Now, if you folk could just agree as to where I am wrong...
— Banno

This presupposes that such an agreement is not already complete in the making aside from making it outwardly known. — creativesoul

Don't let my psychiatrist in on this conspiracy; if she finds out that my paranoia is warranted, she might stop giving me the drugs.

From where I sit Banno, you equivocate the term "fact" by virtue of vacillating between "fact" as propositions/states of affairs/the case at hand and "fact" as true statements. — creativesoul

What's amusing is that from where I sit, that's exactly what I see others doing. That's the discussion that was had previously with @bongo fury.

Let's have a close look at the vacillation. I'm not sure if you read the discussion with Bong, so I will start with a bit of repetition.

Suppose we have a true sentence of the form

S is true IFF p

where S is some sentence and p gives the meaning of S.

What sort of thing is S? well, it's going to be a true proposition (here, continuing the convention adopted from the SEP article on truth of using "proposition" as a carry-all for sentence, statements, utterance, truth-bearer, or whatever one prefers).

And what sort of thing is p? Since the T-sentence is true, it is a state of affairs, a fact.

And the relation between them is good old plain material equivalence. If the one is true, so is the other; if the one is false, so is the other.

So what we have here is certainly not a vacillation, but an explication of the relation between a true proposition and a fact.

We might look at an example. I like the kettle.

"The kettle is boiling" is true IFF the kettle is boiling.

I don't think this irrelevant, as @Sam26 suggests.

Let's take a look at the bolded bit. Some folk look at it and see it as representing or naming a fact. To them the fact is a seperate thing that is not a string of words, but a state of affairs in the world. For them the bit in bold models or represents or somehow stands for the fact. They insert an interpretive step between the bolded bit and the boiling kettle.

If you ask them what the fact is, the will say it is something like that the kettle is boiling, apparently oblivious to the redundancy of that expression: the bolded bit stands for the fact that the kettle is boiling...

I don't think that this conjured extra step is needed. Here's an alternate account.

The bolded thing is a duck-rabbit. It can be seen as a string of words, but to someone who understands the use, it is also the fact, the state of affairs that the kettle is boiling.

The bolded bit does not name or refer to a fact, as if facts are things in the world. It names or refers to the kettle and the boiling. The fact that the kettle is boiling is not distinct from the bolded bit.

Now I think this is what Davidson is getting at in the bit I seem to keep quoting:

In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but reestablish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false.

The bolded bit is not a scheme that is seperate from the world.

Now I think this seperate form our previous discussions of truth. I insist that what you call prelinguistic truths or beliefs can be put into propositional form. But I'm tiered of that argument, and hope we might leave it as moot.

Wouldn't've studied him if you weren't a fan! — fdrake

Same.

Knowing how to map the extensional equivalence itself to an intended interpretation. When a given person writes a correct extensional equivalence, they've provided evidence that they understand how to form them. An account which sets out how to form such equivalences; namely, which language elements are in which sets; would be an account which sets out the meaning of language items. What it's actually doing is leveraging already known language items to form extensional equivalences without telling you the mechanism that maps the already known language items to the extensional equivalence classes. Only fleshing out the latter is a theory of meaning of natural language sentences. — fdrake

The process of radical interpretation that you describe here forms part of what I called the "mechanics" of Davidson's program. The question "what more could you need?" applies after the mechanism has done its work. You yourself set out how to turn a hand flipped under a chin into a statement by setting out a description of the event.

Perhaps we can be put in terms of translating a document from one language to another. Once you have a first translation, you can ask what is present in the original that is not found in the translation, and then add it to the translation. The process is iterative. And the language into which it is translated need not be a first order extensional logic in order for this process to occur. Two natural languages will do.

(I'm not exactly sure what Davidson's attitude was to his original project of translating English into a first order language, in his latter years. It certainly is not explicit in those writings, but i don't think he entirely gave it away.)

On the assumption that the meaning of an arbitrary sentence can be set out by the collection of other sentences which are true when it is. — fdrake

Indeed. In other words, on the assumption that what can be said, can be said.

What more do you need? :wink:

Submission of all our propositions to an unknowable actuality? — creativesoul

No, that is the point; we know that all our identifications and definitions are static abstractions derived from, filtered from so to speak, our actual experience which is an evershifting succession of images and impressions. Our experience is the territory and the model we have evolved of the world of facts and things is our map, and as the old saw goes 'the map is not the territory'.

