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

Yes, exactly where I'm coming from. We have to choose between both competing modeling approaches (Lysenko) and competing theories (Russia, Covid, Climate Change..to name a few controversial ones). More often than not, this cannot be done with empirical evidence. The evidence simply supports both models/theories perfectly unproblematically.

So we need ways, habits, which help us choose fruitfully.

"I believe that p is true and p is not true" is, in a sense, consistent and possibly true, but in another sense an absurd thing to say. — Michael

Cool example, which touches on the coherence norms of the 'I think' or 'I believe' that attaches implicitly to individuals' claims. We can see in this example why that norm is so important. We'd think the speaker did not know English or was radically illogical.

Granting that are differences between 'P' and 'P is true,' I still think that, in this context, making them equal is a better path than the alternatives...though I don't pretend to know all the trails in these woods.

I think Moore's paradox might be a useful thing to consider here.

That I believe that p is true doesn't entail that p is true, and so "I believe that p is true and p is not true" is, in a sense, consistent and possibly true, but in another sense an absurd thing to say.

This is where I think the meaning-as-use approach isn't the full story. Although in the everyday sense we might agree that the assertions "p" and "I believe p" are doing the same thing, in a more strict sense they can have different truth-values, and if two propositions can have different truth-values then they mean different things.

So I don't think it right (or rather insufficient) to just look to our ordinary, everyday speech to understand the difference between "snow is white" is true and snow is white.

I was half-joking, trying to get you to see that your theory includes the 'ineffable' implicitly. — Pie

There is nothing ineffable about a world that is not limited by what we say, or, for that matter, by what we see.

The issue is whether a theory including truthmakers, built on the ocular metaphor of representation, is ultimately more trouble than it's worth. — Pie

I am not talking about a theory. Of course a theory is linguistic!

We reason with/in sentences. — Pie

This is in many cases true, but reasoning about spatial relations, for example, need not be linguistic. I can figure out how to pack the car with too much stuff or arrange the furniture without language.

In short, knowledge requires concepts ... — link

You have shifted from being in the world to knowledge. While knowledge is, for human beings, a part of being in the world, that is not the whole of it.

To know something as simple as that the patch is red requires an ability to classify that patch ... — link

This is backwards. I must be able to see that the patch is red in order to classify it as red. Other animals can see and respond to colors without naming or classifying them. Do they "know" it is red or green? Their survival may depend on seeing something as this rather than that color.

... Hegel... — Pie

You may buy into Hegel's metaphysics, with everything wrapped in a nice teleological bundle with not only [added; European] man but Hegel himself playing a key role in the unfolding of reality, but I don't. For all its cosmopolitanism it is more than a bit provincial.

We have to choose between both competing modeling approaches (Lysenko) and competing theories (Russia, Covid, Climate Change..to name a few controversial ones). More often than not, this cannot be done with empirical evidence. — Isaac

That seems correct. Theories are underdetermined.

There's probably lots of wiggle room on the issue of pragmatics, which I'm admittedly ignoring to focus on what I take to be the essence of the issue. I claim that it's better to not think of truth as a property. — Pie

I didn’t mean to imply truth was a property. If the deflationary theory takes truth for granted, then it leaves unexplained what makes a sentence true. Is it correspondence, coherence, something else or nothing at all?

If the deflationary theory takes truth for granted, then it leaves unexplained what makes a sentence true. Is it correspondence, coherence, something else or nothing at all? — Luke

Nothing at all. The postulated truthmaker is either redundant or uselessly ineffable. What makes it correct to say that snow is white ? The 'actual' whiteness of snow ? But what does 'actual' do there?

'Snow is white' is true because (?) snow is white. I claim that that 'because' is misleading or errant. It adds nothing, does not explain.

There must be a reason that not all statements are true, no?

There must be a reason that not all statements are true, no? — Luke

Must there be ?

No, all statements are true, including this one.

