You say that the truth of "the kettle is black " depends on both that the kettle is black and that some hidden value is in such and such a state — Isaac

I've not said anything about some hidden value. The truth of "the kettle is black" depends on both the meaning of the sentence "the kettle is black" and on the kettle being black, the latter being a non-linguistic, material feature of the world (assuming materialism for the sake of argument). Assuming reductionism and naïve realism (again for the sake of argument), the kettle being black is the existence of particular particles at particular locations in space. This has nothing to do with language (even if language is required to talk about it).

Or if materialism is unwarranted, then perhaps phenomenalism is the case, and the kettle being black is the occurrence of a particular sensory experience, which again has nothing to do with language (even if language is required to talk about it).

The world isn't just a conversation we have with each other. There is more to the world than language, and the existence and behaviour of these non-linguistic parts of the world are often the things that make a sentence true. I get wet when I stand out in the rain, not because of the sentence "it is raining", but because of the water falling from the sky.

You want to name non-linguistic things, as if that very act were not linguistic. — Banno

The act of naming is linguistic, but the thing named is not linguistic. A kettle is not a word. A kettle being black is not a sentence.

SO what, if anything, is our disagreement? — Banno

You tell me. You were the one who decided to mention me when you said "it's as if @Michael would have us say, that the kettle is boiling is not a fact" even though I wouldn't have us say that, and then later "you want there to be another thing, that shall not be named" even though I don't want that.

I think I made my point quite clear here.

I don't know why you want that. I'm not your shrink. — Banno

Huh?

I don't want that. So I'm asking you why you (wrongly) think that I do.

The point at hand is the kettle boiling. That's a fact. But you want there to be another thing, that shall not be named, that is nevertheless the fact of the kettle boiling. — Banno

Why would you think I want that?

To make my point clearer, assume physicalism and mathematical anti-realism. Everything that exists is a physical object. Therefore, the set of all that exists is the set of every physical object. That its power set has a greater cardinality doesn't entail that there are physical objects that are not in the set of every physical object, because no member of the power set is a physical object.

Language is embedded in breakfast and waking and...

You might not narrate your life, but you might. — Banno

I also might paint my life, but it doesn't follow from this that painting is "embedded" in breakfast and waking. You really need to be more explicit with what you're saying because it seems vacuous as-is.

The "existence" of mathematical objects in mathematical anti-realism is different to the "existence" of mathematical objects in mathematical realism. — Michael

Correct, hence why platonism and nominalism about mathematics here is far-reaching and beyond the closer phenomenon at hand, being just that universal set itself. — Kuro

This is why I think you need to clarify your argument. Is the set of all that exists the set of all that realist-exists or the set of all that antirealist-exists? Because if it's the former, and if mathematical anti-realism is true, then your set of all that realist-exists isn't a universal set, as the universal set contains members that don't realist-exist.

It's as if Michael would have us say, that the kettle is boiling is not a fact — Banno

I didn't say that.

One must drop the pretence of being able to get outside of language while still using language. — Banno

I get "outside of language" most of the day. When I wake up and eat breakfast I don't narrate my life.

Sure, as I said, the truth of a sentence depends on both the meaning of the sentence and on non-linguistic features of the world. If the meaning is ambiguous then the truth-value is ambiguous. But, except in certain cases, it is still the case that a sentence’s truth value also depends on something which isn’t that, or another, sentence. We need something in addition to language for the sentence “it is raining” to be true.

One sign of mystery is a collection of arguments known as the slingshot. It's the reason we say the extension of any sentence is it's truth value. All truths designate the same Great Fact. — Tate

And why do statements have the truth value they do? Why is it “the kettle is black” which is true and not “the kettle is red”? Some non-linguistic feature of the world has to be a certain way. The object referred to by the phrase “the kettle” has to have the colour property referred to by the word “black”.

It seems the truth of "the kettle is black" is entirely dependent on the meaning of 'kettle' and 'black' — Isaac

Not entirely dependent. “The kettle is black” is not true by definition. The truth of “the kettle is black” is determined by both the meaning of “the kettle is black” and by whether or not some non-linguistic feature of the world satisfies that definition.

You can change the truth of “the kettle is black” either by changing the meaning of the sentence or by painting the kettle a different colour.

