Some among us would tell you 'because if we don't censor people then people like Trump can get elected", which on the surface seems to have some merit. — VagabondSpectre

So we need to protect the voting public by censoring people? That sounds anti-democratic. And how do we determine who and when to censor? Because I can imagine pro-Trump supporters saying the same thing about past presidents they didn't like.

What they don't realize is that in today's world, censorship is to popularity as gasoline is to open flames, — VagabondSpectre

That's for sure!

From a US perspective, putting someone in prison for disagreeing about how a historical even went down sounds like using force to silence someone's speech, or punish someone for saying the wrong thing.

Of course the context was Austria's participation in the holocaust and probably Irving has other motives than just being a crackpot. So it gets murky there. The reason we in the US are hardcore on speech is because if you give the government power to censure, then it can be abused. Maybe we don't care if a holocaust denier gets shut down, but what about if it's someone espousing an unpopular political opinion? What if they're criticizing the government?

It seems like Austria thinks society needs to be protected from certain kinds of crackpots, which is weird form a US perspective. Why can't society decide without using the force of law who to believe when it comes to history?

Whatever justifies or lends warrant to accepting "the cat is on the mat" gives exactly the same warrant for accepting "It's true that the cat is on the mat". — MindForged

So basically there is no overall "thing" that makes statements true, only particular conditions being met, which very for each statement. Truth is just a generalization overall all those.

But some condition does have to be met, otherwise the statement is false or not truth-apt. So in the case of the cat on the mat, there has to be some cat on some mat that's being talked about. Same for snow being white and it's raining outside.

One thing to note about those is there seems to be a general condition that's being met for the empirical domain, which is that the condition is something being a certain way in the world. That's where the common correspondence intuition comes from.

That truth doesn't involve all these other metaphysical commitments and ought not be involved in explanations of meaning because it serves no explanatory function. — MindForged

Right, but how does that work?

If I want to know whether a specific cat is on a specific mat, then what makes the cat is on the mat true or false under the deflationist understanding of truth?

A deflationist does not attempt to define truth. — frank

What is a deflationist trying to accomplish or say?

By comparison, a proponent of the Correspondence Theory of Truth is trying to account for statements being true in virtue of them corresponding to something else, such as a state of affairs in the world.

If you want to know whether a statement is true or false, then you need to go out and look. — Andrew M

Right. It's the going out and looking which is important.

The truth schema won't help you with that. It just tells you what condition needs to obtain in order for the statement to be true. — Andrew M

But it's only giving a logical definition for truth. It's not specifying the actual condition that would make a statement true or false.

Yes, the statement can be an ordinary empirical statement. But the relation between the statement and the truth condition is a logical one. — Andrew M

However, that relation doesn't make the statement true or false. It's whether the condition was satisfied or not.

The correspondence theory is saying that what makes statements true is their correspondence to something else, which would be something about the world for empirical statements. The deflationist is saying, nah, truth is just the logical relationship between a statement and truth.

But the deflationist is leaving the satisfying of conditions off their account of truth.

The cat is on the mat is true if and only if there exists a specific cat in the world on a specific mat in the world being referred to, when making an empirical claim.

Or maybe the big flaw in democracy is that it's a vote maximizing system, as Eliezer Yudkowski suggested.

To quote the great Shania Twain:

"Man, I feel like a woman!"

It's a logical relation. If the statement "the cat is on the mat" is true then that entails that the cat is on the mat (the condition). Conversely, if the cat is not on the mat, that entails that the statement is false. — Andrew M

Right, so no disagreement there.

What is truth?

If truth is just (always, for all statements) a logical relation, then there is a separate question to be asked.

What is it that makes, "The cat is on the mat", true? Because it's not a logical relation that does that. Not if there is reference to a cat and a mat in the world.

Now if the statement is just a logic statement, then these three are equivalent.

The cat is on the mat.

The blorg is on the korg.

X is on Y.

Because cat and mat are just variables that can stand for anything.

Which is fine for logic, but it tells us nothing about whether it's true or false that it's raining outside today in Lisbon.

What is it that makes something true?

Is asking about the relationship between a statement and what makes it true or false, outside of logic, because that's where the whole truth issue gets interesting. That's my understanding of the issue.

In ordinary usage, "The cat is on the mat" is not expressing a logical proposition, but rather is making a statement about a situation in the world. And it is that situation which makes the statement or false, not logic. That's how true and false is used outside of logic.

