↪Sam26 repeats mention of the social aspect of language, combined with what looks like the picture theory of meaning. Truth is defined negatively, "If the proposition misses the mark, or does not accomplish its goal, as a picture or a correlate of reality, then it is false". — Banno

I think my view is a bit more nuanced than your interpretation. I don't subscribe to any "picture theory of language." I don't like any of these theories. If I'm close to a theory, then it would be something close to a correspondence theory. I also said, "If the proposition misses the mark, or does not accomplish its goal, as a picture or a correlate of reality, then it is false." How you get from this remark to "truth is defined negatively" is beyond me. If this is defining anything negatively, it's a false proposition, which misses the mark. The goal of a truth claim is to hit the mark, namely, does it correspond with the facts of reality, which, if anything is a positive.

There is no one definition of truth that will satisfy every use in our language. I thought I made this clear in my opening statement. "What we mean by our concepts, in this case truth, is a function of how we use concepts in our “forms of life,” that is, it is a linguistic social construct." So, if you want to know what we mean by truth, then you look at how we use the concept in a variety of social settings. Any definition of truth, is going to be inadequate, like trying to define, as in W.'s example, a game.

From the Heidegger angle... — fdrake

Trouble with Headgear is that other folk have said much the same thing, yet expressed themselves with far greater clarity.

Davidson in particular, in this case, and leading to the quite different conclusion by ridding us of the model.

Yeah, we've been here.

refuses to let truth get a grip on the world, restricting it to "what is perceived or conceived to be the case", and so is answering the question "what is belief" rather than "what is truth". The oblique references to the communal and utilitarian nature of language remain. — Banno

You've misunderstood. Of course truth gets a grip on the world, but what is the world if not "what is perceived or conceived to be the case" or if you like Wittgenstein's "totality of facts..."

Your ability to misunderstand (whether deliberate or not) is remarkable.

Your ability to misunderstand (whether deliberate or not) is remarkable. — Janus

I agree.

I think my view is a bit more nuanced than your interpretation. — Sam26

Of course.

I also said, "If the proposition misses the mark, or does not accomplish its goal, as a picture or a correlate of reality, then it is false." How you get from this remark to "truth is defined negatively" is beyond me. — Sam26

Simply that you define false, not true. We are left to infer the truth.

There is no one definition of truth that will satisfy every use in our language. — Sam26

On this we agree, so far as substantive definitions. The idea that there could be a single or algorithmic definition of truth is self-defeating. T-sentences just point to the relation between use and truth.

You've misunderstood. — Janus

Good. I was worried about you.

what is the world if not "what is perceived or conceived to be the case" — Janus

The world is what is the case*. It's being perceived or conceived is irrelevant.

It seems yours is the only openly antirealist view. Kudos.

*also Wittgenstein.

On this we agree, so far as substantive definitions. The idea that there could be a single or algorithmic definition of truth is self-defeating. T-sentences just point to the relation between use and truth. — Banno

T-sentences, in my view, do nothing to help people understand how truth is used in social settings. All it does is attempt to define truth in a setting that's so far removed from reality, one wonders if it has a use at all.

Yep.

And yet, they are correct. I mean, you would not disagree that ('p' is true IFF p), would you?

So their use might be in providing some sort of grounding in relating meaning to truth.

Davidson in particular, in this case, and leading to the quite different conclusion by ridding us of the model. — Banno

Would be interested in seeing how you'd flesh out the model disappearing. Is it because sentential truth sets out meaning and is primitive + sentential truth says no more than to assert the statement? To me that looks like setting up a model, destroying it, then claiming there was never a model because you've put the toys back in the box.

Like with @Sam26 (I imagine), a theoretical emphasis on pragmatics and a central role for T-sentences in that theory are strange bedfellows.

No, I still do not know what you mean.

Look, why don't I just solve the problem of what truth is?

Truth is a property of propositions. And there is debate over what exactly that property is. This can't reasonably be denied.

And we - we philosophers, that is - all know what would settle the matter: the matter will be settled when it is clear to us all that a particular view - theory x - is the one Reason asserts to be the true one. That can't reasonably be denied either. For what more can one do in the way of showing a theory to be true than to show that Reason asserts it to be?

So, the true theory of truth is the theory that Reason asserts to be true.