Yes

It's just that we have a mystery box in the flowchart specifically regarding that last sentence. — Tate

What’s the mystery about it? That last sentence often refers to some non-linguistic thing in the world. They’re the things we see and feel and eat.

It looks like you've stepped out beyond the speaker and the world to affirm that this is what truth is. — Tate

Beyond the speaker but not beyond the world.

Do we all basically agree that we never get "outside" of language. Truth is a matter of comparing a statement to another statement? — Tate

Most of the time I live my life without saying anything. There's more to the world than just language. Those other things in the world are often what make a statement true.

What I’m arguing against is the deflationary view that there is never any material component to facts; — Luke

As far as I understand it, the deflationary view is that truth isn't a property, or if it is then it isn't a substantial property. The sentence "'snow is white' is true" is nothing more (or not much more) than the sentence "snow is white".

It doesn't say anything about whether or not snow being white is a material fact.

Not sure of the relevance to the topic, either. — Banno

The subjective quality of visual (and other) experiences is private, but not "incoherent, unintelligible".

So have you spoken to any blind folk about this? — Banno

Yes. On the old forum there was a blind poster named Maya. I think a few people tried to explain sight and colour to her but she said that she couldn't make any sense of it at all.

Can you describe sight and colour to a man born blind?

What do you think of the link, if any, to Davidson's rejection of conceptual schema? Davidson's strategy seems to me to be showing that conceptual schema, if they exist, must be private; but that leads to their being incoherent, unintelligible. Hence, he rejects the notion. — Banno

Well, if you believe that Wittgenstein's point about a private language is well-founded, then it would follow that Davidson is correct to reject the notion of a private conceptual schema. It would be incoherent and unintelligible. — Sam26

Can you describe sight and colour to a man born blind?

U.S. reveals more classified records may be missing in Trump probe

Former U.S. President Donald Trump's team may not have returned all the classified records removed from the White House at the end of his presidency even after an FBI search of his home, U.S. prosecutors warned on Thursday, calling it a potential national security risk that needs investigation.

...

The Justice Department on Thursday suggested there could be more classified records that were removed from the Trump White House that investigators have not yet located. This revelation comes about a week after the Justice Department released a detailed list of property seized from Trump's home which showed the FBI located 48 empty folders labeled as classified and another 42 which indicated they should be returned to a staff secretary or military aide.

Legal experts were perplexed as to why the folders were empty, and it was not clear whether records were missing.

...

"The injunction against using classified records in the criminal investigation could impede efforts to identify the existence of any additional classified records that are not being properly stored - which itself presents the potential for ongoing risk to national security," they added.

No equivocation at all between "is a member of some set" and "exists", it's not a matter of conflating the concepts rather simply a matter of logical entailment. It's incoherent (and inconsistent) for anything to be a member of a set but also simultaneously not exist. — Kuro

The "existence" of mathematical objects in mathematical anti-realism is different to the "existence" of mathematical objects in mathematical realism. I took the "set of all that exists" as referring to existence in the realist sense. If this is correct, and if mathematical anti-realism is true, then no member of the power set exists in the realist sense (every member of the power set is a set and sets don't exist in the realist sense), and so that the power set has a greater cardinality is not a proof that there isn't a set of all that exists.

So could you clarify what you mean by "exists" when you consider the set of all that exists, and whether or not you're arguing for mathematical realism.

Of course. His accusations of investigations into him being politically motivated are him projecting his own corruption.

Eric Trump inadvertently made a similar claim a while back:

Speaking on Fox News, without providing any evidence, Eric Trump said: "I know the White House as well as anyone, I spent a lot of time there, I know the system, this did not happen without Joe Biden's explicit approval. The White House approved of this.

Because Trump directed the FBI, it must be that Biden does it too.

But the cardinality of P(E) can only be greater than E's if there exists elements in P(E) that are not members of E — Kuro

This, I think, shows a more fundamental problem. You appear to equivocate. When you say that there exist elements in P(E) that are not members of E you're actually just saying that there are members of P(E) that are not members of E. But that something is a member of a set isn't that it exists. For example, Santa doesn't exist and so isn't a member of E, but it is a member of the set {Santa}.

