Also I should explain about knowledge of truth in an indefinite manner, as per Davidson. Davidson's view on the statement 'I know the sun will rise tomorrow" is that it is true. However, you can only know that you knew it after the sun rises the following day. That is, Davidson believes you can know the truth, but not necessarily know that you know it, if empirical verification is not immediately available.

Then why did you represent them as "a and b" rather than the the obvious "a and a"?

if you state that a is logically equivalent to b, then the statement is considered true. — ernestm

Are you saying "if you state that a is logically equivalent to b, then the statement 'a is logically equivalent to b' is considered true"?

But that's not right. Stating it does not make it so.

And if not, what are you saying?

Because two to the base ten, and ten to the base two are logically equivalent, but they are not identical.

Arrhg.

Two statements are logical equivalent if they have the same truth value.

10(base 2) is not a statement; it has no truth value; and so cannot be logically equivalent to 2(base10)

but they are not identical. — ernestm

Yes, they are.

I'm sorry, you are right, I was trying to say something too quickly. But I am having a problem that this forum does not support logical symbols, and frankly, I am not really sure what your real problem is, and so I am not sure that I can provide an answer. What I tried to do was explain the definition of truth in modern logic. It appears to me you have some motivation not to accept the reasoning, and ultimately, you will not be satisfied with any explanation I try to provide.

What I suggest is that you look at the description of logical equivalence on the Wikipedia, and what you will find is that I restated the last sentence of the first paragraph in response to your question.

What I tried to do was explain the definition of truth in modern logic. — ernestm

Hm. A noble goal, but in modern logic truth is defined in terms of satisfaction.

What you appear to have done is provide three sorts of statements, and then claim that each sustains a distinct sort of truth.

The closest thing we have to truth as human beings is something we call facts and/or data (ie. information about a physical thing) but such information is obviously transient and dependent on time, place, etc. in order for it to be useful. — dclements

This supposed problem is trivially resolved.

The transience of a statement can be resolved with a few indexicals - "it is raining" becomes "it is raining here, now".

Usually context makes such indexicals redundant. Certainly there are useful statements of fact without dependence on time, place, etc.

That is, are you claiming that one needs a semantic interpretation in order to identify basic tautologies? — Banno

Tautology is a semantic notion – the semantics are presumably set up in a way where their interpretation of the syntactic form is always going to yield true. But it makes no sense to say something is tautologous from syntax alone. Syntactically, the sentence is just a structure of symbols, and so doesn't mean anything, let alone something always true.

I think you are confused about my shorthand use of 'truth' for 'truth evaluation.' It is fairly common shorthand, and I did consider writing it out more fully, but it makes it more difficult to read, and people who are not trying to say it is wrong have no problem with it, so I am not changing it. However, you may find it useful to consider how propositions EVALUATE to truth, and that there is no other way to state a truth than with a proposition.

If you want to understand the different approaches to truth evaluation, and why I state them separately, then you will also find that the need for semantics in the first kind of truth is summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Formal_theories

for the first category, the formal description on the Wikipedia starts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_logic

For the second kind, which as I say is based on the first kind, but which introduces the need for empirical verification, starts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_descriptions

And for the third kind, which adds the idea of causality, the formal description starts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality#Causal_calculus

For the basis of defining promises: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/promises/#ScaExpThe

And for the acceptance of scientific theories as truths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

This is not that hard to visualize until you have to deal with axioms; social/culture/ideological 'truth' most people have been ingrained with since they became aware of their surroundings. Such beliefs include human life is 'good', killing is 'evil' (unless it is done to defend oneself or country), famine/ war/ disease/etc is bad; I think you get the point. — dclements

Not sure about this. For example, it's clear that disease is bad; that's not something that is only accepted as a result of cultural indoctrination.... rather, it's the result of getting sick and finding it unpleasant.

Sure. I'm just drawing attention to the fact that "p implies p" is true in any interpretation.

And of course, for not being able to define truth in morality, there is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore#Good_as_indefinable

and for the formal statement of ethical truth within an ethical system:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_ethics

That depends on the semantics of your language. You can of course construct a language in which 'A implies A' is contingent or even a contradiction. So the syntax alone is uninteresting except w.r.t. a semantic framework.

And thank you for the conversation. I can't find anything further from what you say that requires any alteration of my summation, so it appears we would be at cross purposes to continue the dialog, and I hope you find out whatever it is you are trying to learn.

Sure.

I'm going to go with redundancy. — Banno

That doesn't answer the OP though anymore than did Ernest when he itemized the different types of truth. As Ernest begged the question of "what is truth" by simply telling us different sorts of truths, you beg the question by simply telling us that "truth" adds nothing to the meaning of a proposition. You are not arguing obviously that "truth" adds nothing because it has no meaning, but that it is redundant to what already has been said. So, accepting fully that "it is true that the snow is white" is equivalent to "the snow is white," what does "true" mean?

And don't avoid the question by saying that "it is true" means "the snow is white," because I'm not speaking in the particular, but in the general as to how "true" is to be defined.

And this is significant it seems because it you can't offer the same meaning for "true" in the examples of:
1. It is true it is snowing,
2. It is true the sun will rise tomorrow, and
3. It is true 2+2=4

then we might have 3 entirely different truths. To define truth as "that which is" (or similar) moves this discussion farther into the metaphysical and asks whether that state of being of 2+2=4 is at all similar to the state of being of it snowing. I don't think it is.

"Whoever would be unaware of human fallibility?"
—Wayfarer

I don't know for sure, but I guess perhaps the people who claim to God, his will, what 'good'/'evil' is, as well as claim to know the answers to many other non-trivial problems could be some of the people that are not that aware of human fallibility. Of course this is just a guess.