It's intended to be a necessary feature of a good truth theory, basically. That's why it's unclear if you ought to characterize Tarski's theory of truth as deflationary or correspondence, because the T-scheme works for both. — MindForged

I see. That sounds right. But "What is truth" is asking something else. It's asking what makes a statement true or false, not the proper usage of the term.

"Snow is white" is true only if snow is white

is true even if snow is polkadot? — Banno

It's true in a totally trivial manner. Seems to be expressing an identity, except that the first one is quoted.

What that has to do with actual snow being white or cats being on mats is beyond me. Because the cat is on the mat expresses nothing unless it's referring to a cat on the mat, which could be true or false depending on whether the actual cat is on an actual mat being referred to.

Whatever truth means, it is not given to us by the T-scheme because, if you read it, the T-scheme uses truth in its biconditional. It just tells me how I can use the predicate. — MindForged

Okay, so it then has nothing to do with the question of what truth is?

That explains this thread. — Banno

Then explain it. Because I see no reason to accept deflation based on what's been stated so far.

X is true iff x is true.

Is that all we've been arguing about? Because that tells me nothing that I didn't already know. Of course a statement is true if and only if it's true.

is true even if snow is polkadot? — Banno

No, I don't understand that at all. You just said the snow is white in the T-schema.

Perhaps I'm missing something. My understanding is that deflation is an attempt to avoid problems that crop up with other theories of truth, because they have metaphysical implications. To avoid that, deflation is proposing an identity between making a statement and that statement being true.

It seems obvious to me this runs into a serious problem because statements can also be false, so merely stating that the cat is on the mat is not the same thing as saying the cat is on the mat is true.

Consider:

The cat is on the mat is false.

The cat is on the mat is true.

Now the question arises as to what makes the cat on the mat true or false. Am I misunderstanding in thinking that deflation needs to address this? The debate about the nature of truth seems to concern itself with what makes statements true, right?

The cat is on the mat" is true iff the cat is on the mat.

If that has any meaning beyond syntax, then the obvious thing to point out is that there is at minimum an empirical cat on an empirical mat that makes that T-schema work. Otherwise, it's a meaningless logical statement that has nothing to do with cats or mats.

The blorg is in the korg is true iff the blorg is in the korg.

Is that all deflation is saying? Because that's not saying anything other than pointing out a rule of logic. It certainly not concerning itself with what the other theories of truth are worried about.

The truth schema allows you to choose whichever meaning you like based on your metaphysical or pragmatic preferences. Which is to say, it's not an issue about truth. — Andrew M

What is truth?

Can be restated as:

Wha is it that makes a statement true, such that the cat is on the mat is not false or meaningless?

I'm failing to see how deflation addresses that question.

'<Snow is white> is true' has the same truth value as 'snow is white', because each implies the other. — MindForged

Alright, but that's false, because snow is not always white, just like the cat is not always on the mat. You need something else to make the two equivalent.

My friend, there simply is not a causal link between the right side and the left side of the material equivalence. — Banno

Oh, I see what you're saying with those analogies. But if there is not a causal link, then how is the right side related to the left?

What's the point of my reyplying to you if you do not address my writing? — Banno

I did address your writing, just not the kidney part, because it's irrelevant since kidneys are not hearts.

Guess what... People consume energy, they don't generate it. Far more efficient to just burn whatever they're using to keep the bodies alive. — noAxioms

Yes, that was dumb. Originally, the premise was that the machines were using human brains for processing, but it got changed to something more easily understandable by audiences.

It would have been better to have the machines doing it for our own good, which falls in line with what Agent Smith says in the first movie to Morpehus, and what the Architect tells Neo in the second movie. Also from the Animatrrix stories, we find out that humans started the conflict, so it would make sense for machines, upon winning, to put us in vats and find a use for us.

It is pretty easy to disprove a literal brain (a pink biological thing like in the pictures) in a vat scenario. Everybody would have two brains, one in the vat (in charge) and one in the body (epiphenomenal). Somebody would notice the difference that signals from the body one are severed abruptly at some point in the brain stem to be replaced with uncaused signals controlling the motor functions.
Defects would be a distinguishing point. Bob has an aneurysm in the vat and displays the physical symptoms of that, but doctors find a brain with nothing wrong with it. Sue on the other hand has an aneurysm in the body brain, and yet continues to function normally, even after doctors notice the event (for whatever reason). — noAxioms

This is a really good point that I had forgotten about. Same applies to the Matrix scenarios. One has to wonder what a brain operation inside the Matrix entailed from the patient, since there is only a plug into the back of the neck, and not the machines opening up pods and doing actual brain surgery. Or at least that was never shown in the movies, LOL.

nothing supports bedrock, it's foundational to all that rests on it. You can think of the rules of logic in the same way you think of resting a building on bedrock. It holds up all that follows, it doesn't need a justification. — Sam26

But this isn't strictly true, otherwise the bedrock would fall to the center of the Earth. It's true that most of the time one ignores geology when building a house, except when it's relevant to the construction. Like when a fault-line is nearby. Then you need to construct the house to withstand earthquakes.

