Correspondence doesn't have value as definition of truth. It obviously has some value though. More later...

I have in mind the idea that different statements--in different languages, even--can express the same proposition. I can even express a proposition without using words at all--e.g., holding out a gift-wrapped box is not a statement, but it can indicate (in a certain context) that I am giving you a present. — aletheist

The received view is that propositions are the meanings, not expressions, of declarative sentences (statements), hence the same proposition being expressible in different languages.

So I can see the motivation for wanting another theory of truth aside from correspondence. I just haven't found that bridge into the topic which makes it easy for me to make heads or tails of. — Moliere

Deflation isn't so bad. You know what truth means in the sense that you know how to use the word. There probably isn't any definition that would be useful for teaching people what truth is. Since a definition is an assertion, the learner has to know what truth is in order to understand what a definition is. So the learner knows what truth is prior to hearing any particular definition.

And yet we still find Correspondence valuable (and in my case, fascinating.) Why? Somebody earlier in this thread (I think.. too lazy to look back) said that true propositions represent the actual world. So what do false propositions represent? Other possible worlds? Maybe the ultimate truthmaker is the actual.

Since a definition is an assertion, — Mongrel

??

Definitions are stipulations, not assertions.

Can't see how a stipulation is not a kind of assertion.

An assertion is a(n endorsement of a) truth claim.

Stipulations on the other hand simply forward associations--X will refer to y, or let x = y.

An assertion is a(n endorsement of a) truth claim.

Stipulations on the other hand simply forward associations--X will refer to y, or let x = y. — Terrapin Station

But if someone asks me what a word (like "truth") means my response isn't simply "let 'truth' mean [whatever I want]".

But the only assertions to be had when talking about this are limited to:

* Reports of conventional definitions/usage of the term,

* Reports of particular persons' idiosyncratic defintions/usage.

* Reports of what I call "functional" usage of term, which can be different than how the people in question would define the term,

The definitions (or "meanings" if you like) themselves won't be (and can't be) true or false. They're always stipulations.

But the only assertions to be had when talking about this are limited to:

* Reports of conventional definitions of the term,

* Reports of particular persons' idiosyncratic usage.

* Reports of what I call "functional" usage of term, which can be different than how the people in question would define the term — Terrapin Station

Yes, which are all truth-apt assertions, not stipulations.

The definitions (or "meanings" if you like) themselves won't be true or false. They're always stipulations.

In context it should be clear that by "definition" Mongrel meant "a statement of the exact meaning of a word". She didn't mean in the sense of the meaning itself.

Yes, which are all truth-apt assertions, not stipulations. — Michael

Right, and since I called them assertions, that's what I was saying, too.

"a statement of the exact meaning of a word". — Michael

Which refers to which of the three bulleted points of mine in your view?

That depends on your definition. :D

Stipulative definitions are stipulative. But definitions in the dictionary, at least if we follow the Oxford model, are descriptive. So if one gave a descriptive definition of "tomato" as "to move with rapid jerky motions" that would be a false assertion.

There are also prescriptive definitions -- you may say "Irregardless" to mean "we can ignore that point because what's salient is...", but some may say that you should just say "regardless"

There's a cool article on definitions in the SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/

Deflation isn't so bad. You know what truth means in the sense that you know how to use the word. There probably isn't any definition that would be useful for teaching people what truth is. Since a definition is an assertion, the learner has to know what truth is in order to understand what a definition is. So the learner knows what truth is prior to hearing any particular definition. — Mongrel

That argument makes sense to me. But it doesn't seem to answer the question, ya'know? It seems more like an argument for the possibility of answering the question, "What is truth?"

Stipulative definitions are stipulative. But definitions in the dictionary, at least if we follow the Oxford model, are descriptive. So if one gave a descriptive definition of "tomato" as "to move with rapid jerky motions" that would be a false assertion. — Moliere

Again, I noted above:

But the only assertions to be had when talking about this are limited to:

* Reports of conventional definitions/usage of the term . . . — Terrapin Station

So it's not the definition that's true or false per se, but the (implicit) claim that a definition is an accurate report of how the term is conventionally used.

Re prescriptives/normatives, there's no such thing as a true/false prescriptive/normative on my view. Again, we could say that it's true or false that something is accepted as a normative, but that doesn't make the normative true or false.

Sorry I missed that. Off to work atm, but your reliance on "the meanings themselves" looks suspect to me. Will post more later, but that's likely what I would respond to when I have time to think more.

but your reliance on "the meanings themselves" looks suspect to me. — Moliere

Are you referring to "it's not the definition that's true or false per se"? (I make a distinction between meanings and definitions, by the way. Meanings are the inherently mental/private/subjective relations in your head. Definitions are the expressions, for example in words--text or sounds--correlated to those meanings.)

Anyway, all I'm getting at is this:

Associating "Tomato" with "a glossy red, or occasionally yellow, pulpy edible fruit . . . " is not true or false (and likewise associating "tomato" with "to move with rapid, jerky motions" is not true or false).

What's true or false is this: "'Tomato' is conventionally used to refer to 'a glossy red, or occasionally yellow, pulpy edible fruit . . . '"

One could define "Tomato" as "to move with rapid, jerky motions" (that is, one could say something like "When I say 'Tomato,' what I'm referring to is 'to move with rapid, jerky motions") and that wouldn't be false or incorrect. It would just be unconventional. But it's not false or incorrect to be unconventional.

So the definition isn't true or false. The claim that a particular definition is the conventional one is what would be true or false.

