Why don't we go back and see if we can define proposition. What forms do propositions take? If I were to look for a proposition where would I look? What would I see or hear? — Harry Hindu
the whole argument of Davidson's "The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" assumes that translation leaves the language into which we translate unaffected.
— Joshs
I don't think this is so. Davidson's description is of an ongoing and growing conversation.
So do you have an argument for this? — Banno
Davidson quite happily sets truth-conditional semantics as a part of meaning as use, then asks: if you have the truth conditions for a sentence, what more do you want?
It's not a rhetorical question. — Banno
I don't know, as I previously said. — Michael
You can't even prove propositions exist yet you used the term in your attempt to use rules of inference. — Harry Hindu
But you were interested in how they exist, which is what I've been asking you:I'm not interested in proving that propositions exists. — Michael
OK, but do propositions exist when nothing is said? Do propositions exist when nothing is thought? Does the existence of a proposition depend in some sense on us? — Michael
Which I agreed with (go back and look). The relationship between the scribbles, "the cat is on the mat", and the cat and the mat is true IF it is the case that the cat is on the mat. If the cat is not on the mat, then the relationship between the scribbles and the cat and the mat is false.I am simply, for the sake of argument, taking as a premise that "p" is true iff p, or to use a specific example, that "the cat is on the mat" is true iff the cat is on the mat. I then show what follows from assuming this premise. — Michael
...truth conditions play only a minor role in determining the rightness of meaning — Joshs
We gain nothing by assuming a set of facts about the world that supposedly existing independently of all versions. — Joshs
But that is twaddle. What allows agreement is that we share the same world. "Discursive conventions" are our agreeing, they are what our agreeing consists in. PoMo remains hopelessly muddled.Discursive
conventions are what allow us to come to agreement on ethical , inter social and scientific issues. — Joshs
Discursive
conventions are what allow us to come to agreement on ethical , inter social and scientific issues.
— Joshs
But that is twaddle. What allows agreement is that we share the same world. "Discursive conventions" are our agreeing, they are what our agreeing consists in. — Banno
Truth is where the world and language meet. Some of our beliefs are true, some not. Not just anything will do. — Banno
No, rightness is where the world and language meet, and rightness is not about truth and falsity but coherence of fit. What fits and what does not , and in what way, depends on lour purposes. — Joshs
Truth is where the world and language meet. Some of our beliefs are true, some not. Not just anything will do. — Banno
No, rightness is where the world and language meet, and rightness is not about truth and falsity but coherence of fit. What fits and what does not , and in what way, depends on lour purposes. — Joshs
Then I guess Trump supporters and liberals
in the U.S live in different worlds, as Goodman says, given that they disagree profoundly on ethical, political and scientific issues. No pointing to the true facts , while castigating our foes for their laziness, stupidity or malevolent motives, will change this situation. — Joshs
But language is part of the world. We perceive and have beliefs about how certain scribbles and utterances can be used just as we have perceptions and beliefs about anything else.Truth is where the world and language meet. Some of our beliefs are true, some not. Not just anything will do. — Banno
If there are truths that are independent of our attitudes towards them, or even of our having articulated them at all, then truth is not where the world and language meet. Truth would simply be what is the case and what is the case is independent of our having articulated what is or isn't the case.And this makes sense only if we say that there are truths that are independent of our attitude towards them, or even of our having articulated them at all. — Banno
Most people are not in these extremist political camps. People with open minds must play a part in this relationship with the world.Then I guess Trump supporters and liberals
in the U.S live in different worlds, as Goodman says, given that they disagree profoundly on ethical, political and scientific issues. No pointing to the true facts , while castigating our foes for their laziness, stupidity or malevolent motives, will change this situation. — Joshs
No, rightness is where the world and language meet, and rightness is not about truth and falsity but coherence of fit. What fits and what does not , and in what way, depends on lour purposes. We can ignore the particularities of our participation in social activities on some occasions , such as when we create broadly general categories of purpose that abstract — Joshs
Language is not separate from the world. What makes language so special as to have a special meeting with the world while everything else in the world lacks this kind of meeting with the world? I have to learn to understand language just like I have to learn to ride a bike, or how babies are made. The world and our perceptions of it precedes any use of language as language must be perceived in the world to make any use of it.This is too abstract: I think it would be far better to say that it is in actuality and significance that the world and language meet. Some of our ideas are workable, some not. Some of our ideas are insightful and inspiring, others not. Who gives a shit if the cat is on the mat or the cup is in the cupboard? — Janus
. Truth would simply be what is the case and what is the case is independent of our having articulated what is or isn't the case. — Harry Hindu
No. I was explaining the implications of Banno's belief about the nature of truth. If "there are truths that are independent of our attitude towards them" then truth is not a meeting of the world and language, rather truth is "simply what is the case in the world" independent of what we articulate (how we use language).. Truth would simply be what is the case and what is the case is independent of our having articulated what is or isn't the case.
