state). Hence the anomalism of the mental. The same state of mind may be the result of various physical states of the brain.

I think I first saw the term in R. M. Hare, but was never very pleased with it.

I'm lost.

Wouldn't it be better to spend your time learning a more widely used version of predicate calculus?

I suggest folk re-read

:meh:

I commend dropping "absolute" altogether.

As I said I don't think about it in terms of following rules, so your question is not relevant. — Janus

Except that the topic is following rules.

Ok, leave it.

How do you tell that a child has followed the rule of addition? By looking at a finite set of examples. But, as for all induction, no finite set of observations can imply a universal principle.

Yeah, I think the account in the Meno is wrong. As was Chomsky. But this is not the place for that discussion.

What I was after was showing how Kripkenstein relates to Hume's skepticism towards induction.

Well, thank you for that reply.

I completely agree. Its much the same stuff as I went over in the thread on Searle and intentionality. WE can be more specific by adopting his counts as... terminology; moving a bishop counts as a move in Chess only if certain rules are followed.

Now the weird part is that what you wrote here does not seem to me to address the body of the three fairly specific arguments I presented:

• That it's unhelpful to introduce novel terms that do not have a clear meaning, and then behave as if their meaning were clear; I think this is what is done with "absolute"
• That doubt only happens against a background of certainty, and so cannot stand as a beginning position.
• That the starting point must be we, not I.

So thanks, and I'll leave you to consider the issue further.

Your Hegelian taco came over as a blue square with a question mark in it.

I believe counting is intuitive — Janus

Hmm. Might be better to say it is a ritual. Touch one shape, say "one", touch the next, say "two"...

We watch a child do this, and then count the cats, and the chairs, and the fingers, and as Hume pointed out no finite list of such examples logically implies that the child will get it right next time. So when do we say that the kid knows how to count?

Some laugh at the primitives who go "one, two, three, many..." but we do the same when contemplating grains of sand on a beach.

Thinking of counting as "intuitive" underplays the need to teach kids how to count. It's an initiation into a language game.

Cheers.

Again, it's perhaps the problem of considering too few examples that leads our engineering friends to conclude that pragmatism is the whole answer to issues of truth. It underpins their ubiquitous scientism. They come at philosophy from far to narrow a background.

So the task for us might be to get them to see beyond cantilevers and databases.

But when we move to the real world — Count Timothy von Icarus

As if triangles, parallel lines and chess were not real.

There are profound difficulties with approaches that include words such as "absolute". What's the clear distinction between certainty and absolute certainty, between truth and absolute truth? Folk stick words together but that doesn't necessitate meaning. What's the difference between certainty and green certainty? Between truth and pentagonal truth? At the least, if these notions are introduced they had best be given a role to play, one on which we might agree. But the game so often is first to invent the term then look for it's place in the game, and the result is an interminable dialogue - as seen in these forums.

There's also profound problems with the level of scepticism that relies on demons. It's worth pointing out again that doubt requires certainty – doubting that the bishop stays on her own colour relies on colours and bishops and chess and so on; doubting a piece of code relies on code and an expected outcome; doubting the number of sides of a triangle relies on sides.

The demons also indicate an irrational level of solipsism. We will check if your faculties have been compromised by comparing them with our own and those of others. It's not just Chess that has a set of rules that are decidedly social. The whole enterprise is social.

Again, I'd be happy if these considerations induce a small doubt as to the ubiquity of pragmatic epistemology.

Meh. That looks to be all over the place, truth-makers coming from a different place to modal logic, and I'm not too happy about your claims to copyright, so I'll leave you to it.

Bye.

When knowledge is defined as a justified true belief such that the justification necessitates the truth of the belief then the Gettier problem is no longer possible. — PL Olcott

What could you mean here by "justification necessitates the truth of the belief"? That there is no possible world in which the justification is true but not the truth of the belief? That's an absurdly high bar. I know the cat is on the bed because I saw him there a few minutes ago; but there are possible worlds in which he has subsequently moved, or in which what I saw was not the cat but a shadow.

Did any one in this thread spot this obvious problem?

I don't follow that, TIm.

...we can be absolutely confident about the truths of certain things provided we are willing to hold some things constant. I — Count Timothy von Icarus

You can be absolutely certain that you are a cat, if you like. That doesn't make it true. But the bishop stays on it's own colour, or we cease to be playing chess.

Foundationalist approaches to truth might be seen to work along those lines: by holding certain things to only be true if some "hinge" propositions are held true.

One of the problems with pragmatism might be characterised as a failure to acknowledge the hinges on which it hangs.

What is Logic? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Best answer might be that it is rules of grammar; rules for stringing symbols together.

But I would draw your attention to logical pluralism: the view that there are no "Laws" of logic.

To be a law of logic, a principle must hold in complete generality
No principle holds in complete generality
____________________
There are no laws of logic.
— Gillian Russell

There are two ways to deal with this argument.