That argument makes sense to me. But it doesn't seem to answer the question, ya'know? It seems more like an argument for the possibility of answering the question, "What is truth?" — Moliere

Deflationists don't expect an answer to that question to be forthcoming, but they aren't truth anti-realists. Truth is a concept that's too basic to define.

Are you referring to "it's not the definition that's true or false per se"? (I make a distinction between meanings and definitions, by the way. Meanings are the inherently mental/private/subjective relations in your head. Definitions are the expressions, for example in words--text or sounds--correlated to those meanings.) — Terrapin Station

Although I'm aware you're making that distinction there, would you also agree that definitions can be or are mental since they have to be constructed via minds? Definitions generally are, after all, just sentences, and sentences I think are also mentally constructed.

Yeah, they're mentally devised (of course--after all, it's not like they just independently appear on paper or wherever), but unlike meanings, they're publicly shareable.

So entailment:

(Entailment-T)
a truth-maker is a thing the very existence of which entails that something is true.
So x is a truth-maker for a truth p iff x exists and another representation that says x exists entails the representation that p. — SEP truthmakers

"My dog just got her rabies vaccination." Let's call that utterance p.

My dog is a truth-maker for p IFF my dog exists, and if I say "My dog exists." this entails that my dog just got her rabies vaccination. Is p entailed by the existence of my dog?

Entailment:

The concept of entailment depends on a more fundamental concept, the concept of immediate entailment. Once you grasp the concept <immediate entailment>, the concept <entailment> is easy to understand.

In particular, to say that one or more propositions “entail” some proposition Q is to say that those propositions are related to proposition Q by a chain of immediate entailments. This means that like immediate entailment, entailment is a relation between propositions and relates one or more propositions to a given proposition.

Some examples

Consider the following list of propositions:

A. <Socrates is a person>
B. <all people are mortal>
C. <Socrates is mortal>
D. <all mortal things have parts>
E. <Socrates has parts>
F. <all things that have parts are made of particles>
G. <Socrates is made of particles>

Here, propositions A and B immediately entail proposition C. This is a chain of immediate entailment one link long, so propositions A and B entail proposition C. Similarly, propositions C and D immediately entail proposition E and propositions E and F immediately entail proposition G. It follows that propositions C and D entail proposition E and that propositions E and F entail proposition G. It also follows that propositions A, B, D and F are linked to proposition G by a chain of immediate entailments. So it follows that propositions A, B, D and F together entail proposition G. — https://systematicphilosophy.com/2011/05/27/what-is-entailment/

It's not super clear to me that my dog's existence does entail that she recently got her vaccines. So per entailment, either:

1. My dog is not a truthmaker for p or
2. There's some chain of entailment from her existence to the vaccines.

Hmm.

That's related to what I said in my initial post of this thread:

Truthmakers are usually said to be the "entity" in virtue of which a truthbearer (a proposition) is true. "Entity" is a misleading term in my opinion. I prefer to say (well, when I talk about this, which is pretty much only when someone else, such as yourself, brings it up, because I don't find it very useful in general) that a truthmaker is simply the conditions that make a claim true. (Per convention there are also falsemakers, by the way--conditions that make a claim false). — Terrapin Station

The way that's worded in the SEP, at least going by what you're quoting, isn't clear at all.

The SEP article explores the pros and cons of a number of truthmaker candidates. Entailment is one that gets shot down. I was trying to understand what it says before I explain why it goes down in flames. :)

Yeah, I'm reading through the SEP article now. . . it's not very well-written in my opinion, but I'm slogging through it.

I'd have to read the Fox and Bigelow he references, but Fraser's comments following "a truth-maker is a thing the very existence of which entails that something is true" suggests that "something" amounts to "any arbitrary thing," but that strikes me as stupid beyond belief. Also, re "in virtue of," I have difficulty comprehending how any socialized, English-speaking adult sans serious mental/developmental disabilities would find "in virtue of" obscure or difficult to understand.

My favorite Kierkegaard translator uses "virtue" that way. "There was one who was great by virtue of his power." and so on.

"By virtue of" is apt to mean "because of." Truthmakers do not have a causal relationship with truth-bearers. Maybe the motivation for avoiding "virtue" is in virtue of the causality issue.

Truthmakers do not have a causal relationship with truth-bearers. — Mongrel

On my view, that's false, because on my view what it is for a proposition to be true is for someone to actively make a judgment about its relation (to whatever they consider the truthmaker we could say). On the standard view, I'm not sure I can make sense of why there wouldn't be a causal relationship. Folks would have to think that propositions correlate with facts in some happenstance way or something like that, which I don't think makes any sense.

I'm not following you. Propositions that haven't been judged are neither true nor false?

On the standard view, I'm not sure I can make sense of why there wouldn't be a causal relationship. — Terrapin Station

Because presumably we can make true claims about things beyond any causal influence, e.g. the future or the distant, and about things that aren't causal things at all, e.g. counterfactuals.

Propositions that haven't been judged are neither true nor false? — Mongrel

Correct. That's the case on my view.

Because presumably we can make true claims about things beyond any causal influence, e.g. the future or the distant, and about things that aren't causal things at all, e.g. counterfactuals. — Michael

Wouldn't some set of facts cause one to make the claim though?

Wouldn't some set of facts cause one to make the claim though? — Terrapin Station

My assertion was causally influenced, yes. But, under the standard view (and not your view), the assertion's truth maker is something else.