Are there different sorts of truth? Is "objective truth" meaningful? — Mongrel
Maybe the unit of meaning is not the sentence or the paragraph but all of human history. Maybe zooming in on individual words as if they are legos can only take us so far (not worthless, but not enough). — Hoo
No matter what consensus philosophers achieve (which probably won't be much), we all have to get out and the world in the jungle of varying uses and mostly live there. Moreover, it's unlikely that philosophers are going to tame this varying use with their expertly determined 'correct' use. So to me there's a certain futility in the enterprise — Hoo
I guess I'd try to paraphrase any statement by looking at it in as large a context as is reasonable. I think it's safe to assume that assertions are offered (in a polite conversation) as potentially valuable strings of marks and noises.How do you see this tying into issues to do with truth? What is your theory of truth, btw? — Mongrel
On this less, truth and utility are just about the same — Hoo
But I think we drag the correspondence theory's massive utility away from its strong intersection with utility into the abstract realm (along with PSR and LEM) — Hoo
One wonders what kind of conceptual work the qualifier 'objective' in 'objective truth' does. — StreetlightX
Would truth that is not open to public demonstration be truth? — StreetlightX
Sure, the correspondence theory falls apart as the air gets thin. But in the ordinary world of ordinary objects, that's how we talk and live. We're only philosophers part-time. I agree that at high altitudes it is largely about religion, materialism, and various 'concept religions' clashing, most of them assuming that they are representing something accurately. Also, sometimes as philosophers we are just working out our own worldviews with a purpose. We think in terms of the claims that deserve and do not deserve our respect. We refine our positions according to some image of wisdom and style.Frege demolished correspondence theory. That's what a fair amount of 20th Century AP is about... trying to come up with a response. I see it being tied to some fairly seismic issues related to disintegration of religion and the rise of materialism. It's not about philosophers trying to take over the role of the dictionary. — Mongrel
For me it was quite a head change to abandon the notion that truth was singular. We inherit a physical world that we mostly agree on (beds, food, cars, faces) and then construct a layer on top of this world that is under-determined by practical life. — Hoo
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