A logical monist will take the option of rejecting the conclusion, and also the second premise. For them the laws of logic hold with complete generality.

A logical pluralist will reject the conclusion and the first premise. For them laws of logic apply to discreet languages within logic, not to the whole of language. Classical logic, for example, is that part of language in which propositions have only two values, true or false. Other paraconsistent and paracomplete logics might be applied elsewhere.

A few counter-examples of logical principles that might be thought to apply everywhere.

Identity: ϑ ⊧ ϑ; but consider "this is the first time I have used this sentence in this paragraph, therefore this is the first time I have used this sentence in this paragraph"

And elimination: ϑ & ϒ ⊧ ϑ; But consider "ϑ is true only if it is part of a conjunction"... — Banno

Pick the logic that works for the sort of discussion which you are involved - a grammar for your argument.

https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/boghossian/Boghossian_Rule-Following-Considerations.pdf

A summary and survey of the literature.

Well, thanks for the info about Chess. I wasn't aware that Chess.com was not compliant with FIDE.

And so long as we agree that fallibilism is not the whole of epistemology, we have some progress.

Good questions.

Yeah, I think the deflationary approach tells us a lot about how "truth" works. But what it doesn't do, and what folk want, is not what truth is, but which sentences are true and which are false. As if philosophers could tell us such things.

Philosophers don't know anything that non-philosophers don't know.

But they might help you ask better questions.

So yes, "JC rose from the dead" will be true if and only if JC rose from the dead. This tells you exactly what you need to know in order to know that "JC rose from the dead"; is true; but it does not tell you if JC rose from the dead.

And for that some empirical information would be needed - like seeing Jesus rise from the dead.

But not every such question relies on empirical information. See the chess example above. where it's shown not to be an empirical issue that the Bishop stays on her own colour. Or consider 7+3=9; "7+3=9" is true only if 7+3=9. That's not an empirical fact, but it is true.

And half of the folk who read that will be thinking "But 7+3 isn't 9, so Banno is wrong".

So not evidentiary, so much as truth-conditional. That is, what is on the right hand side sets out the circumstances in which (...exactly when...) the sentence is true. And so if it is true only when certain things are evident, it will be evidentiary.

I think the really important part here is the way this account shows the other accounts hereabouts to be erroneous. So far I've tried to show that for the pragmatic account, but it should also show how the idea that we can throw out truth and just have belief is flawed; or that it's just a feeling; or reality; or some evolved reaction; and so on, through pretty much the whole gamete of BS hereabouts.

But @Frank made another good point, that truth is very basic; so basic that most folk have trouble seeing how basic it is and insist on more complex explanations.

So I'm sorry, but good philosophy will not tell you if Jesus rose from the dead. But I think you knew that.

Cheers.

On the issue of Davidson, I just came across this approach that follows Davidson's program by replacing first-order logic with lambda calculus.

http://lambdacalculator.com/#

So it seems Davidson's program is still active.

The hard part is getting other folk to see the import of Kripke's joke. Your respondents don't appear to get the argument. Kudos to you for working on it.

It's difficult.

Some folk seem to think language games involve only language. They don't. Have a look at the example in §1. The language game is an activity involving matching apples with swatches and numbers, a physical activity in the world. §2 involves the movement of blocks, pillars and slabs. Language games are embedded in the world.

Language games are about doing things. We get more done by talking of chemicals rather than fire and water. And from the language game of chemistry, wood is not solidified fire. That'd be false.

But the articulation between language games is a topic of some considerable complexity. It's all that incommensurability stuff and the very idea of a conceptual scheme I keep ranting on about. IS that where you are headed with your thread?

I do not totally buy into a deflationary account of truth. However, I do think our epistemology must necessarily be fallibilist (we may always be mistaken, even seemingly secure truths may look different when seen from another light) and circular (we must base our knowledge claims on other knowledge claims, there is no way to build an absolute foundation for knowledge). — Count Timothy von Icarus

A good series of posts.

But I'll take issue with this bit. It's what I do. Don't feel obligated to reply.

I gave a brief intro to deflation above. I think these the most useful accounts of truth.

I think that an over reliance on fallibilism comes about from considering too few examples. Usually those from the sciences.

First, it's true that the bishop stays on her own colour squares on the chessboard. There - there are truths. One can deduce that she stays on her own colour squares from her initial position and the rules of chess.

Suppose that you got half way through a game, and you protest when your opponent moved the Red Bishop to a black square. "But," your fallibilist opponent says, "Your theory that the Bishop always stays on her own colour is subject to fallibility; indeed, my move disproves that theory!"

Would you acquiesce? I think not. Fallibilism has little to do in this situation.

Ok, then in contrast, true and false are moves within some language games.

And there's the answer to your puzzle.

You usually poo poo older philosophy and favor newer. — frank

Pretty much.