What would you say truth is? — mew

Unanalyzable.

Doesn't it presuppose truth to say what truth is? — mew

Yes.

If this is so, is it bad? — mew

It might seem bad for someone who wants to support some ontological view by leveraging a definition of truth, but on closer examination, those people aren't really hurting anything, so no, it isn't bad.

"Not sure about this. For example, it's clear that disease is bad; that's not something that is only accepted as a result of cultural indoctrination.... rather, it's the result of getting sick and finding it unpleasant."
—Banno

I'll try and explain it this way, the difference between what we think of as 'good'/'bad and what is objectively good or bad when dealing localized conditions and one single action often could be merely moot issue. However when dealing with a variety of actions and their complex consequences that pertain to the entire welfare of a group of people or the human race as a whole then you get into something that could be a non-trivial problem and where our idea of 'good'/'bad and what is objectively good or bad could be very different.

For example in the following YouTube video the author of it claims that the Black Death actually HELPED human civilization due to the overpopulation of Europe a the time.

What if the Black Death Never Happened?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aULu6BqNs

Of course anyone having their love one wouldn't agree that having their love one's and around 30%-50% of the population die from the disease wouldn't tend to agree that it is a GOOD thing.

That which we think of being good for ourselves and the human race as a whole is usually considered 'good' (since it is somewhat difficult to imagine anything else being good other than something helping other non-sentient life or perhaps sentient life if we could find it) but that which may be good or bad for us in the short term may translate into something else in the unforeseeable future.

With trivial moral issues it is 'ok' to accept either Kant's moral imperative and/or one's own judgement being 'close enough' to 'objective morality' to not really sweat the details. However with much larger issues they could be a part of the whole bigger non-trivial issue I mentioned earlier, which turns what we think of as 'good'/'bad' into merely either what we think is useful for ourselves or perhaps merely a best guess as to what might be either good or evil. Theoretically if one is omniscient they might be able to resolve enough of the non-trivial issue to be more objective than we are, however as human beings it would be too difficult to know it that is even possible.

Also while a bit unorthodox there could be reasons why one's own concepts of 'good'/'bad' could be radically different than 'normal morality'. Examples of this are if someone is merely a 'brain in a vat' (ie none of their actions due anything since the world isn't real, nor are their consequences real), or they could be a real secret squirrel and believing harming people is 'good' and helping people is 'bad' (sort of like the Joker when he tries to attack Batman and innocent bystanders as well).

While this usually isn't an issue (I hope), it should give enough pause for someone to wonder whether they and others are more alike the red and white blood cells helping the body as a whole or if they are more like a virus, disease, and/or parasite by undermining the greater good. While the people that were killed by the black death where not parasites, the society and technology of the time couldn't maintain the population grow and their demise could have helped the 'greater good', even if saying that it is 'good' that millions of people dying a horrible painful death during the medieval period isn't a pleasant thing to say.

Thanks for giving my potshot such a thoughtful reply.

If I understand you, you are pointing out that ethical value depends on context. Your example is that while a disease in one of my immediate family would be seen as bad, the same disease might be seen as having overall good results from a broader perspective.

Am I correct in thinking that you add to this a claim that the broader perspective is to be preferred?

And am I also correct in reading you as thinking that this places a limitation on our ability to know what is god and what is bad, a sort of moral scepticism?

I'd like to be sure I understand you.

Exactly right, Hanover. Any statement setting out a definition of truth will be flawed. But what can not be said can be shown.

We might have three distinct types of truth, as you say; but that would be different from having three distinct types of justification. My point to @ernestm, exactly.

And don't avoid the question by saying that "it is true" means "the snow is white," because I'm not speaking in the particular, but in the general as to how "true" is to be defined.

And this is significant it seems because it you can't offer the same meaning for "true" in the examples of:
1. It is true it is snowing,
2. It is true the sun will rise tomorrow, and
3. It is true 2+2=4 — Hanover

Isn't this like asking what "set" means in the general, not in the particular, and being unable to offer the same meaning for "set" in the examples of:

1. Andy Murray won every set
2. He set the table
3. The set of all odd numbers has the same cardinality as the set of all even numbers
4. The Sun set at 8:00pm.

My own take on the issue is that it is more fruitful to ask what function the phrase "it is true" performs. And the function it seems to perform in a lot of cases is one of affirmation. So to say that it is true that the snow is white is to affirm that the snow is white, hence why the phrase "it is true" is redundant in these cases.

Sure, but is it always redundant? I don't think so, as we can easily imagine that there are unknown truths.

Deflation, but not truth skepticism (which is what redundancy is).

Deflation, but not truth skepticism (which is what redundancy is). — Mongrel

The redundancy theory is deflation, and isn't skepticism.

Nope. Redundancy is truth skepticism.

The Deflationary Theory of Truth

The deflationary theory has gone by many different names, including at least the following: the redundancy theory, the disappearance theory, the no-truth theory, the disquotational theory, and the minimalist theory.

And it's not skepticism, as the redundancy theorist can happily accept that it is true that it is raining – which is just a redundant way of saying that they accept that it is raining.

"The word true in these sentences may have the practical function of signaling to one's audience that one is agreeing with something that has already been said or conceding a point in advance that one expects to come up. However, it does not play any logical role, has no descriptive content of its own, and so does not contribute to the content of what is said.

"This view, referred to by Alfred Tarski as "the nihilistic approach to the theory of truth" is also known as redundancy theory of truth.""

That's from the truth skepticism chapter of Soames' Understanding Truth (not as easy to quote as the SEP).

Redundancy is truth skepticism. It's truth nihilism. It's behaviorism driven. It's bullshit.

It may be that it's been called deflationary. I said deflation, but not skepticism.