The map is tied to the territory by long consideration, historically speaking, of human experience, and conjecture about it, and its meaning, and so forth. But we cannot discursively set the map and territory side by side so to speak to examine the connections, whether purported to be rational or in some sense merely physical, between them.

But we don't need to do that anyway, since our experience generally makes sense to us, and we are able to cope more or less effectively in the world, which is shown by the fact that we would soon perish if we could not.

That pulls the rug out from under our own analysis, does it not? — creativesoul

So, the rug is not pulled out from under our analysis, because our analysis is justified by its functionality, not by any ultimate rational ground; which would be impossible in any case, since our static identifications and descriptions cannot ever be anything more than approximations to a dynamic lived experience.

Our propositions cannot be seen to correspond to that dynamic lived actuality, but only to our perceptions and conceptions of what is the case that have been spun out of it. So if we are critiquing truth as correspondence insofar as it cannot achieve the former feat, then we are correct, but if we quell that expectation and, more modestly, understand truth as correspondence only to achieve the latter, then we can be well justified.

And what sort of thing is p? Since the T-sentence is true, it is a state of affairs, a fact. — Banno

Could you explain how this is not correspondence?

Indeed. In other words, on the assumption that what can be said, can be said. — Banno

Semantics for sentence fragments, imperatives, tones, wails, murmurs. SEP notes about formal approaches to semantics(specifically Montague's):

To implement his objective, Montague applied the method which is standard for logical languages: model theoretic semantics. This means that, using constructions from set theory, a model is defined, and that natural language expressions are interpreted as elements (or sets, or functions) in this universe. Such a model should not be conceived of as a model of reality. On the one hand, the model gives more than reality: natural language does not only speak about past, present and future of the real world, but also about situations that might be the case, or are imaginary, or cannot be the case at all. On the other hand, however, the model offers less: it merely specifies reality as conceived by language. An example: we speak about mass nouns such as water as if every part of water is water again, as if it has no minimal parts, which physically is not correct. For more information on natural language metaphysics, see Bach 1986b.

At most you get a construction which tells you lists of sentences equivalent to a given sentence. It will tell you nothing about the world or why things are in the place they are in. It will tell you nothing about why norms of language use imbue the use of language with expressive regularities, what it means for a statement describing an observation to be true in a social sense and true in a scientific one. That list is not exhaustive. If this doesn't already show you there's more to be said, I don't think you want to see it (for the purposes of the argument anyway).

Indeed. In other words, on the assumption that what can be said, can be said. — Banno

Set out "Your partner's love"'s meaning with a t-sentence then! I've answered your challenge, only fair you do the same... Or explain coherently why you cannot.

As I'v said a few times, it's not not correspondence...

The bolded bit doesn't correspond to a fact, it is a fact.

The bolded bit doesn't correspond to a fact, it is a fact. — Banno

Quibbling on it, is it identical to a fact or is it equivalent to one? Given that we already know the RHS is not the world, it's a proposition.

equivalent — fdrake

Given that we already know the RHS is not the world, it's a proposition. — fdrake

And the Lagomorpha Oryctolagus cuniculus is a Anatidae.

And the Lagomorpha Oryctolagus cuniculus is a Anatidae. — Banno

There's a whole theory about the relationship of the RHS to the world which needs to be exposited for that demonstration to go through!

At most you get a construction which tells you lists of sentences equivalent to a given sentence. — fdrake

Only if the most you get from an English translation of War and Peace is a lists of sentences equivalent to Война и мир.

Quibbling on it, is it identical to a fact or is it equivalent to one? — fdrake

Is there a difference between a proposition being identical to a fact and being equivalent to a fact?

There's a whole theory about the relationship of the RHS to the world which needs to be exposited for that demonstration to go through! — fdrake

:grin:

But you don't need an extensive theory to understand that the kettle is boiling. Making tea is a way of life.

Is there a difference between a proposition being identical to a fact and being equivalent to a fact? — Luke

I think so. Imagine that "x" is true iff P and "y" is true iff P, then "x" and "y" are truth functionally equivalent but not necessarily identical. Another analogy, if you relabelled all the integers by writing them upside down, but kept the laws of arithmetic the same, that structure would be equivalent to the standard integers with arithmetic, but not identical because the set of symbols differ. Equivalence is weaker than identity.

Another example, "corresponds to the same fact" would be an equivalence relation on statements which could correspond to facts, but they wouldn't have to be the same statement. Like "water is H2O" and "water is dihydrogen oxide". : D

To make a proposition identical to a worldly item or event is a much harder endeavour than to say it's somehow equivalent to one.