If E is {John, Jane} then P(E) is {{}, {John}, {Jane}, {John, Jane}}. No member of P(E) is a member of E and so no member of P(E) exists. Therefore, that P(E) has a greater cardinality than E doesn't entail that E is not the set of all that exists. Whether you consider E or P(E), the only things which exist are John and Jane.

The one issue I see with this line of reasoning is that if sets exist then if something is a member of P(E) then it must be a member of E, which given the fact that P(E) has a greater cardinality than E entails a contradiction. So do sets exist, and if so, in what sense? Platonism?

This is a category error namely in that sets never weigh anything — Kuro

I addressed that when I first brought up this example. If you’re saying that the set exists, in addition to its members, then you’re presumably saying that the set exists as some abstract thing, à la Platonism. That’s a view I take issue with.

I should add that I wasn't using the word "set" in the mathematical sense here. I moved beyond maths and was considering physical collections in response to litewave's comments. A collection of two coins has a weight (the sum of each coin). My argument was that even though a collection of two coins is conceptually distinct from each of its individual coins it is wrong to say that three ontologically distinct things exist (the one coin, the other coin, and the collection).

What does this have to do with philosophy? It's pure Math. — Alkis Piskas

I would say that it's actually not maths. It's making claims about things that exist. At the very least it concerns the philosophical interpretation of maths; do mathematical objects like sets exist, and if so is their existence distinct from the existence of their members?

Your claim that because I don't agree with you, it then follows that I just don't understand your logic is a matter for your own measure of your own arrogance. — universeness

If you think that the set {apple, pear} means that we've combined an apple and pair into some new hybrid fruit then you don't understand what sets are.

Combining an apple and a pear will have a quite distinct taste, compared to tasting an apple or tasting a pear. So, the combination produces a new entity of taste. — universeness

Right, so this shows that you clearly misunderstand what is being talked about.

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” — universeness

That's a misquote. What he said was:

For however many things have a plurality of parts and are not merely a complete aggregate but instead some kind of a whole beyond its parts...

Some things which have a plurality of parts are "merely a complete aggregate" and some things which have a plurality of parts are "some kind of a whole beyond its parts".

In the case of the set {apple, pear} we just have an aggregate.

The aggregate {apple, pear} may be conceptually distinct from the apple and the pear but it is not ontologically distinct from the apple and the pear.

If a and b are ontologically distinct then the weight of {a, b} is equal to the weight of a plus the weight of b. If the weight of {a, b} is not equal to the weight of a plus the weight of b then a and b are not ontologically distinct.

The weight of {apple, pear} is equal to the weight of the apple plus the weight of the pear, and so the apple is ontologically distinct from the pear. The weight of {apple, {apple, pear}} is not equal to the weight of the apple plus the weight of {apple, pear}, and so {apple, pear} is not ontologically distinct from the apple (and nor from the pear for the same reason).

You cannot demonstrate all three physical quantities of weight at the same instant of time — universeness

I know, which is why the claim that a set has its own independent existence, distinct from its members is false. What is so hard to understand about this?

Not sure what you mean.

You imply the weights are real for your 1g, 2g and 3g posit and then notional for your 6g step. — universeness

A piece of metal that weighs 1g does in fact weigh 1g, and a piece of metal that weighs 2g does in fact weigh 2g, and a collection that contains these two pieces of metal does in fact weigh 3g.

Obviously it's wrong to say that 6g of metal exists, but this is what follows if you say that the collection exists as its own entity, distinct from the existence of the two individual pieces. Therefore to avoid the absurd conclusion you reject this premise. The collection doesn't exist as its own entity, distinct from the existence of the two individual pieces. Rather, the existence of the collection is identical to the existence of the two individual pieces. Only 3g of metal exists.

So it is wrong to say that three distinct entities exist. You're effectively double-counting the two distinct pieces of metal. And I think this is what happens when the OP considers the power set.

Thanks.

It seems to be saying the same thing that I said:

... the equivalences of the form 'A' is true if and only if A ... define the conditions under which [my emphasis] a sentence is true.

Just as my example of "p" is foo iff p defines the conditions under which a sentence is foo. But the T-schema doesn't define "[is] true" and my F-schema doesn't define "[is] foo".

