it only has this power of persuasion because of it's logical implications. — Banno

Does it though? I can still see the pragmatist winning here too. I believe the story I'm told "It's true, it's true!" because of the social implications of someone using such an expression. It's often better for me that way, things are more likely to work out how I expect them under that policy.

If we trust the speaker, and we trust their judgment then isn't what we're really doing simply 'contracting out' our own expediency-obsessed inference processes to someone else's. I'm not seeing an escape from mere expediency there.

In other words, I don't take notice of "it's true" because of its logical implications. I take notice of it because of yet more expediency. It simply works out better for me under such a policy.

Seems as any pragmatic virtue truth accrues is a result of that logic. The redundancy of truth lends itself to an obvious rhetorical response: "So you say truth can't escape from mere expediency? is that true?"

Whatever you posit as a theory of truth already relies on a foundation of truth...

The conceptual knot is apparent when one finally separates truth form belief.

The stuff that binds all of us is just clear water (for us.) But the stuff that binds most of us is, I claim, what the greats, among other things, make explicit and therefore optional. (That which is closest is hardest to see, like forgetting your glasses are on your nose.) — Pie

We punish one another for dishonesty or irrelevance or incoherence. We simultaneously enforce tribal norms and attempt installing new ones. — Pie

I used to think of it more or less along those lines until recently. Now my take follows Collingwood, whom I discovered thanks to @tim wood. It's not very different but more precise and informed by history, hence more dynamic and even political. Collingwood was a historian. He formalized this problem in a very clear and convincing manner in his Essay on Metaphysics, showing how our world view and 'absolute presuppositions' have been constantly changing over the course of history (down to very mundane things like the colors we see) under the influence of philosophy or religion, and how conflict-ridden and brutal this evolution was, sometimes.

He concludes that metaphysics are "ticklish". By that he means that a person whose metaphysics are challenged would typically become rather aggressive towards the challenger.

I found his analysis convincing, and believe it does explain why there tends to be some aggressiveness in philosophy, contrary to a naïve cliché of the serene philosopher. Philosophy cuts deep, and it hurts. A philosopher is only serene to the extent that his or her metaphysics remains unchallenged.

Whatever you posit as a theory of truth already relies on a foundation of truth... — Banno

:up:

"So you say truth can't escape from mere expediency? is that true?"

Whatever you posit as a theory of truth already relies on a foundation of truth... — Banno

I don't see how. If I say "Rory Gallagher is the best guitarist ever, it's true" do you really think the meaning of 'it's true' there relies on any kind of logic? I'm just emphasising my belief.

So why need "Truth can't escape from mere expediency, it's true" be any different?

You're assuming we're all playing a certain type of game, but I don't see any reason why we must be, and most times seems to me we aren't.

While conservatives and modernists debate which side is rational or irrational, and what foreign(French) influence to blame for it, postmodernists assert that it is not irrationality that leads to fascisms and totalitarianisms but rigid or one-dimensional notions of the rational and the true. — Joshs

But is that true? Are you telling the truth about postmodernists, and are they telling the truth about totalitarianisms? I say if it is not true, then it is not meaningful and we are not even debating together.

...I'd have to see a stronger argument that matters of eagles and snakes, of cake in the fridge, actually impact all that much on meaning on society, because it seems to me at first glance, that the vast majority of societal functions and meanings depend overwhelmingly on concepts and belief so complex that 'truth' and 'lie' just don't really apply. — Isaac

Consider, then, the case of the scientist who fabricates the results of his experiment. Imagine that this becomes endemic to the extent of near 50 % of published papers. Science, surely then, is dead, it has become completely unreliable and thus meaningless.

Incidentally, I make the same argument for direct realism, that deception must always be the exception and not the rule, because if deception were the rule, then the senses would have no value or use to the organism, and like sight in the darkness of a cave, evolution would produce blindness in favour of a more reliable sense. there can be wolves in sheep's clothing, but as a rule it must be sheep in sheep's clothing, otherwise we would call it 'wolves clothing' wouldn't we?