I think so. Imagine that "x" is true iff P and "y" is true iff P, then "x" and "y" are truth functionally equivalent but not necessarily identical. — fdrake

This describes is the relationship between the left- and right-hand sides of a T sentence, not the relationship between the right-hand side and the world.

This describes is the relationship between the left- and right-hand sides of a T sentence, not the relationship between the right-hand side and the world. — Luke

Absolutely. And it's the identity of the right hand side and the world which is at stake.

Perhaps an understanding of the right hand side is not something to be set out in a bunch of rules, bit demonstrated by pouring the water into the teapot.

Right, so there is no difference between the right hand side being identical to a fact of the world or equivalent to one?

I think there's a difference, or at least a reason to be suspicious of one. When you disquote a sentence, you still end up with a sentence. But when you go and do stuff, you can't grab a sentence. "fdrake boiled the kettle" is true iff fdrake boiled the kettle. Is the RHS identical with my boiling of the kettle or is it equivalent to it? To put it another way, is the RHS of the statement there ""fdrake boiled the kettle" is true iff fdrake boiled a kettle"" literally identical to my boiling of the kettle? And if it is, why haven't I made my bedtime tea yet?

A much better explication than my objection about "the world" being "english shaped"

↪fdrake Perhaps an understanding of the right hand side is not something to be set out in a bunch of rules, bit demonstrated by pouring the water into the teapot. — Banno

Eh, an understanding that the RHS of the T-sentence is identical to the world is a metaphysical position, it would be demonstrated by an argument in philosophy. I'm fairly sure people have been quibbling about whether Davidson is an anti-realist or a realist or whether he breaks the distinction for years for this reason!

Sounds right. As mentioned, the substantive theories of truth try to tell us which sentences are true, and not what truth is. — Banno

Then you agree that we aren't expecting to be able to define truth.

Deflation implies that truth is relative, right? — Luke

How would it imply relativism? I'm not seeing it.

I think there's a difference, or at least a reason to be suspicious of one. When you disquote a sentence, you still end up with a sentence. But when you go and do stuff, you can't grab a sentence. "fdrake boiled the kettle" is true iff fdrake boiled a kettle. Is the RHS identical with my boiling of the kettle or is it equivalent to it? To put it another way, is the RHS of the statement there ""fdrake boiled the kettle" is true iff fdrake boiled a kettle"" literally identical to my boiling of the kettle? And if it is, why haven't I made my bedtime tea yet? — fdrake

Yes, I see. And that is the objection I've had to @Pie's position from the outset - that the truth bearer, P, is not identical to the fact that P describes. So P is not identical with the world, otherwise we are still talking about a sentence. But if we maintain the distinction between sentence and world, and if P is equivalent to the world, then I don't see how that's different to correspondence.

How would it imply relativism? I'm not seeing it. — Tate

If the use of "is true" is equivalent to endorsing a statement, or if "p is true" is equivalent to the assertion of "p", then what is true is whatever statement someone asserts or endorses. No?

If the use of "is true" is equivalent to endorsing a statement, or if "p is true" is equivalent to the assertion of "p", then what is true is whatever statement someone asserts or endorses. No? — Luke

If someone endorses P, we know they would say P is true. P might subsequently be determined to be false. People would say it was always false.

Redundancy says the truth predicate plays a social role and nothing else.

Yes, I see. And that is the objection I've had to Pie's position from the outset - that the truth bearer, P, is not identical to the fact that P describes. So P is not identical with the world, otherwise we are still talking about a sentence. But if we maintain the distinction between sentence and world, and if P is equivalent to the world, then I don't see how that's different to correspondence. — Luke

I see what you mean I think! Would like to see a discussion on how the RHS relates to the world, and how it differs to correspondence.

Would like to see a discussion on how the RHS relates to the world, and how it differs to correspondence. — fdrake

As I've said already, I think the RHS relates to the world, but the world is a perceptually and conceptually evolved static collective representation, not a dynamic lived experience. I mean we can say the world is a dynamic lived experience, sure, but that saying is just another part of the common conception. All our discursive lives revolve in that static conception, except insofar as it it comes to life for each of us in the vividness of our lived experience, which can never be adequately conceptually explicated due to the loss of life such explication entails.

P might subsequently be determined to be false. — Tate

How?

Redundancy says the truth predicate plays a social role and nothing else. — Tate

Doesn't that make truth relative to a person or society?

The problem is that the RHS can be false. It's not the world in any sense.