— Harry Hindu
And is this your belief about the nature of truth? — Joshs
I don't like putting myself in a camp designated by some philosopher's name. So I probably don't fall neatly into any camp. I want to know what you mean by "fact" and "convention". Is a convention a fact, or a state of affairs, or what is the case? How humans use scribbles and utterances are themselves a state of affairs, or what is the case.Do you agree with Hilary Putnam that “while there is an aspect of
conventionality and an aspect of fact in everything we say that is true, we fall into hopeless philosophical error if we commit a "fallacy of division" and conclude that there must be a part of the truth that is the "conventional part" and a part that is the "factual part””, and that "this dichotomy between what the world is like independent of any local perspective and what is projected by us seems to me utterly indefensible."?
Or do you prefer David Lewis , Donald Davidson or San Dennett’s attempts to hold on some form of separation between fact and convention? — Joshs
Language is not separate from the world. What makes language so special as to have a special meeting with the world while everything else in the world lacks this kind of meeting with the world? I have to learn to understand language just like I have to learn to ride a bike, or how babies are made. The world and our perceptions of it precedes any use of language as language must be perceived in the world to make any use of it. — Harry Hindu
I want to know what you mean by "fact" and "convention". Is a convention a fact, or a state of affairs, or what is the case? How humans use scribbles and utterances are themselves a state of affairs, or what is the case. — Harry Hindu
No, rightness is where the world and language meet, and rightness is not about truth and falsity but coherence of fit. What fits and what does not , and in what way, depends on lour purposes.
— Joshs
So, where do we find truth then? — Metaphysician Undercover
Then I guess Trump supporters and liberals
in the U.S live in different worlds, as Goodman says, given that they disagree profoundly on ethical, political and scientific issues. — Joshs
Yes, dualistic thinking is unhelpful and I can see the merit of this view. Is deescalation of culture war possible and how do we find our way to a less disruptive, violent world in the light of this? — Tom Storm
I am not trying to give offence here, Angelo, but why should anyone care? Are you saying that morality is simply a matter of personal preferences - between you and your god/abyss? In which case is there any position that can't be justified using this personal approach, from pedophilia to genocide? — Tom Storm
But language is part of the world. We perceive and have beliefs about how certain scribbles and utterances can be used just as we have perceptions and beliefs about anything else. — Harry Hindu
Truth would simply be what is the case and what is the case is independent of our having articulated what is or isn't the case. — Harry Hindu
We find truth all around us, whenever we participate in forming broad abstractions that mask the interpersonal differences in purpose and perspective that accompany our social engagements. These broad abstractions can take the form of propositional truth statements producing the picture of objects existing independently of human conceptualization, and are true facts for all of us. — Joshs
Well Joshs, I don't understand this post at all. I don't see how truth could be a masking. I think it is more the opposite, an unmasking. So I think your explanation is a movement away from truth, toward deception, rather than toward truth. — Metaphysician Undercover
One of the tools you will have used in your counselling is some variation on the "reality rub", where one gently points to beliefs that are incompatible with the facts. — Banno
Your Trumpian friends can reply to you with the very argument you wish to use: they to will pretend that there are no facts of the matter. If all you have is coherence, you've already lost. — Banno
Overwhelmingly, we agree as to how things are. What disagreement there is, tends to how we want things to be. — Banno
Truth as correspondence with what is out there independent of us is one sort of attempt to discover ordered relationships. When I say this way masks something, I mean that it treats a complex series of intricate relations as one single sort of relation. Why does it do this? Because these more intimate dynamics within the abstraction that we call a fact of the matter are too subtle to be noticed. The generalizations that truth produces reflect what seems obvious to us: there are real objects out there in a real world, whose features are subject to conceptual interpretation but whose existence does not dependent on our concepts. What I am arguing is not that the real world is actually fake or imagined. I am arguing that this real world is not a conglomeration of objects, laws and forces that are what they are independent of us. We and the world form a single integrated web, and each human perspective contributes to the evolution of that web. Knowledge doesn’t passively represent, it changes, builds and creates within this web. The notion of objective truth assumes parts of the web of reality just sit there waiting for us to capture what they are and do. But no aspect of the web of reality remains unchanged by what changes in any other aspect of it. The world is a moving target for our scientific inquiries, and our participation in its transformation through our investigations of it change its rules, laws and facts in subtle ways. — Joshs
But this reciprocal
dance between us and world we call science gradually makes the world more intelligible, and thus more ‘true’ , by allowing us to build more intricate and intimate interconnections in the way we interact with the world and each other. The world becomes more anticipatable in its behavior over time this way. This is a deeper notion of truth than that of simple correspondence between concept and object. — Joshs
It's the other way around. Every negation holds within it its own assertion. You have to know the truth to lie. You don't need to know how to lie to tell the truth. We often give unconscious signals to others about our mental state but it takes conscious effort to lie. Telling the truth (unconsciously) is prior to the act of deceiving.Language is about the world, and I would include mathematical and visual representation in that characterization. So, it is via language that a kind of separation appears between the world and what is about it. Of course from one perspective that which is about the world is within the world, but from another perspective the world appears only within that which is about the world. Remember the nature of the dialectic; every idea holds within it its own negation. — Janus
It makes no sense to say that language is in the world but separate from the world. — Harry Hindu
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