If the deflationary theory takes truth for granted, then it leaves unexplained what makes a sentence true. — Luke

I currently take it as the honest theory...one that would rather not spout nonsense, bewitched by old metaphors...

But maybe your intuition is a sure guide ? And philosophy ought to know better than to challenge your hunches?

I must be able to see that the patch is red in order to classify it as red. Other animals can see and respond to colors without naming or classifying them. Do they "know" it is red or green? — Fooloso4

Clearly this hinges on how we understand what it is to know. I'll do you one better. Does a thermostat know when it's hotter than 68 degrees ? Does an electron know that it's being pushed by a neighbor in a copper wire ? I didn't peg you for a panpsychist, but ?

While knowledge is, for human beings, a part of being in the world, that is not the whole of it. — Fooloso4

Thank you, Polonius ! Do toilets flush ? Do cows go moo ?

"Just then, they discovered thirty or forty windmills in that plain. And as soon as don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have ever hoped. Look over there, Sancho Panza, my friend, where there are thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I plan to do battle and take all their lives, and with their spoils we’ll start to get rich. This is righteous warfare, and it’s a great service to God to rid the earth of such a wicked seed.”

“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

“Those that you see over there,” responded his master, “with the long arms—some of them almost two leagues long.”

“Look, your grace,” responded Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants—they’re windmills; and what seems to be arms are the sails that rotate the millstone when they’re turned by the wind.”

https://core100.columbia.edu/article/excerpt-don-quixote

You may buy into Hegel's metaphysics, with everything wrapped in a nice teleological bundle with not only man but Hegel himself playing a key role in the unfolding of reality, but I don't. — Fooloso4

No one does these days, I daresay.

For all its cosmopolitanism it is more than a bit provincial. — Fooloso4

Oh dear.

No, all statements are true, including this one. — Luke

That is, it’s false that any statement is false. :cool:

I currently take it as the honest theory...one that would rather not spout nonsense, bewitched by old metaphors... — Pie

Fine, but it’s not much of a theory of truth if it doesn’t offer an account of what makes a statement true.

Does a thermostat know when it's hotter than 68 degrees ? — Pie

An important question for AI, but I would say that the ability of an animal to distinguish between two colors is a form of knowledge, even though it may be excluded by a favored theory of knowledge.

I didn't peg you for a panpsychist, but ? — Pie

but no.

Thank you, Polonius ! — Pie

Why the insult?

“Look, your grace,” responded Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants—they’re windmills; and what seems to be arms are the sails that rotate the millstone when they’re turned by the wind.”

I assume you miss the irony. You appeal to linguistic practices and call it reality.

not much of a theory of truth if it doesn’t offer an account of what makes a statement true. — Luke

That begs the question. You're assuming anything does.

That begs the question. You're assuming anything does. — Isaac

The correspondence and coherence theories of truth both theorise about what does.

It seems to me that the deflationary theory is not inconsistent with either of these and that either could be tacked on to the deflationary theory for an account of what makes statements true.

I do believe there is a reason why we say that some statements are true and some are false, though. Don’t you?

For all its cosmopolitanism it is more than a bit provincial.
— Fooloso4

Oh dear. — Pie

Hegel's historical and geographical provinciality likewise seems remarkable, if we consider that he was the great exponent of a universal "Absolute Spirit." In the Philosophy of History, Hegel not only "writes off China as being outside history but refuses to give any serious attention to Russia or the other Slavic countries because they contributed nothing important to (European) history. And even Hegel's empathy with western European nations was severely limited, as is shown by his disagreement with Kant about the possibility of anything like a league of nations (PR, §333, Zusatz).

Hegel, like Kant, seemed to think of Negroes as a definitely inferior race. He theorised that although they were stronger and more educable than American Indians (PH, 109), Negroes represented the inharmonious state of "natural man," before humans' attainment of consciousness of God and their own individuality (PH, 123); and that, in general, white skin was the most perfect harbinger of both physical health and conscious receptivity!" In line with these sentiments, he of course eliminated the whole continent of Africa from explicit historical consideration, except insofar as certain Africans were influenced by European Mediterranean culture. He offered a left-handed compliment to "the Negroes," in that he ascribed natural talent to them, whereas the American Indians, he opined, had no such natural endowments (PH, 82). [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/kainz7.htm]

The correspondence and coherence theories of truth both theorise about what does.