Well, then our working hypothesis should be that 'that' is what the property of truth amounts to. That is, for a proposition to be true, is for Reason to be asserting it.

And yet, they are correct. I mean, you would not disagree that ("p' is true IFF p), would you? — Banno

I would disagree. I don't see that as helping people to understand the concept truth.

Like with Sam26 (I imagine), a theoretical emphasis on pragmatics and a central role for T-sentences in that theory are strange bedfellows. — fdrake

Yes, to say the least.

The world is what is the case*. It's being perceived or conceived is irrelevant.

It seems yours is the only openly antirealist view. Kudos. — Banno

"What is the case" is meaningless beyond what is communally perceived and conceived to be the case. We can get no purchase on it, and so, to use one of your own locutions, it "drops out of the discussion" as anything other than a possibility that may or may not come to light.

That said, because of that lurking possibility what is communally perceived and conceived to be the case may change over time, which means that even the community as a whole may be mistaken. But this possibility offers no positive knowledge of what is the case, but merely a negative constraint upon what is perceived and conceived to be the case.

I don't think of myself as an anti-realist BTW.

↪creativesoul continues the rejection of truth in favour of belief. Something to do with a correspondence between a mouse going behind a tree and biological machinery. I had difficulty following the discussion. — Banno

Difficulty indeed. There's no rejection of truth there Banno. Not in the least. What I've done is begin to point out that of all the notions of "truth", there is only one that could be sensibly attributed to language less belief. There is no other notion of "truth" that makes any sense at all when and where language has never been. Of course, given that you hold to convention and only talk about belief in terms of propositional attitude, you cannot get to where you need to go to situate at least one notion of "truth"(correspondence) prior to language. So much the worse for convention and followers thereof.

I could have set out all the common language aspects, but you and I almost entirely agree upon those. That's boring. Instead, I offered how and when correspondence to fact and the presupposition thereof first emerges, as well as the origen of meaning(how meaning is first attributed), so as to offer segue to how it later becomes the case that "is true" is redundant and truth is presupposed within statements of belief. What I offered also makes sense of my grandaughters' ability to know when she heard a false statement despite barely being able to string two or three words together. Of course, I did not connect all those dots, only having written a few relatively short paragraphs. I did offer an exhaustive outline though, or at least the beginnings of one.

My guess is that Tarski is basing his theory on false premises. For example, the liars paradox.

And the connection between meaning and use is not just taking a popular vote for meanings. — Banno

What else is the connection? Surely it has a lot to do with how most speakers of a language use the words of that language.

I tend to think of the different theories of truth in philosophy as being the different reasons for why a community considers a truth bearer to be true; the different reasons about how the word “true” is typically used; the different reasons for what “makes” a proposition true. For Correspondence it is the relationship between a proposition and reality - whether a proposition corresponds to reality. For Coherence it is a relationship between a proposition and other propositions - whether a proposition coheres with other propositions. For Deflationism it is the relationship between a proposition and a person - no more than demonstrating one’s assent to a proposition.

I guess I was thinking about Deflationism at the level of community rather than at a personal level; more in terms of what most people believe, much like how most speakers of a language use the word “true”, or how most Correspondence advocates consider what is true to be a correspondence between a proposition and the world. Deflationism at a societal level is the relationship between a proposition and what most people (or most relevant experts) believe.

I think if you were to analyze the uses of truth in social settings it would be more in line, generally, with a kind of correspondence. Would you agree?

"What is the case" is meaningless beyond what is communally perceived and conceived to be the case. — Janus

Janus, while that is true, it is also true that "cat" is meaningless beyond what is communally perceived and conceived to be a cat.

Cats, however, do not require linguistic meaning, communal perception, or communal conception to exist in their entirety in the complete absence of everything needed for the term "cats".

The cat can be hunting a mouse and that would be the case, even if there were no one around... ever. Focusing upon the words, their meaning, and what language takes misses the point here... completely.

I think that’s how most people think of it, yes. A lie is especially indicative of this - it’s not really what happened.

Agreed.

Would be interested in seeing how you'd flesh out the model disappearing. — fdrake

On the very idea of a conceptual scheme, again. And that discussion earlier int his thread I had with @bongo fury about the difference between a quote and a use. That kettle is boiling isn't a model of how things are, but just how things are. "The kettle is boiling" might be considered a model.