I've a keen interest in reconciling Wittgenstein and Davidson. Been at it since I were a lad. In a way Davidson's semantic theory might be a more recent and sophisticated version of the formalisation of language found in the Tractatus, an attempt to explicate what is important in our natural languages by setting out the conditions under which our utterances are true. — Banno

I've already started reading about Davidson in the SEP, so yes, that's where I've started. I'd rather start with primary sources, but that's a lot to wade through, so this will have to do. Generally speaking I'm not a fan of Davidson, so I'm already starting with a certain bias, but that's because I think Wittgenstein, even with his faults, is a far better philosopher in my opinion. I don't think that the early or later Wittgenstein would agree with Davidson's semantic theory. However, Wittgenstein's early philosophy is much more in line with the kind of analytic philosophy that Davidson is doing, but in saying that, I'm not saying that there is much overlap, although some.

If you want to understand Wittgenstein, don't look at him through the eyes of others, which is difficult, because we usually start by reading what others have written as a guide to get a general feel for a philosophers thinking. Moreover, this is all I'm bringing to the table in terms of Davidson, a general feel for his philosophy, because I haven't read much Davidson.

My impression so far, is that Davidson went his own way in developing a theory of semantics. And, I don't believe that your going to be able to reconcile Wittgenstein with Davidson unless you do some fancy interpretative moves (aka spin). These kinds of interpretative moves will probably lead you away from Wittgenstein's thinking, not closer to it. This isn't to say that there isn't some overlap, because there is, but Wittgenstein is one thing, and Davidson is quite another.

My suggestion, for those of you who have a background in philosophy, and of course are interested, is that you concentrate on Wittgenstein (except for background information, for e.g., vis a vis Frege and Russell), if you want to understand Wittgenstein.

I was thinking about starting a thread on Davidson, but I don't know if I'm mentally up for it. :yikes:

Consider, then, the case of the scientist who fabricates the results of his experiment. Imagine that this becomes endemic to the extent of near 50 % of published papers. Science, surely then, is dead, it has become completely unreliable and thus meaningless. — unenlightened

Yeah, totally. The results one gets are like the cake in the fridge. If you know they're one thing when you say they're another, you're lying.

Do you seriously think even remotely close to 50% of scientists could get away with lying about their results? The conspiracy would have to be enormous.

But even so, my point still stands. Most of the propositions 'truth' is considered a property of to are not spoken by the scientist who obtained the results. They're spoken by others. So 'truth' means "I trust/believe this scientist, not that one"

Truth is hard to pin down. Deceit isn't. Our senses feed our brain "reality" and as such are solely responsible for any and all understanding of or acquaintanceship with it. Sometimes they can be defective or altered (delusions, hallucinations, dreams). Who's to say all humans aren't, compared to what could be. Relative truth, that is to say a statement free of deception relative to the speaker that stands up to whatever scrutiny a man has learned in his short, short lifetime to be able to throw at it may be able to be ascertained by a certain formula, but absolute truth something that existed before the first number and would exist after the last intelligent thought I suspect is where things get a bit tricky.

Do you seriously think even remotely close to 50% of scientists could get away with lying about their results? The conspiracy would have to be enormous. — Isaac

No, but what I am saying is that we are seeing science being hijacked by commercial interests to some extent, and by career considerations, and so on, and that fuels conspiracy theories and radical scepticism. There cannot be a complete collapse of faith and a complete collapse of meaning, because the lie loses meaning at the same rate as the truth. But people stop listening - they stop listening to the media, to the government, even to each other. not completely, but more and more - society is collapsing because society runs on trust and trust depends on honesty.

I think it is rather important that philosophers begin to understand this and take account of it in their theories of language, truth, knowledge, and so on. A sort of naive physicalism has taken root that has led to such nonsenses as 'there is no such thing as society' - and a pervasive moral nihilism that the human race may well not survive.

