I wrote:
Not all correspondence(truth) is dependent upon meaning.
You replied(with a fair amount of skepticism):
Ok, then give me an example of an instance of correspondence which is not meaningful.
So, I answered as plainly as I could:
Every instance when meaning is first attributed.
Now you say this:
This is very problematic. When meaning is "first attributed" it is rarely if ever, most likely never, a case of correspondence (truth). You hear a sound for the first time, it is non-random, exhibiting some form of order, therefore meaningful, so you attribute meaning. You haven't the vaguest idea of what that sound corresponds to, yet you know it is meaningful.
I already explained this. Something can be true without anyone knowing it (e.g., my example of extraterrestrial life), so plainly true and knowledge are not the same thing.If this is the case, then could you explain to me how you categorize both knowledge and truth, to maintain this separation which you are inclined to adhere to. — Metaphysician Undercover
No it isn't. Knowledge is a relation between a subject and the known fact. It's not merely a state or a property of a subject taken by itself. If you know that P, then P must be true.Knowledge is the property of the thinking subject. — Metaphysician Undercover
Knowledge has this form: For some subject S and some proposition P, S knows that P.
Truth has this form: For some proposition P, P is true. — Srap Tasmaner
It does not follow from there being an order to things, that there is meaning. As if order is prima facie evidence of meaning. — creativesoul
If it is the case that meaning is dependent on interpretation, then there can be no meaning without thought/belief. Interpretation is existentially contingent upon thought/belief. Thus, there is no meaning without an agent. If there is no meaning without an agent, one could not be first attributing meaning to something already meaningful. — creativesoul
I already explained this. Something can be true without anyone knowing it (e.g., my example of extraterrestrial life), so plainly true and knowledge are not the same thing. — Fafner
No it isn't. Knowledge is a relation between a subject and the known fact. It's not merely a state or a property of a subject taken by itself. If you know that P, then P must be true. — Fafner
Fafner, we've been through this already, it took us days to get agreement. Have you lost your memory? Are we back to square one? I addressed your example, "extraterrestrial life" requires interpretation, and this requires a subject. It cannot be true without anyone knowing it. — Metaphysician Undercover
And we've been through this. "Known fact" (objective knowledge), is what is justified, agreed upon by many subjects. Known fact is not necessarily true. When there is agreement (correspondence) between what the subject believes, and known fact (what is justified or agreed upon by the multitudes), this does not necessitate that what the subject knows is true. — Metaphysician Undercover
There are many examples of when "known fact" gets proven wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover
True. I can't explain how a single word has two senses without first explaining one sense and then explaining the other. So, for example, 'leg' can be used to include tails or it can be used correctly to exclude tails. "Correspondence" can be used to mean what correspondence usually means; or it can be used to mean anything you like in order to shore up a theory that thought and belief are all correspondence. That was the original complaint by another poster. It's worth thinking about even if you don't agree with it.
That doesn't mean that "correspondence" and correspondence are any different in semantics in their expressions themselves. They need further elaboration for that. But feel free to show how they're different without elaborating beyond the expressions themselves. You can't. — Thanatos Sand
That doesn't mean that "correspondence" and correspondence are any different in semantics in their expressions themselves. They need further elaboration for that. But feel free to show how they're different without elaborating beyond the expressions themselves. You can't.
— Thanatos Sand
Well, "correspondence" is a 14-letter word whereas correspondence is a close similarity, connection, or equivalence between two or more things (or communication by exchange of letters).
Just as "red" is a 3-letter word whereas red is a colour. And just as "Michael" is 7-letter name whereas Michael likes to talk about himself in the third-person.
↪Thanatos Sand You conflate use and mention.
Red is a colour, not a word, and "red" is a word, not a colour.
No, I don't. And it's astonishing you think Red is not a word and "red" isn't a color. That makes no sense at all. — Thanatos Sand
No, I don't. And it's astonishing you think Red is not a word and "red" isn't a color. That makes no sense at all.
— Thanatos Sand
It makes sense if you understand the distinction between use and mention. So if it doesn't make sense to you then you don't understand the distinction. There is one. It's astonishing to think that you don't see it.
↪Thanatos Sand
I am Michael. I am not a word. Therefore, Michael is not a word.
You just said you're a word when you used the word Michael to write "I am Michael." — Thanatos Sand
↪Thanatos Sand
I am Michael. I am not a word. Therefore, Michael is not a word.
Of course you did. You wrote that and those are all words, including the Michaels. — Thanatos Sand
The use–mention distinction is especially important in analytic philosophy. Failure to properly distinguish use from mention can produce false, misleading, or meaningless statements or category errors. For example, the following correctly distinguish between use and mention:
1. "Copper" contains six letters, and is not a metal.
2. Copper is a metal, and contains no letters.
The first sentence, a mention example, is a statement about the word "copper" and not the chemical element. Notably, the word is composed of six letters, but not any kind of metal or other tangible thing. The second sentence, a use example, is a statement about the chemical element copper and not the word itself. Notably, the element is composed of 29 electrons and protons and a number of neutrons, but not any letters.
↪Thanatos Sand
I am Michael. I am not a word. Therefore, Michael is not a word.
You continue to conflate use and mention.
And that blurb you quoted doesn't contradict it at all. — Thanatos Sand
Further, I would say that not all knowledge consists of things which are true (as knowing-how is distinct for example), being true is a special type of knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover
The argument I produced, if you followed it, demonstrates that P is true if S knows that P is true, and nothing further about being true. have you something to add? — Metaphysician Undercover
In other words S knows that P is the condition for P being true. — Metaphysician Undercover
↪Thanatos Sand
It's a convention. We can talk about a thing by using its name; if we want to talk about the thing's name instead of the thing itself, we put the name in quotation marks. (Talking about the thing by using its name we call "use"; talking about the thing's name by putting the name in quotation marks, we call "mention.")
Thus Michael's name is "Michael," but Michael is not Michael's name, for the obvious reason that things are not identical with their names.
Quotation marks just have multiple uses, and this is one of them. — Srap Tasmaner
Quotation marks just have multiple uses, and this is one of them.
If you don't like the convention, you're free to ignore it, but it makes it more difficult to distinguish when you're talking about Michael from when you're talking about his name.
These are entirely different dynamics and situations of which I have no interest. But thanks for sharing them. — Thanatos Sand
Srap wrote:
The problem here is not just that whatever warrant you have for asserting that P is no guarantee that P is true.
Fafner replied:
Unless you are a disjunctivist.
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