Davidson also rejects talk of the facts, if for no other reason than such talk is somehow inadequate for translatability.
— creativesoul
If you have a minute to explain that further, I'm interested. — ZzzoneiroCosm
See my exchange with Marchesky... — creativesoul
Sure, that sounds great. It seems to be a kind of eliminative skepticism vis-a-vis certain kinds of epistemology, metaphysics, and the rest of it. Is that how you see it? — ZzzoneiroCosm
Is there another essay, to your knowledge, where he takes up the subject again? — ZzzoneiroCosm
Suits me, since my Wittgenstein -inspire prejudices tell me that philosophy amounts to nothing. — Banno
Hmm. see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson/#TrutPredRealReal
A secondary source, but I was privileged to study with Malpas many years ago — Banno
l So he means coherence among existing beliefs? A web of belief kind of view of truth? The sun's setting is coherent if it adheres with other beliefs about the world? — Marchesk
Do you understand this? — creativesoul
Which basically amounts to abolishing he notion of conceptual schemas... — Marchesk
Some. Not all. — creativesoul
So what was the statements being true and rising suns of the last couple pages all about? — Marchesk
Some. Not all.
— creativesoul
Which world(s) do the others live in? Is that a support for conceptual schemas? — Marchesk
I'm hesitant to agree with the idea that convention T offers an adequate means for translation. — creativesoul
Do you see all of this as a kind of skepticism? — ZzzoneiroCosm
So, re the example I gave of Chinese and Western medicine; of course they can both be expressed in Chinese or English or presumably many other (but not all?) languages. What then does it mean to say that one conceptual scheme must be translatable into the terms of another or else one (or both?) of the conceptual schemes cannot be "true and meaningful"? So, I ask you, what does that mean to you, since Banno apparently won't say what it means to him? — Janus
What we need, it seems to me, is some idea of the considerations that set the limits to conceptual contrast. There are extreme suppositions that founder on paradox or contradiction; there are modest examples we have no trouble understanding. What determines where we cross from the merely strange or novel to the absurd'?
We may accept the doctrine that associates having a language with having a conceptual scheme. The relation may be supposed to be this: if conceptual schemes differ, so do languages. But speakers of different languages may share a conceptual scheme provided there is a way of translating one language into the other. Studying the criteria of translation is therefore a way of focussing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes.
I'm hesitant to agree with the idea that convention T offers an adequate means for translation.
— creativesoul
Perhaps its more of a minimal translation. — Banno
Nothing, however, no thing, makes sentences and theories true:
not experience, not surface irritations, not the world, can make a
sentence true. That experience takes a certain course, that our
skin is warmed or punctured, that the universe is finite, these
facts, if we like to talk that way, make sentences and theories true.
But this point is put better without mention of facts. The sentence
"My skin is warm" is true if and only if my skin is warm. Here
there is no reference to a fact, a world, an experience, or a piece of
evidence.
In giving up dependence on the concept of an uninterpreted
reality, something outside all schemes and science, we do not relinquish the notion of objective truth quite the contrary. Given the dogma of a dualism of scheme and reality, we get conceptual relativity, and truth relative to a scheme. Without the dogma, this kind of relativity goes by the board. Of course truth
of sentences remains relative to language, but that is as objective as can be. In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but reestablish unmediated touch with thefamiliar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false.
Davidson has (in his eyes) eliminated "truth relative to a scheme." Beyond that he wants to eliminate truth relative to a fact and truth relative to an object.
That leaves us with the T-sentence, and nothing else.
So me and Banno were talking about how a T-sentence can be used without reference to a fact or an object. — ZzzoneiroCosm
I do not think that he eliminated truth as relative to a scheme so much as granted them all... assuming coherency. — creativesoul
I do not think that he eliminated truth as relative to a scheme so much as granted them all... assuming coherency. — creativesoul
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.