But that will be misunderstood. Difficult stuff, it seems.

The cat can be hunting a mouse and that would be the case, even if there were no one around... ever. Focusing upon the words, their meaning, and what language takes misses the point here... completely. — creativesoul

This is a very tricky thing to talk about. Of course I agree that there is a pre-linguistic. non-linguistic actuality, and we can intuitively, that is imaginatively, understand the being of that actuality perfectly well, even though we cannot get any conceptual purchase on it, because as soon as we begin to want to say anything about it it is brought into the linguistically mediated world of "what is communally perceived and conceived".

Janus, while that is true, it is also true that "cat" is meaningless beyond what is communally perceived and conceived to be a cat. — creativesoul

Yes, the concept cat is meaningless beyond our social linguistic uses.

The cat can be hunting a mouse and that would be the case, even if there were no one around... ever. — creativesoul

I agree. The use of the concept fact goes beyond the linguistic.

Think it's Davidson rather than Tarski. Tarski's work came out of considerations for formal languages right, in that setting I'd guess they're okay (not a logician, don't know). That's a setting where the whole language turns on propositions with fixed and known rules of association, with an associated meta-language that models them. You conjure up a language and a meta-language and relate them. You can just do that in maths and logic.

That's never struck me as a good way of going about setting up a conception of meaning; in Tarski the metalanguage is a language, in Davidson the metalanguage is a (realist, radically interpreted) language which also stands in for states of affairs. It forces the world into a sentential form by having to flow through the convention. Nevertheless, the world isn't a language and doesn't behave like sentence entailments - instead it behaves like the meanings of sentence entailments sometimes. Davidson has an answer there, because the meaning of a sentence is just set out in its t-sentence; still circumscribing the nature of the world to the constraints of a sentential form, when we already know even most acts of language don't care about sentence structure or even just the words in them (like the famous possibly apocryphal example of someone flipping off Wittgenstein, "What is the logical structure of this gesture?").

You've also got the weirdness that comes from convention T working for factual, declarative language and using it to, generically, set out the meaning of non-factual, non-declarative language through how the sentence somehow 'pictures' the relevant state of affairs. EG, like you can elucidate the speech act of flipping someone off through ""fdrake flipped someone off" is true if and only if fdrake flipped someone off". It strikes me as a philosophical magic trick, you conjure up everything which a reader will be familiar with and throw it in their face with the different parts of the T sentence - nothing more needs to be said because of the sheer act of imagination needed to treat the T sentence sides as setting out the meaning embedding everything to someone who already knows the meaning, but nothing at all to those who don't.

That kettle is boiling isn't a model of how things are, but just how things are. "The kettle is boiling" might be considered a model. — Banno

I getcha. I was focussing too much on the theory terminating through deflation (no more needs be said), rather than (no more needs be said (because the language terminates in the world). See my response to @Sam26 above if you want to see why that rubs me wrong!

I would disagree. — Sam26

To be clear, you are saying that ('p' is true IFF p), where p sets out the meaning of "p", is false?

Why?

This is a very tricky thing to talk about. — Janus

It's all about that which is existentially dependent upon language and that which is not. We need language to draw and maintain that distinction, so our knowledge of that which is not existentially dependent upon language is most certainly dependent upon language. However, the existence of those things is not. There are certainly limits to what we can know about that which is not existentially dependent upon language.

Meaningful correspondence to fact is not, and that is where convention has gone completely wrong. The reason:Not having gotten belief(or meaning) right to begin with. Stuck analyzing propositions and attitudes towards them. Vestiges from centuries old approaches replete with the fundamental mistakes therein.

It really gets back to Wittgenstein (unbelievable, I know), how do we learn to use concepts? I'm saying, if you want to understand what truth is, then you look at use in social settings. I don't believe that 'p' is true IFF p helps us to decide meaning as it takes place socially. We could completely disregard it, and it wouldn't change a thing. There would be nothing lacking.

Indeed. Logical notation takes account of common language use, or at least that's what it's supposed to be doing!

I think we generally agree, with some differences. I have to calm my mind down before bed or I'll be thinking about this stuff into the early morning hours. Take care all.