If I train a parakeet to intelligibly state that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, does the truth of that depend on the parakeet's comprehension of any of it?This approach relies on reference. A better approach relies instead on what one is doing with the words one is using. So to understand 2+2=4 is to be able to add, count and so on. — Banno
Yes, truth is redundant, because only if "the cat is on the mat" is true, will 'it is true that: 'The cat is on the mat'" also be true. — Banno
Disagree. The statement - the proposition - however and to whomever it is made, even to oneself without spoken language, is not itself true by itself. To be true it requires something added, like sugar to lime juice to make lime-aid. And that something is not the bald fact of the cat's being on the mat. It is rather the determination that the cat is on the mat. And that determination, like any determination, is analyzable, though the result, indeed, appears to be binary - true or not true.Yes... Truth is redundant. It is also not available for analysis - it cannot be broken into simpler notions. Yet it is fundamental. — Banno
"The cat is on the mat" is not a true statement/proposition unless we look to determine if it is? — creativesoul
Before determination it's a proposition. I'm a blond. Either I am a blond or I am not a blond. So far so good? — tim wood
Question: how could the proposition be true prior to that determination? — tim wood
Propositions are true, or false, regardless of what you say is true. Justifications are for beliefs, not truths. — Banno
I shall not rain on your well-organized parade, but I do wonder about that aporia thing. Just seems like if there are general logical laws, specifics plugged into those laws properly shouldn’t be susceptible to aporia. — Mww
And that truth is, there isn't one. — tim wood
The statement - the proposition - however and to whomever it is made, even to oneself without spoken language, is not itself true by itself. To be true it requires something added, like sugar to lime juice to make lime-aid. And that something is not the bald fact of the cat's being on the mat. It is rather the determination that the cat is on the mat. And that determination, like any determination, is analyzable, though the result, indeed, appears to be binary - true or not true. — tim wood
What is the difference between the bald fact, and the determination of that bald fact, if not the deciding that the cat is on the mat? But then the distinction is between the cat being on the mat and one's deciding to believe that the cat is on the mat. — Banno
You appear to be some kind of monomaniac; going on and on about the same tired old, super-obvious (from a kind of naive commonsense point of view) point over and over, insisting on it again and again perhaps hoping that eventually you will bore us all into submission. :joke: — Janus
That's pretty much right. Thank you. — Banno
What is the difference between the bald fact, and the determination of that bald fact, — Banno
If the general expression X + Y = Z is a logical truth, the denial of which, as was mentioned herein would trash the system of mathematics, why wouldn’t anything specific you plugged into the expression....that would fit of course....be just as true? — Mww
Yes, I am taking it out of a context into which it was erroneously placed.
Here's the thing, undeniable, yet denied: Either it is true or it isn't, regardless of what one sees. — Banno
How do you know — tim wood
There are lots of things out there that are in themselves so - the so-ness I'm calling the fact - that I myself do not know. If by fact you mean something "always already" known, then we're just at odds over usage. — tim wood
I say I'm blond. I assure you that either I am or I am not blond. But you don't know which until and unless you make some determination. — tim wood
Re Moore: I am not propounding any proposition in the form of a "Moorean" sentence. — tim wood
My point is, though, that that denial is misguided, given that we can indeed (at least begin to) think about how things might be conceptually and epistemologically different in extra-human contexts. — Janus
And it's not that it's not true in the extra-human context, but more that's it's being true or untrue in that context is not what we naively take it to be. — Janus
Here is exactly Davidson's point in One the very idea... To take an extra-human context and to think about it is to make it no longer extra-human... — Banno
I think the notion of subjective truth is meaningless; we are then talking about belief. All truths that we can know are objective, that is empirical, truths. We can say there might be metaphysical or ontological truths, but we cannot know if there are, or if there are what they are.and if objective truth is known objectively and subjective truth is known subjectively, — Banno
But, in any case, even remaining within the human context, take thinking in QM terms, a different conceptual framework, about the cat on the mat (which is not really thinking about the cat on the mat at all but we can stipulate that we are thinking about the dynamic field that appears to us as 'cat on mat'). The perceived cat and mat disappear on that view, so the statement that is true in the everyday context "the cat is on the mat" becomes meaningless in the QM context. There are no entities such as cats and mats in that context. — Janus
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.