P is true is just fancy talk for P. — Pie

"true" denotes "snow is white" iff "white" denotes snow. — bongo fury

Went with describes, but denotes may less jarring for the naming by quotation.

I may be asking for trouble with the dotted arrows anyway.

Trouble welcome.

This should be quite obvious to anyone not seduced by philosophy.
— Fooloso4
Dude. Seriously ? Windmills — Pie

Do you not have a body?

.. what I talk about and what is are not the same.
— Fooloso4

Tell me what is then.

In response to the claim that there is more to reality than what we talk about, you ask for more talk, for me to tell you what is. Have you seen the images of the Webb telescope? Seeing into the past is something we can talk about, but what is seen are not things that have ever been talked about. Things that existed billions of years before there was anyone to talk.

No, but what I am saying is that we are seeing science being hijacked by commercial interests to some extent, and by career considerations, and so on, and that fuels conspiracy theories and radical scepticism. — unenlightened

Absolutely, and we should all be deeply concerned about that, but is truth relevant here? Do the hijacked scientists actually lie, or do they pick their results carefully, craft their statistics, twist their wording...to support the narrative the commercial interests prefer?

I think talk of truth here is the problem, not the solution. Talk of scientific theories being 'true' and all the dogmatism around that approach is part of what's caused the failure of trust. The making of promises one cannot keep. 'Truth' doesn't much belong in scientific discussion at all (only perhaps to keep out actual fraudsters). Quality matters. Things like experimental power (in the statistical sense) are important.

We have to trust our institutions where we defer to experts whose actual opinion we're not capable of judging. I agree with you about the threat this represents to society. I think the solution, though, is more acknowledgement of uncertainty, more openness about modeling assumptions, more discussion of theory choice (where the evidence underdetermines)...

In other words, less talk of truth and lies. More talk of pragmatism and expediency.

Do the hijacked scientists actually lie, or do they pick their results carefully, craft their statistics, twist their wording...to support the narrative the commercial interests prefer? — Isaac

They do all that, it is dishonest, and in effect it is lying.

We had the bollocks about the distinction between lying and being 'economical with the truth', and it is bollocks. Honesty is required, and dishonesty undermines society. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. anything less is corrupting of society.

We have to trust our institutions where we defer to experts whose actual opinion we're not capable of judging. I agree with you about the threat this represents to society. I think the solution, though, is more acknowledgement of uncertainty, more openness about modeling assumptions, more discussion of theory choice (where the evidence underdetermines)...

In other words, less talk of truth and lies. More talk of pragmatism and expediency. — Isaac

Of course, our uncertainty is part of the truth of things. An expert who over sells their confidence is misrepresenting the situation. 'Trust me, I'm a doctor', only works if the doctor is honest about the limits of his expertise. The result of that professions' false projection of infallibility over decades is a distrust of medicine so widespread as to be a health hazard in its own right (eg anti-vaccers).

But no, expediency and pragmatism result in cover-ups and distortions and exaggerations 'for our own good' and they always get exposed eventually and are always corrosive of trust and meaning. We have to trust our institutions and experts, therefore it is essential that they are trustworthy, and that means not pragmatically or expediently truthful but brutally honest and truthful about their own limitations, and about what they do know, all the time, not when it suits.

One should not need to 'talk of truth' - it should be redundant. I am talking of truth here, but I am not advocating talking of truth, I am advocating telling the truth. The more we all tell the truth, the less we need to talk about it.

Whenever one hears, "To be perfectly honest..." or "Frankly speaking ..." or "Let me be absolutely clear...", or "The reality is..." or any such preface, one can be assured that a lie will immediately follow - "and I really mean that sincerely".

