I can't imagine a more idealist treatment of language than that. — StreetlightX

I don't follow this - idealist has far too many connotations for it to be clear.

I was considering a thread on the analogy between Lorentz transformations and Davidson's radical interpretation...

I mean it - as it only ever should be meant - in its Platonic sense: language as uncoupled from practice, from it's 'bodily instantiation' in real use among living, fleshy, community-dwelling humans: as if all this was simply incidental ('accidental', in the Aristotelian), reduced to a formula that maps between languages. A quite literally inhuman understanding of language. But then, let me save this for later...

from it's 'bodily instantiation' in real use among living, fleshy, community-dwelling humans: — StreetlightX

Heaven forbid that I should fall for such a thing! Save me!

No, no, you misunderstand, that's everything I'm saying I find excised from the Davidsonian understanding of langauge...

So, are facts only exclusive to the correspondence theory of truth?

I'm wondering.

Where you take note of the differences, I note the similarity. Mental correlations. — creativesoul

Yeah but the similarities (as well as the differences) are inaccessible to us, all we have that we can share is the shared patterns of symbol use.

IOW it doesn't matter that when I hear "tree" I have a different internal "brain writing" (or whatever one might call it) than you, all that matters is that we use "tree" the same way.

That shared language use is what sets us into right relation with the world (with the way the world really is) and with each other at the same time, because the objectively similar language use lives in the same realm ("out there") as the way the world really is.

That shared de facto objectivity (the objectivity of the patterns of use being out there in the world right alongside the way the world really is) then reflexively gives the "correct" meaning to our variable/similar internal "brain writing" calculi, internal imagery, etc.

That said, of course because of evolution, there is a lot that's going on in our brains that's probably similar, or analogous, just as it is with animals. But it doesn't have to be for communication to work; and we can also sharpen up the precision of our communication to some aribtrary degree, quite regardless of the differences.

Yeah but the similarities (as well as the differences) are inaccessible to us... — gurugeorge

That's just not true on it's face. Everyday facts show otherwise.

The position you're arguing for uses the notion of mental ongoings being inaccessible as a premiss. Methodologically speaking, it's similar to claiming water isn't accessible while using it to make cookies, or claiming that X and Y are different and we have no access to either.

Thought and belief are quite accessible.

I mean they're inaccessible to us in terms of being a shareable raw basis on which to build shared meaning. Obviously once we have shared meaning coming from objective shared habits, then we can easily compare our inner experiences.

That's just not true on it's face. Everyday facts show otherwise.

The position you're arguing for uses the notion of mental ongoings being inaccessible as a premiss. Methodologically speaking, it's similar to claiming water isn't accessible while using it to make cookies, or claiming that X and Y are different and we have no access to either.

Thought and belief are quite accessible. — creativesoul

I mean they're inaccessible to us in terms of being a shareable raw basis on which to build shared meaning. Obviously once we have shared meaning coming from objective shared habits, then we can easily compare our inner experiences. — gurugeorge

Animals cannot tell us what's going on inside their minds. In order to do that, there must be shared meaning, a common language. I think we agree on that. That's also what Banno is saying, I think. It quite simply does not follow that i) non and/or pre-linguistic creatures do not form and hold thought and belief, or that ii) we cannot acquire knowledge of what non and/or pre-linguistic thought and belief consists of.

Do you hold that language allows us to become aware of things that are not existentially contingent upon language?

Is all thought and belief existentially contingent upon language?

This clearly becomes about what thought and belief consists in/of... the content. Most academics hold that all thought and belief has propositional content. I reject that view for many reasons. It works from the dubious presupposition that statements of thought and belief are equivalent to thought and belief. It also fails to draw and maintain the crucial distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief.

So, are facts only exclusive to the correspondence theory of truth?

I'm wondering. — Posty McPostface

Does someone know well enough what a fact is if they can use it in everyday life?

To me the difference between riding a bicycle and talking about a bicycle comes to mind. To use the word fact in a non-philosopical way is to ride the bike without falling off.

But then a philosopher gets off the bicycle and puts on his philosophizing hat and finds that no finite arrangement of words is the perfect explanation of what a fact is. A fact becomes mysterious and elusive. And maybe there is something mysterious and elusive in our being able to ride that bike. And yet it's a fact that we ride that bike all the time.

To talk about what a fact really --to get off the bike when it comes to the particular word 'fact' --seems to require that we keep on not-knowingly riding that bike when it comes to all the other words that we use to figure out what a 'fact' is.

It seems that a kind of ignorance makes explicit knowledge possible (or just pursuable?) in the first place. An active not-knowing (or an automatic or unconscious knowing) looks like the rule rather than the exception here. The we that looks is big and dark as we focus on the tiny point of light.

Suppose someone insisted that they didn't believe in the existence of facts. What would they be missing?

I imagine objections

"it is a fact that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris"
"It is a fact that Peano Arithmetic, if consistent, has undecidable propositions"
"It is a fact that nothing with positive mass can travel at the speed of light"

But in all of these cases the objection merely consists in re-affirming a statement, as if the statement by itself isn't up to the job somehow.

Doesn't this imply that talk of 'facts' merely consists in speech acts that attempt to enforce a normative behavioural response on behalf of the listener by declaring scepticism to be illegal?

in other words, isn't the following a fact?

"Facts are true de jure, but are not true de facto"

"The Facts speak for themselves."

Or maybe they don't.

Facts are whatever transubstantiating Christians name them to be.

A toddler puts their hand into a fire and get burnt. Their mother says:

"Fire is always hot"

Which is another way of saying

"It is a fact that fire is hot"

But don't these two statements only mean

"Don't put your hand into the fire!" and other heat-related normative speech acts???

Why should the meaning of the laws of science be any different from this???

In other words:

Why should we believe in a De jure - De facto distinction????

Doesn't collapsing this distinction circumvent Hume's problem of Induction???

So, what are facts in a coherentist view of meaning and truth? — Posty McPostface

I can't refer to a single author, but my intuition would be that if a coherentist wanted to use 'facts' as a term, he would do so in a heuristic manner to establish a frame of comparison between his and other systems of beliefs held by other agents. By stating x or y as a fact, you emphasize the need for attention to that specific part of your propositional language. That way, it may become easier and easier to ascertain that two different belief systems are incompatible.

Perhaps, also, 'facts' would simply denote those propositions taken to provide the most validity to the structure of beliefs? That might be a bit too foundational.

The interesting thing about facts is how they relate to truth and/or being true.

Are facts the sort of things that can be true? If so, must they be in order to be a fact?

Are facts the sort of things that make statements true?

Are facts just true statements?