As for why logic might need a justificaiton, that's because there are sometimes when we ask ourselves whether logic should apply or which logic should apply, as MindForged mentioned above in the debate between Intuitionists and Platonists in what constitutes a proper proof in Math. That's not settled by bringing up the language game of math, since the debate is about which rules of math to use. And that stems from a metaphysical disagreement.

1) "Schnee ist weiss" is true
2) if and only if
3) snow is white

Line 1 is about truth. Line 3 is not about truth – it asserts a claim about the nature of the world. Thus T makes a substantive claim. Moreover, it avoids the main problems of the earlier Correspondence Theories in that the terms "fact" and "correspondence" play no role whatever.

This is better. The problem is that Line 3 is what makes line 1 true. Explaining how that is the case is where correspondence and the other theories of truth come in.

So I'm not sure what the deflationist is trying to say here. Are they denying anything else needs to be said about the relationship between Line 3 and Line 1? Because questions about how we know that the snow is white are going to rear their head at this point.

Consider we're inside and the weather report says it's snowing out side. So I say,

"The snow is white".

You go out and look and say: "Nope, it's actually yellow."

And I"m like, "Bro, snow is white, stop lying!"

But then I go and look and I see that it is yellow, because you took the chance to unburden your bladder there.

1) <p> is true
2) if and only if
3) p — MindForged

Right, but this is merely a rule in logic and says nothing about how we apply assertions to the world or other domains.

The cat is on the mat isn't merely a logical proposition. It's a statement about the world. It's only true if there is an actual cat on the actual mat being talked about. Otherwise, it's either false or meaningless (if not referring to any cat/mat).

Are you serious? I just said that on the deflationists account there is *nothing* more to truth than the conventions that govern it's usage as a predicate. — MindForged

Okay, I mean nobody disagrees with saying that true and false are linguistic conventions we agreed to. That's not what's of importance. We could have used any word to denote the meaning behind true and false. And it's the meaning that's at stake.

What the defalationist is saying amounts to there being no meaning other than the lingustic convention, which sounds prima facia absurd, and what I'm trying to argue against.

Rather (again, depending on the account) will mean that truth is really all and only about the linguistic conventions governing the predicate "is true". — MindForged

And that's a totally trivial observation that nobody ever disagreed with. Of course we have a linguistic agreement on how truth and false are to be used.

Pilate: "What is truth?"

Jesus: "A linguistic convention governing the predicate 'is true'."

Pilate: "So everyone who heareth the truth is just agreeing that 'is true' is a linquistic convention? Well alrighty then, there's nothing controversial in what you're saying. Let me have a talk with the Jewish leaders. Those silly goats. They thought you were claiming to be a god or something, but you were just taking about language games the whole time."

Why do you think the right hand side makes the left hand side true? That strikes me as an odd notion. — Banno

Really? Despite the T-schema and the disquotation?

The cat is on the mat.

By itself, this is neither true nor false. Is true adds something to the sentence. It's saying two things:

1. The sentence is not false.
2. There is an actual cat on an actual mat being referred to.

#2 is why the sentence is true and not false. Without that, you have a meaningless assertion. There is no necessity to cats being on mats, so it's not a necessary truth, or true by definition.

As such, the RHS (the disquoted side) is what makes the sentence true or false.

So if your argument is that somehow deflation requires correspondence - and it is not clear that this is your argument - then you haven't gotten very far. — Banno

It's raining outside is true if and only if it's raining outside.

Very well and good. Syntactically, everyone can agree. However,

"It's raining outside is true" if and only if it's raining outside.

Now you have a disquotation. The left hand side is linguistic, while the right hand side is something else. What is it about the RHS that makes the LHS true? Well, it isn't true simply bu definition, since it's not linguistic. Rather, in this case, it's something about the world.

So then the question becomes how does the world make statements true or false? It's at this point that questions about the nature of truth come into play.

"2+2=5" is false if and only if 2+2 != 5.

Here we the rules of math. In this case, it might seem that 2+2=4 is true by defintion, however, someone can note that when two dinosaurs joined two other dinosaurs in the Jurassic swamp, there were four dinosaurs, not five, long before humans were around to count. And you will have the Platonists talking about how numbers must be something independent of human thought and culture. So again, you have a question about what makes "2+2=4" true.