↪Fooloso4 While I appreciate your efforts, I'm too far removed from Hegel to see the relevance of your explication. You've lost me. — Banno

Earlier you said:

But idealism is tied to antirealism, — Banno

Hegel's idealism is not antirealism. Hegel's absolute idealism holds that the real is the ideal and the ideal is the real. All differences and distinctions are understood within the unity of the whole of Absolute Spirit, which plays out dialectically in time as history. This includes the inorganic as well as the organic, thinking and being, realism and idealism.

How's this ? The meaning of the assertion, the sentence in use, seems to simply be the world(-as-understood). If we jettison apparent nonsense like the world-in-itself...the world is just that which is the case. To me this is not correspondence. There's just use/mention. 'P' is a string of letters. P is piece of a world, a truth (or an attempted truthery.) — Pie

This seems problematic. If sentences in use are the world, then they cannot also be about, or descriptive of, the world. If there is no distinction between language and the world - if sentences in use are that which they are usually thought to be about - then how are they used? Can the word ‘axe’ be used to chop down a tree? Or are ‘trees’ nothing more than unchoppable words? If sentences in use are the world, then there is no use-mention distinction. We can no longer use language to talk about the world if it is the world. Mention and use collapse into one (another), together with language and the world. All language can only talk about itself as language, or else it cannot be used as language (qua language) because it is the world.

But no, expediency and pragmatism result in cover-ups and distortions and exaggerations 'for our own good' and they always get exposed eventually and are always corrosive of trust and meaning. We have to trust our institutions and experts, therefore it is essential that they are trustworthy, and that means not pragmatically or expediently truthful but brutally honest and truthful about their own limitations — unenlightened

I think we're saying the same thing using different words. It seems you're talking about be 'truthful' about methods and limitations, I'm talking about being pragmatic about theories and plans.

The problem as I see it, is underdetermination. Even with 100% honest scientists, there'd still be a range of theories, all of which are well supported by the evidence. We need to choose between them, we can't do so in the basis of the evidence, so pragmatically, we need some method.

What seems to me to be the current method is yelling at one's detractors that one's pet theory is 'true' whilst theirs is 'lies'. That's the usage I'm criticising.

In response to the claim that there is more to reality than what we talk about, you ask for more talk, for me to tell you what is. — Fooloso4

I was half-joking, trying to get you to see that your theory includes the 'ineffable' implicitly. The 'windmills' comment was intended to remind you that of course we all know that non-talk exists. The issue is whether a theory including truthmakers, built on the ocular metaphor of representation, is ultimately more trouble than it's worth.

Note that inferences do not have non-talk for premises or conclusions (inputs or outputs.) We reason with/in sentences. Of course I acknowledge the non-talk reality in the boring, usual way, but I think it's better to handle it in terms of language entrances. 'The witness saw a blue car parked out front at 10:00 PM.'

What then is required for knowledge of our own inner, private episodes, say knowledge that I’m having a sensation of a red triangle, if it isn’t just that I am sensing a red triangle? What else is required besides the actual sensation? In short, knowledge requires concepts, and since concepts are linguistic entities, we can say that knowledge requires a language. To know something as simple as that the patch is red requires an ability to classify that patch, and Sellars thinks the only resource for such rich categorization as adult humans are capable of comes from a public language. — link

https://iep.utm.edu/sellars/#H3

We can no longer talk of things at all,i.e.,of something that would be for consciousness merely the negative of itself.
...

Thought is always in its own sphere; its relations are with itself, and it is its own object.
...

...it takes for granted that the Absolute stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, is still something real; in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true — a position which, while calling itself fear of error, makes itself known rather as fear of the truth.
— Hegel

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phintro.htm

Can the word ‘axe’ be used to chop down a tree? Or are ‘trees’ nothing more than unchoppable words? If sentences in use are the world, then there is no use-mention distinction. — Luke

In my view, this is tricky to talk about because we are not all using 'sentence' and related words in the same way, sort of like dereferencing our pointers a different number of times. Use and mention are crucial here, and a little ambiguous, I admit.


To say it's true there are plums in the icebox is (basically) to say there are plums in the ice box.