My first stop would be Anthony Kenny, mostly because it is approachable and complete. Then to Anscombe and Malcolm for corrections. Of the newer stuff Monk seems to have the best balance. The rest is such a vast literature that one will quickly become lost.

So roughly, nonsense is the stuff that happens between language games, or when terms from one are inexplicably applied to another, or when grammar is stretched beyond recognition.

Yeah, sure. As time goes on the interpretations of Witti become increasingly distorted. I think the Pyrrhonian reading misses much of what he had to say. Those who worked with him do not adopt it.

1. All we ever have is beliefs. — plaque flag

Ha, is that so? Is it true? Or is it just your belief? And if it is just a belief of yours, why should we pay it any attention? And if you believe it, don't you by that very fact believe that it is true?

We do differentiate between what folk believe and what is true. A pragmatic account such as you present loses this distinction.

What is truth (and what isn't?) — Kevin Tan

I suggest you already have quite a good understanding of how to use the word "true" correctly but that you begin to have trouble when you try to articulate rules for using "true".

You might forgive me for being somewhat formal, but one way to set out what "...is true" does is found in a very simple construction, the T-sentence. Take an arbitrary sentence, say "The beans are cooking". That sentence will be true precisely in the case that the beans are indeed cooking. We can write:

"The beans are cooking" is true if and only if the beans are cooking.

Notice that on the left hand side, the sentence "The beans are cooking" is being talked about, but on the right hand side it is being used.

Pick another sentence, this time one that is false: "London is the capital of France". We can write

"London is the capital of France" is true if and only if London is the capital of France.

It looks odd, but consider it careful, and you will see that it is true. London is not the capital of France, but if it where, then "London is the capital of France" would be true.

Generalising this, for any sentence you might choose - let's call it "p" - we can write what's called a "T-sentence":

"p" is true if and only if p

...where what we do is write any sentence we like in to the place occupied by p.

A couple of other points. Notice that this works for sentences, and not for other uses of "...is true" like "The bench top is true" or "Jeff is true to his friends". And notice also how little this tells us about truth. Other definitions will say that truth is this or that, and provide profound expositions - philosophers call these the classical or sometimes the substantive theories. What these have in common is that they are wrong. The T-sentence approach, and others related to it, downplay the import of "truth", saying it is a performance or it is redundant or that it needs to be deflated.

One final point. Notice the difference between "what is truth?" and "which sentences are true?" Your OP asked the former. The latter is much harder, and there is good reason to think no general answer can be given.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#TarTheTru
And yes, to those who have been here before, there are complications, but the first step is to move away from substantive approaches to the issue. Lies to children.

But if you don't admit the existence of real definitions (or at least essences) then you cannot say that A is a better X than B — Leontiskos

Why not?

Seems that "real definitions" are mere stipulations. Is it a better pair of scissors because it is sharp, or because it is harder to cut yourself with them?

So what counts as better depends on what one is doing.

But there is a bigger issue here, in that what you mean by "essence" is unclear. If not what is had by the thing in quesTion in every possible case, then what?

And isn't that what kit fine is doing by relying on definitions - stipulation - rather than necessity?

I dunno. I find this all a bit too fumbling to be getting on with.

Might be best to keep Kripkenstien to his own thread.

Consider:

464. What I want to teach is: to pass from unobvious nonsense to obvious nonsense.

And around §500, as well as §522ff.

When we muse about talking pots, we are playing a game that is somewhat different to the game we play when talking about a person who is mute. But what counts as false and what counts as nonsense will depend on the game being played.

So what is the outcome if you say that talking pots are nonsense, as opposed to saying that it is false? It depends on how the games are set up.

That might be what and said.

Ok, I'm seeing a re-work of Boolean logic with a sort of pseudo-Hegelian dialectic thing going on.

A poor idealist's Tractatus?

Thanks for the link. Think I'd best not post for a while.

We are all Will because it is everywhere and Will is beyond us because it is nowhere. — Gregory

That doesn't follow. Indeed, it's not even grammatical.

Only an infinite method can grasp Will — Gregory

And yet here you are, with a presumably finite method, telling us about will. The contradiction ought be obvious.

The finite cognition can never understand the infinite. — Gregory

And yet we have mathematics that set out various infinities in detail.

Right, again, cool stuff... — schopenhauer1

Well, no. It's dreadful. But we are not supposed to say so? Perhaps we should let folk post bad thinking, but let's not congratulate them for it.

I hope I beat the same drum to a different rhythm.

There was a recent article about a metastudy of referencing in philosophical papers, looking at groupings - who referenced who. Where previously there were two families, roughly analytic and non-analytic, the paper argued for a third grouping, a scientistic approach to philosophy.

But I don't think that's what we see here, from the retired engineers.

The trouble with criticism of naturalism, of course, is that in it's own area of expertise, science is pretty much right.

Where we agree is that science misapplied goes badly astray.

Yeah, but it's the nature and quality of the dialogue...

Best, there is much to be said for the... fixity... of text, as a jump-off for critique.