If we want a definition of truth (and not just a definition of truth conditions) we need some q where "[is] true" means q, or where "'p' is true" means q. Ramsey's redundancy theory is at least one attempt at this.

I don't have a jstor account so I can't read it.

You seem to be missing the point.

If there are two pieces of metal that weigh 1g each then the collection that contains just these two pieces of metal weighs 2g.

If the collection that contains just these two pieces of metal exists as its own entity, distinct from/separate to each individual piece of metal, then we have one entity (the first piece of metal) that weighs 1g, another entity (the second piece of metal) that weighs 1g, and a third entity (the collection) that weighs 2g. The total weight of all the entities that exist is 4g.

Obviously this is wrong. So how do we avoid the absurd conclusion? By rejecting the premise that the collection that contains the two pieces of metal exists as its own entity, distinct from/separate to each individual piece of metal.

The Revision theory, discussed in some other posts, appears to offer a way to map out the circularity of the T-sentence definition of Truth. — Banno

It still has to be explained how the T-sentence is a definition of truth.

1. "p" is foo iff p

(1) isn't a definition of "foo". (1) only states the condition under which "p" is foo. And so too with the T-sentence: prima facie it only states the condition under which "p" is true; it doesn't define "[is] true".

As I mentioned before, Tarski didn't think of the T-sentence as being a definition of truth, only as something that must be entailed by the definition of truth. You've responded several times by saying that it is later authors who have taken the T-sentence as being a definition, so perhaps you could present their arguments to that effect?

I would say we're looking for some q where "[is] true" means q, or where "'p' is true" means q.

Under the logic you are suggesting, there could be no valid numerical sets such as the set of prime numbers as you would suggest but they are all just multiples of 1. So, 1 is the only true member of the set of primes, or integers etc? Is that a consequence of the logic you are applying? — universeness

I'm not a mathematical realist. I don't believe that mathematical "objects" exist. But this topic isn't just about mathematics, it's about the set of all that exists, and so presumably (at least some of) its members are physical objects. It's this that allows us to see the problem with the realist approach, as shown with my example of the weighted metals.

This is an inaccurate understanding of sets. Recall the axiom of extensionality. {a, b, c} and {c, b, a}, as well as {b, c, a} are all just the same set, because they have the exact same members and thus satisfy coextension. Sets, plainly as sets, are therefore invariant with respect to these configurations you use in your example, which are otherwise too fine-grained of a notion. There's a grain of truth here in that a realist interpretation of sets would indeed count {b} and b as separate, distinct objects and thus count two things, but this is unrelated to your configuration problem. — Kuro

I think you may have misread. I was comparing {a, b}, {a, c}, and {b, c}. I think it’s a mistake to think of these as being things that exist distinctly from/in addition to one another, and distinctly from/in addition to a, b, and c.

There may indeed be different things that can be said about each, and they may have a different use in mathematics, but I think the ontological interpretation of that as involving the existence of additional entities is mistaken, which I think my example of the weight of the metals shows, and also the following example:

When I meet a married couple I don’t meet a married couple and the husband and the wife. Meeting the married couple is meeting the husband and the wife, and vice versa. The married couple isn’t an entity that’s additional to the husband and the wife, even though there are things we can say about the married couple that we can’t say about the husband or the wife individually.

If you try to say that the married couple and the husband and the wife all exist, and so 3 things exist, you’re counting the husband and the wife twice (or rather, 1.5 times each).

This is still hardly a problem though, namely because of Leibniz's Law: there are predicates true of a set that are not true of its members. For instance, consider cardinality. The set {a, b, c} would be truly predicated of having the cardinality of 3, though none of its members have a cardinality of 3 — Kuro

I address something like that here. The set of both metals weighs 3g but none of its members weigh 3g. It doesn't then follow that we should treat the existence of this set as being additional to the existence of each of its members, else the total weight of things which exist would be 6g, which is false in this example.

I have a piece of metal that weighs 1g and a piece of metal that weighs 2g. So the collection of metal weighs 3g. This is the only metal that exists.

What is the total weight of all the metal that exists? 3g or 6g? Obviously 3g. You don't add the weight of the collection to the weight of its parts. So you can't say that the collection exists in addition to each of its parts. Unless you want to be a Platonist and say that the collection exists as some abstract, weightless object, which I think is absurd. — Michael