The meaning of our true assertions just 'is' the world. ('The world is all that is the case.')

We can no longer use language to talk about the world if it is the world. Mention and use collapse into one (another), together with language and the world. — Luke

Consider though :

'John said that Sally said that the rent was already paid.'

'Braver emphasizes the similarity of Davidson's critique of conceptual schemes to Hegel's critique of knowledge conceived as an instrument that mediates an otherwise unmediated reality.'

That's me talking about Braver talking about Davidson and Hegel each talking about traditional ways of talking about how talk connects or not to the postulated untalky rest of the world.

Cool drawing. I understood much your intention, I hope.

For 'Hegel,' there's nothing for 'snow is white' or its equivalent 'it's true snow is white' to ride an arrow to. There's nothing behind the (meaning of) the statement. The temptation might be to run it to the whiteness of snow, but that redundance is precisely the motivation to stay put, for we're just repeating ourselves. As I see it, we also aren't served by an ineffable truthmaker any more than by a thump on the table. It's as if the revelation or disclosure of reality is the essence of language.

Your drawing gives me some insight, but it'd help to hear more about how you conceive or deal with truthmakers.

He concludes that metaphysics are "ticklish". By that he means that a person whose metaphysics are challenged would typically become rather aggressive towards the challenger.
I found his analysis convincing, and believe it does explain why there tends to be some aggressiveness in philosophy, contrary to a naïve cliché of the serene philosopher. Philosophy cuts deep, and it hurts. A philosopher is only serene to the extent that his or her metaphysics remains unchallenged. — Olivier5

:up: :up: :up:

We really, really want others to adhere to our solutions.

The simple (eagles and snakes) version of 'truth' is secondary because we don't believe what we believe about those matters because we've done the equivalent of looking in the fridge, we do so because of who we trust, our faith in statistics, beliefs about the intentions of institutions... — Isaac

:up:

the vast majority of societal functions and meanings depend overwhelmingly on concepts and belief so complex that 'truth' and 'lie' just don't really apply. — Isaac

As complexity increases, it may be better to start discussing self-deception or, more neutrally, better or worse frameworks for editing beliefs.

Lysenko forced farmers to plant seeds very close together since, according to his "law of the life of species", plants from the same "class" never compete with one another.[4] Lysenko played an active role in the famines that killed millions of Soviet people and his practices prolonged and exacerbated the food shortages.[4] The People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong adopted his methods starting in 1958, with calamitous results, culminating in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1962, in which some 15–55 million people died.[note 1][4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

there can be wolves in sheep's clothing, but as a rule it must be sheep in sheep's clothing, otherwise we would call it 'wolves clothing' wouldn't we? — unenlightened

:up:

Nice!

There cannot be a complete collapse of faith and a complete collapse of meaning, because the lie loses meaning at the same rate as the truth. But people stop listening - they stop listening to the media, to the government, even to each other. — unenlightened

:up:

To say it's true there are plums in the icebox is (basically) to say there are plums in the ice box. — Pie

I’m trying to get clear on your use/mention analogy. Is this correct:

Mention = “It’s true that P”
Use = “P”

Is that it?

But I don’t imagine that the use of P determines P’s truth. So something else does?

This is for anyone interested but seems especially relevant to my last responses to you two.

One idea is that language is 'primordially' 'disclosive' or 'revelatory.' Our world is significant. To utter P earnestly is to draw attention to the inexplicit or update the tribal knowledge base via one of its 'tentacles' (the guy who found honey in the woods.) We evolved presumably to share such information, so that assertion has a primacy that's hard to gainsay. Along these lines, 'seems' is merely a reduction of assertive force, a wobbly not-so-sure disclaimed that's parasitic on a more primary and confident assertion.

The other idea is that human awareness is fundamentally linguistic. 'Intuitions without concepts are blind.' All reasoning deals with the cooked, so that the cooked/raw distinction ends up looking useless.

For Sellars, inference itself is always a normative affair, a matter of the judgments one ought to or is entitled to make. He defuses the circularity which threatens such an account by arguing that our knowledge of what implies and follows from various claims is, in the first instance, a practical ability to discriminate, that is, to respond differentially to, good and bad inferences. Rule-governed linguistic behaviour develops out of multiple repertoires of ‘pattern-governed behaviour’, behaviour which exhibits a pattern because the propensity to produce behaviour belonging to that pattern has been selectively reinforced and contrary propensities selectively extinguished (see language, social nature of; Meaning and rule-following). The pattern-governed behaviour characteristic of language includes ‘language-entry transitions’, propensities to respond to non-linguistic states of affairs (such as sensory stimulations) with appropriate linguistic activity; ‘language-departure transitions’, propensities to respond to a subset of linguistic representings (for example, such first-person future-tensed conduct-ascriptions as ‘I shall now raise my hand’) with appropriate corresponding behaviour; and ‘intra-linguistic moves’, propensities to respond to linguistic representings with further linguistic episodes (only) in patterns corresponding to valid theoretical and practical inferences. Linguistic roles or functions, Sellars suggested, are ultimately individuated in terms of the structures of positive and negative uniformities generated in the natural order by such pattern-governed activities.

In the Kantian tradition Sellars insisted that, in contrast to the mere capacity to be sensorily affected by external objects, perception of how things are requires not only systematic differential response dispositions but also the ability to respond to sensory stimulation with a judgment, that is, the endorsement of a claim (see Perception, epistemic issues in). Sellars went on, however, to propose that reports of how things look or seem, rather than employing ‘more primitive’ concepts, result instead from withholding these characteristic endorsements. This account enabled him to explain the incorrigibility of ‘seems’ judgments that Cartesianism takes as its fundamental datum. Their incorrigibility is simply a matter of their tentativeness; a ‘seems’ judgment expresses a perceptual ascription without endorsing it. It follows that ‘seems’ judgments do not express a special class of immediate cognitions. Applying the concept ‘looks red’ requires the same mastery of inferential articulations, the same inferential ‘know how’, as does applying the concept ‘is red’.

Sellars’ analysis of the Cartesian incorrigibility of perceptual ‘seemings’ is one strand of the philosophical dialectic most frequently associated with his name, his comprehensive critique of the ‘Myth of the Given’. Basic to this critique is his insistence on the irreducibly normative character of epistemic discourse. Characterizing an episode or state in epistemic terms is not giving an empirical description of it but rather placing it within a social framework of justifications, of having and being able to give reasons for what one says. All knowledge that something is the case – all ‘subsumption of particulars under universals’ – presupposes intersubjective learning and concept formation. It follows that the ability to be (epistemically) aware of a sort of thing rests upon a prior command of the concept of that sort of thing and cannot account for it – and this holds equally true for concepts pertaining to ‘inner episodes’. The first-person reporting role of such concepts, a use Cartesians interpret as evidencing the ‘privacy’ of the mental and one’s ‘privileged access’ to one’s own mental states, is necessarily built upon and presupposes their intersubjective status.

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/sellars-wilfrid-stalker-1912-89/v-1/sections/epistemological-perspectives

I’m trying to get clear on your use/mention analogy. Is this correct:

Mention = “It’s true that P”
Use = “P”

Is that it? — Luke

I don't think we are on the same page yet. For the moment, I'd say...don't try to analysis "P is true." Take it as a whole.

I'm basically identifying use and meaning.

I suggest that it's true that snow is white and snow is white do the same thing when used, have the same meaning. To make that suggestion, I had to mention both assertions.

To say that P is true, is, in my view, only to repeat or emphasize P.

I suggest that it's true that snow is white and snow is white do the same thing when used, have the same meaning. — Pie

My point was they do the same thing only if it’s true; if its truth is first acknowledged. Is that an issue for the deflationary theory? I don’t know.

Also, “snow is white” could have other uses, but that may be off topic.