It seems to me that the deflationary theory is not inconsistent with either of these and that either could be tacked on to the deflationary theory for an account of what makes statements true. — Luke

Possibly, but it doesn't mean there is a necessity for them to.

I do believe there is a reason why we say that some statements are true and some are false, though. Don’t you? — Luke

Yes, I've written about it on this thread. I think there are numerous reasons to do with wanting to get others to believe us, wanting to show faith in others, wanting to give an indication of confidence...

Yes, I've written about it on this thread. I think there are numerous reasons to do with wanting to get others to believe us, wanting to show faith in others, wanting to give an indication of confidence... — Isaac

These are not the main reasons I would think of for our saying e.g. that “snow is white” is true, or that “there are plums in the icebox” is false.

These are not the main reasons I would think of for our saying e.g. that “snow is white” is true, or that “there are plums in the icebox” is false. — Luke

OK. What reasons might you be thinking of?

Correspondence. “There are plums in the icebox” is false because I looked in there and found none - is a better reason imo than wanting something for/from others.

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

Picture 1 is meant to explain ordinary usage of "truth-maker/truth-bearer".

Not that we have to acknowledge truth-makers corresponding to truth-bearers. — bongo fury

Hence picture 2. Nonetheless, picture 1 is (or so I thought) the usual shared assumption when people use those terms (competently), or when they invoke the use-mention distinction for whole sentences. And in cases like this:

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

I'm hoping the picture will help us agree whether your P is truth bearer or truth maker or both or neither? What are the odds, I wonder... :grin:

Correspondence. “There are plums in the icebox” is false because I looked in there and found none - is a better reason imo than wanting something for/from others. — Luke

So your go to expression to communicate the lack of plums in the fridge is “"There are plums in the icebox” is false"? Not "there aren't any plums in the fridge"?

So your go to expression to communicate the lack of plums in the fridge is “"There are plums in the icebox” is false"? Not "there aren't any plums in the fridge"? — Isaac

No, you seem to have lost track of the discussion. We were talking about the reasons why we would say that a statement is true or false, not how to best express that a statement is true or false. Your reasons were “to do with wanting to get others to believe us, wanting to show faith in others, wanting to give an indication of confidence...” I suggested a better reason for why we would say that a statement is true or false would be e.g. the (lack of) correspondence between the statement “there are plums in the icebox” and what we find in the icebox.

So what's your preferred understanding of truth ? — Pie

My understanding of truth, how it emerges, and how it works within all thought, belief, and statements thereof is not exactly conventional. Correspondence Theory is closest but has vestiges of historical mistaken accounting practices persisting. Tarski's 'explanation' is best, but I've been told that I misunderstand it, because to me it is a near perfect account of how a true statement is so by virtue of correspondence to the way things are, the case at hand, what's happened, is happening, and/or has yet to have happened(wrt predictions/expectations). My outright rejection of "propositions" as they've been historically conceived doesn't help either, given their continued prevalence. As we've touched upon elsewhere, my objection is based upon the fact that convention has it that truth requires language in a way that it is somehow existentially dependent upon it, such that where there has never been language, there could have never been truth. I've very good reason to reject that claim and hold otherwise, but I'll leave it at that for now.

A story may prove helpful...

There was a recent power outage after a storm in one of my sons' homes. The lack of electricity had already lasted for most of the day, and the power company informed everyone in the affected areas that it may take quite a while longer to restore power to everyone's homes. All the adults in the house were cognizant of the dangers of food spoilage, particularly the stuff in the fridge. As a result, there was a concerted effort to minimize potential losses by keeping the fridge closed as much as possible.

