Yeah, he's arguing against incommensurability and that people can have these fundamentally different conceptual schemas that can't be translated. Which basically amounts to abolishing he notion of conceptual schemas. We all live in the same world. I more or less agree with that.

So what was the statements being true and rising suns of the last couple pages all about? — Marchesk

What it's about is that 'the sun is setting' can be translated into Earth rotation talk perfectly well, and in fact you yourself have to make that translation in order to claim that it does not set, and so is just as truth-apt as the scientific language you erroneously claim is the only legitimate truth. You are trying to privilege a certain way of talking; don't!

What it's about is that 'the sun is setting' can be translated into Earth rotation talk perfectly well, and in fact you yourself have to make that translation in order to claim that it does not set, and so is just as truth-apt as the scientific language you erroneously claim is the only legitimate truth. You are trying to privilege a certain way of talking; don't! — unenlightened

Everyone seems to be conflating commensurability with translatability as if the two were equal.

'Sun setting' talk may well be translatable to 'earth rotation' talk, and 'prevailing wind talk' may well be translatable to 'coriolis force' talk, but in one conceptual scheme the two are linked. How do you translate that link without simply changing beliefs?

How do you translate that link without simply changing beliefs? — Isaac

But nothing has been said about beliefs. I watch the sunset, and I know that the Earth rotates. Just as I can sail into the mouth of a river without believing I am being eaten. No one is so dull as to claim that rivers do not have mouths because they do not eat. But it is almost as dull to suggest that the sun does not set because the Earth rotates.

The claim being made is that translatability equates to commensurability. I'm completely in agreement that the expressions translate in such a way that to use one or the other is irrelevant. What I disagree with is the idea that because they translate, the conceptual schemes from which they are drawn must be commensurable. In one conceptual scheme there is a link between wind direction and earth rotation, but in the other scheme there is no such link, nothing to translate because there's nothing there, yet something is lost/gained.

One scheme can therefore quite reasonably be considered 'better' than another (more elegant, more useful, more parsimonious...) without it having any bearing at all on the terms used to talk about aspects of that scheme. Words, after all (whole sentences even) can easily come to mean something completely different among a different group of language users.

One scheme can therefore quite reasonably be considered 'better' than another (more elegant, more useful, more parsimonious...) — Isaac

Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes. I'll see you down the pub when the rotation of the Earth reaches the point where this locality is such that the sun lies on a tangent to it, and we can discuss it.

But it is almost as dull to suggest that the sun does not set because the Earth rotates. — unenlightened

However, that was the astronomical view at one time, and there other things in ordinary language that people do believe which are scientifically incorrect.

Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes. — unenlightened

The one that's true.

Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes. I'll see you down the pub when the rotation of the Earth reaches the point where this locality is such that the sun lies on a tangent to it, and we can discuss it. — unenlightened

Absolutely. It's horses for courses with your chosen scheme (although I don't think we have so much free choice over them as we'd like to think). I'm mainly concerned with maintaining their unique existence in the face of Davidson's march to homogeneity, rather than promoting any particular one.

The one that's true. — Marchesk

Truth is a property of propositions, not conceptual schemes, and in propositions, the translatability then becomes relevant again.

Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes.
— unenlightened

The one that's true. — Marchesk

The very idea!

Is there a reference to snow in the following?

1) snow

2) if snow

3) if and only if snow

4) if and only if snow is white — ZzzoneiroCosm

Glad we are back to inscrutability of reference, where we belong.

The very idea! — unenlightened

Well, the truth of propositions got brought up in this discussion. So, if we're talking about truth, then pragmatic everyday talk isn't good enough.

Well, the truth of propositions got brought up in this discussion. So, if we're talking about truth, then pragmatic everyday talk isn't good enough. — Marchesk

"The very idea" has been brought up in this discussion too. In real terms at the end of the day, the sun sets. You are confusing truth with a theory of everything which in our case we do not have. Does this mean that no one speaks the truth?

Truth is a property of propositions, not conceptual schemes, and in propositions, the translatability then becomes relevant again. — Isaac

Okay, so Norse conceptual schema: The stars are heaven's light peaking through the head of giant's skull.

So if a Norseman made some statement about the North Star, with that being translatable to a correct modern statement about the North Star, would both of them be true, since the North's belief about stars being radically different than ours?

In real terms at the end of the day, the sun sets. — unenlightened

it doesn't though, it only appears to. Just like the Earth appears to be stationary, and to some deluded or ignorant folk, flat.

ou are confusing truth with a theory of everything which in our case we do not have. Does this mean that no one speaks the truth? — unenlightened

We don't need a theory of everything to understand the truth that the Earth rotates, creating the appearance of a rising and setting sun. That's a fact.

it doesn't though, it only appears to. Just like the Earth appears to be stationary, and to some deluded or ignorant folk, flat. — Marchesk

You appear not to understand English, but I'm sure you do really. 'Stationary' as you should know is a relative term and has been since Newton. In the frame of reference of the Earth, the Earth is indeed stationary and when the Earth moves, buildings fall down. I have recourse to this obviously pedantic foolishness to address your obviously pedantic foolishness in your own terms.

We don't need a theory of everything to understand the truth that the Earth rotates, creating the appearance of a rising and setting sun. That's a fact. — Marchesk

So the sun appears to set and it appears to get dark? But really it is not dark? Do you not see the nonsense you are talking? I give up.

I guess I don't understand what role truth is playing in Davidson's argument. We can be pragmatic and agree that snow is white and the sun sets. But truth can also mean what really is the case, particularly in a philosophical discussion when correspondence, coherence and deflationary theories are brought out.

Or try this (it may be clearer): To say of snow that it is white is true if and only if it is white. How would that logically differ from Tarski's sentence? — Janus

The number of terms... but I see what you're getting at. It is quite similar in semantics.

I guess I don't understand — Marchesk

Do you understand that weather forecasters and all sorts of quite sensible people talk about sunrise and sunset and make accurate predictions about the occurrence of the phenomena these terms refer to? That these predictions are scientific and reliable? Do you understand that these people are not geocentric flat Earthers, or even artists? I guess I don't understand what role 'truth' plays in a philosophy that declares that the sun does not rise, and that this is some deep understanding.

Conceptual schemes, we are told, are ways of organizing experience; they are systems of categories that give form to the data of sensation; they are points of view from which
individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing scene.

What distinctive properties are relevant to the paper?

There may be no translating from one scheme to another, in which case the beliefs, desires, hopes and bits of knowledge that characterize one person have no true counterparts for the subscriber to another scheme. Reality itself is relative to a scheme: what counts as real in one system may not in another.

So he cares about, given two conceptual schemes C and D, whether and how it is possible to "translate" elements of C to elements of D in a manner that produces counterparts of C in D and counterparts of D in C. Davidson wishes to question the claim that it is impossible in principle to translate from C to D. Say that C and D are commensurable if some counterpart mapping/translation can occur between them. He wants to doubt whether it is impossible in principle that C and D are commensurable. How? What's his motivating suspicion? — fdrake

If a conceptual scheme includes cultures and periods, which are an amalgam of individuals' conceptual schemes, then by definition individual conceptual schemes contain counterparts that are not just translatable, but similar, or how else could you say that a culture or a period has a point of view? What would that mean? How do schemes evolve and change if there aren't translatable counterparts - like one counterpart being a more evolved version of some previous one because we all undergo a similar process called learning?

Evolutionary psychology implies that we have similar schemes because natural selection filters behaviors and functions and our behaviors and functions are dictated by our conceptual schemes. We share fundamental conceptual schemes thanks to how those schemes were useful in the past and passed down via inheritance. The variability between cultures and periods typically have to do with a the variability between a select few determining the conceptual scheme for everyone else in one culture vs another, and what new knowledge we've gathered from new observations of nature when it comes to the variation between periods (what we've learned - we are specially created by god, or evolved from other animals).

a conceptual scheme includes cultures and periods, which are an amalgam of individuals' conceptual schemes, then by definition individual conceptual schemes contain counterparts that are not just translatable, but similar, or how else could you say that a culture or a period has a point of view? What would that mean? How do schemes evolve and change if there aren't translatable counterparts - like one counterpart being a more evolved version of some previous one because we all undergo a similar process called learning? — Harry Hindu

:up:

Aborigines had no word for the number 114. How do you translate when they dont have the word?
— frank

115-1? — ZzzoneiroCosm

They didn't have 115 either. They were missing some concepts.

The distinction between appearance and reality is important to the notion of truth. So while it's true that the sun appears to set in the sky, and it's true that we can all agree on that, it's not true that the sun actually moves across the sky of a stationary Earth, which is what it appears to do, and it's what people in the past believed based on that appearance, which is where the term originated.

So while this is annoyingly pedantic to point out, it matters (or so I suspect) when it comes to deflating truth to ordinary statements. What does it mean for a statement to be true? Well, it can't simply mean what appears to be the case, since appearances can be misleading. And if we're talking about what the statement refers to, then we need to know whether it'a referring to an appearance of a moving sun, or the astronomical fact of the rotating Earth.

The being true part is kind of important when distinguishing between different theories of truth.

They didn't have 115 either. They were missing some concepts. — frank

So if we were to translate 115 into their language, would we have to teach them the missing numeric concept first?

So if we were to translate 115 into their language, would we have to teach them the missing numeric concept first? — Marchesk

Yep.

if a Norseman made some statement about the North Star, with that being translatable to a correct modern statement about the North Star, would both of them be true — Marchesk

Their truth would be dependent on what was said no less than in any other scheme. The point is simply that it would be relative to what the terms refer to in the scheme, truth being a property of propositions and propositions always being in some language or other.

I'm a Ramseyan about truth, so I don't share Davidson's wholly linguistic approach, though I have a lot of sympathy for it, but talk about the truth of beliefs (as opposed to the truth of statements) cannot be encompassed in prosentential theories, which is why I don't think Davidson does away with conceptual schemes simply by declaring them necessarily translatable...but that argument seems to be falling on deaf ears, so I suspect perhaps I'm wasting my time...

Their truth would be dependent on what was said no less than in any other scheme. The point is simply that it would be relative to what the terms refer to in the scheme, truth being a property of propositions and propositions always being in some language or other. — Isaac

Okay, but what if the terms of that schema are wrong (flawed, misleading, contradictory, etc)? Are they still referring to a translatable true statement in our schema?

I don't think Davidson does away with conceptual schemes simply by declaring them necessarily translatable...but that argument seems to be falling on deaf ears, so I suspect perhaps I'm wasting my time... — Isaac

I don't think he does away with them either. But I'm new to Davidson so I'm willing to listen.

Okay, but what if the terms of that schema are wrong? Are they still referring to a translatable true statement in our schema? — Marchesk

Not sure what the terms of the schema being 'wrong' would mean here. Do you mean that they fail to refer, or that they refer, but in a contradictory manner, or some other class of failure?

If we took the statement "The sun is setting" from some ancient cosmology made at the right time of day, would it still be true when translated to modern cosmology? Or is that statement only an ordinary language one that people from any culture or time period would agree on?

And here it seems that the intent of the speaker matters. Maybe an ancient Hebrew making the statement simply means the time of day when they look up at the sky, which we could all agree on for that date. But maybe they mean to say something about reality, which was also done, since they did have their own cosmology and beliefs about the heavens, and what it meant for the sun to set.

In which case the statement being true when translated to our modern cosmology would depend on what the speaker meant.

I don't think he does away with them either. But I'm new to Davidson so I'm willing to listen. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I don't have a lot of knowledge about Davidson either. I mainly object to being told that Davidson has "killed off", or, "done away with" anything. Not because I know any better but because perfectly intelligent people possessed of all the same facts nonetheless disagree.

My own personal disagreement is laid out way back on page 5, but I still don't know if it's flawed, or misunderstands Davidson completely because, as I said, I'm no expert myself.