In many ways the difference is just a simplified ontology given the belief we don't need all these extra additions to our metaphysics (e.g. propositions, correspondence, facts and so on). — MindForged

The cat on the mat is true if and only if the cat is on the mat.

So, how in the world does a deflationist defend the second part if there are no propositions, correspondence, facts or state of affairs? Is it true by definition?

They're not answering that question. — Michael

Yeah, but it seems to me they need to. Otherwise, deflation is stating a truism.

What makes "the cat is on the mat" true is that the cat is on the mat. The End. — Banno

Right, but what does that mean? And of course, on a common sense reading, it's just looking and seeing that the cat is on the mat. But that's just the start of the matter, because philosophy isn't simply espousing common sense.

These are the sorts of metaphysical answers that the deflationary theory of truth doesn't attempt to provide, but these seem to be the sort of answers that you're looking for. — Michael

Right, so what is the deflationist trying to say? The cat is on the mat iff ... what, exactly?

That just don’t work. — Banno

Is true or false?

No ‘essence of me’ in Buddhism. Arguably, belief in such a thing is the very problem that has to be overcome. — Wayfarer

Okay right, my fault. What I meant was something that continues to be alive, to experience the state of nirvana, not simply ceasing to exist. Because suicide easily accomplishes that without needing to spend a life becoming detached.

That's one of many points on which Paul and I differ radically. I reject that statement utterly. — andrewk

Wanted to add an additional comment on this. There is a sense in which both Christianity and Buddhism are tying to find an out for this life. They're both predicated on life being fundamentally rotten. Christians hope for a utopian existence after death. Buddhists try to fix the problem by quenching desire, and which may result in achieving a final state without suffering, which could transcend this life to a more permanent state.

There are also the techno-optimists who think that science and technology will one day deliver us from the awfulness of being animals who live short lives, feel pain and constant want, and are severely limited in the capacity to experience.

Nick Bostrom has written a couple short stories on that possibility. And then's tons of scifi stories exploring that idea. The thing that all threeshare is agreeing that life generally sucks in lots of ways, and having faith in the possibility of attaining a better mode of existence.

.because if the cat is not on the mat, then "The cat is on the mat" will be false, and

"The cat is on the mat" is true only if the cat is on the mat.

will still be true.

It looks like a non-starter. — Banno

Yes, but the interesting thing about truth, and the reason it became a question, was in what makes a statement true or false.

Sure, we can all go look and see the cat is on the mat, and agree that's true, in an everyday sense. But that whole distinction between appearance and reality, where maybe sometimes it only looks like the cat is on the mat, resulted in serious questions about knowledge and truth, a long time ago.

That's one of many points on which Paul and I differ radically. I reject that statement utterly. — andrewk

Of course, because you don't think there is any resurrection of the dead into a world where we don't have the incessant meaningless drive of the desires Schop and Augustino are always complaining about.

To put it in more Buddhist terms, if I really believed that following the 8-fold path and spending lots of time mediting would grant me nirvana after death, where some essence of me continued to exist without suffering in a grand sense, then I would probably buy in and make it my life's goal.

But I don't believe that, so I'm like, meh, I'm sure meditating and thinking a certain way is helpful in this life, like exercising and eating well. Kind of like going to church for the social aspect. But it's not something I'm going to base my life on, because it's merely helpful, and it's still just this life, with it's readily apparent imperfections.

Some people might object to having faith for a payoff, but let's put another way Say there was the possibility of a technology that would greatly expand your life in all dimensions. You would end up healthier, stronger, smarter, longer lived, etc than any human. But it would require dedicating your life to achieve. How many people would go after that if they thought it was possible?

That's what St. Paul was talking about, in a non-technological sense. That he would get to share in a god-like existence forever, otherwise, why bother? Also, keep in mind that Paul and many of the early Christians were legitimately persecuted, so it's not like they looked at religion from the relative ease and comfort of a modern western lifestyle, where playing tennis is just as good as going to church on a Sunday morning, because what does it really matter?

Irrefutable only means that it cannot be disproved using the data available. — Isaac Shmukler

That means just about all of metaphysics, unless there exist irrefutable metaphysical arguments. Maybe for trivial matters, like the non-existence of invisible pink unicorns.

What do you mean by 'irrefutable belief'? — Txastopher

I'm guessing the OP means beliefs that can't be doubted, which I'm not aware of any. Just about anything can be doubted. Even Cogito, ergo sum can be picked apart.

But maybe Witty's hinge propositions come close.