My not-quite-two-year-old grandchild had just begun putting more than one word together in speech. She had no clue what the word "truth" meant. She could not use the terms "true", "false", "not true", or any of the other common terms and words used to talk about true and false statements. However, she definitely knew when she heard a false claim about the contents of the fridge, even though she was barely capable of stringing words together, and could neither name nor describe a single item therein.

That fact is interesting and relevant.

So, the power is out, the adults are deliberately attempting to open the fridge as little as possible as a means to save the food within, when she walked towards the fridge extending her arm, fingers outstretched, as if to open the fridge door to look inside. This was already a habit of hers, to stand there holding the door wide open while looking all around inside to decide if she wanted anything she saw. All the adults in the home knew that much and they had all been long since attempting to discourage her from do so, even before the power outage. So, when one of them took notice of her intention to open the fridge, they also believed that she would once again stand in front of it with the door wide open while deciding if she wanted anything she saw. In a proactive attempt to put a halt to that, they sternly called out her name as a means of immediately getting her attention so that the door remained closed. It worked, temporarily at least. She stopped right in front of the fridge, her hand already on the handle of the door, looking back. He then goes on to say, in a much friendlier tone, "There's nothing in there" in an attempt to stop her from opening and holding the fridge door open and letting all the cool air out of it while she 'window shopped'. What he meant was that there was nothing that she needed at the time, because they were conserving the cool air within, but he did not say that, and she did not understand what he meant. She heard exactly what he said, understood exactly what those words meant, and knew that what he said was not true. The interesting part is that she knew all this even though she was completely incapable of expressing her knowledge with the terms I'm using to describe the situation.

Ahhh...but what she did do was sooo much better!

Instead, she furled her brow, displayed all the confidence that a toddler of that age can possibly muster, and retorted "Uh huh" while opening the door wide enough for him to be able see inside. After ensuring that he could see inside for himself, she began directly contradicting his claim that there was nothing inside the fridge by virtue of pointing to all the different things that were inside the fridge saying "There's that... and that... and that... and that..."

So, what can this situation tell us about truth and/or our understanding thereof?

It tells us quite clearly that a mastery of language is not necessary in order to be able to tell when some statements are true or false, or to already intuitively know how to check and see for ourselves as well as showing another that what they've said is not true. It shows us that we can already understand all of this, on a very basic level, long before having acquired the mastery of language replete with metacognitive endeavors that are required in order for us to be able to talk about it. It shows us that she understood how true claims correspond and false ones do not long before ever being capable of using those terms. She showed him that what he said was not true, and that she knew that much, despite her not being able to tell him.


It also shows us quite clearly that coherence played no role in her understanding, in her knowing that what he said was not true. She was not taken aback regarding whether or not his words followed the so-called 'rules' of correct inference. She was not criticizing the consistency of his language use. She was not keeping a keen eye on the form of his language use. She was not attempting to judge whether he said what he meant.

She was comparing what he said about the contents of the fridge to her knowledge of those contents. She already knew that some stuff was in the fridge, so she knew that what he said was not true. That comparison happened autonomously without the mastery of language required to be able to say so. She communicated to him that what he said was not true. She did not have the mastery of language in order to be able to tell him. So, she did so by virtue of the only means available to her at the time. She showed him that what he said about the contents of the fridge did not correspond to the contents of the fridge. In her doing so, she shows us that we need not be able to use the terms so often used in philosophical and normal everyday discourse in order to intuitively know that 1.)some meaningful statements are false, 2.)what makes them so, 3.)how to check and see for ourselves, or 4.)how to show someone else.

It's no stretch at all to extend that to knowing some meaningful statements are true, what makes them so, how to check for ourselves, and how to show others.

All long before having a linguistic framework replete with the terms "truth", "true", "false", etc...

I suggested a better reason for why we would say that a statement is true or false would be e.g. the (lack of) correspondence between the statement “there are plums in the icebox” and what we find in the icebox. — Luke

Why's that a better reason?

Serendipitous storytelling timing!

:smile: