All languages will die out eventually, and when they do no true propositions will exist; — Michael

This was it. This sentence doesn't make any sense. I think we agree on that now?

This was it. This sentence doesn't make any sense. I think we agree on that now? — frank

It does make sense. Propositions are features of language; ergo if there is no language there are no propositions.

It does make sense. Propositions are features of language; ergo if there is no language there are no propositions. — Michael

Ok. You're saying that if there are no humans, there is no truth. That's anti-realism.

You're saying that if there are no humans, there is no truth. — frank

I'm saying what I said here:

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind.

This is not to say that a mind is sufficient; only that it is necessary. The (often mind-independent) thing that the proposition describes is also necessary (to determine whether or not the proposition is a truth or a falsehood).

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions. — Michael

If there are no truthbearers, there is no truth... about anything.

If there are no truthbearers, there is no truth... about anything. — frank

Given that "a truth" means "a true proposition" your claim is just the claim "if there are no truthbearers there is no true proposition about anything". Well, yes. Nothing true is being said or written or believed, etc.

But there's still gold.

Given that "a truth" means "a true proposition" your claim is just the claim "if there are no truthbearers there is no true proposition". Well, yes.

But there's still gold. — Michael

That last sentence only makes sense as an assertion at a possible world.

That last sentence only makes sense as an assertion at a possible world. — frank

Language currently exists and so I can assert the true proposition "gold will continue to exist even after all life dies".

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense.

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense. — Michael

That's not even a Platonic stance. We're not talking about Plato here. Platonism in logic is just the acceptance of abstract objects. They don't have locations. They don't have temporal extension, so they certainly don't "exist" after all life dies.

We are talking about Platonism.

See for example the SEP article on propositions that you referenced:

The proposition that there are rocks, which we denote <there are rocks>, does not entail the existence of any beings that have or are capable of having mental states. It entails this neither in a strictly or broadly logical sense. That is, it is possible in the broadest sense for <there are rocks> to be true in the absence of all mental states. But now, if this proposition is possibly true in the absence of mental states, then it possibly exists in the absence of all mental states, and so is mind-independent. This is an easy argument for the mind-independence of at least some propositions.

...

But if the Easy Arguments succeed, it seems that to accept propositions, we must accept Platonism. Conceptualism about propositions seems ruled out.

I disagree with Platonism.

A truth is a true proposition. Propositions do not exist in the absence of language and so true propositions do not exist in the absence of language and so truths do not exist in the absence of language.

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward.

I think 'ignore' would be more appropriate…. — Wayfarer

I think ‘finds fault’. Which is rather easy to do, when either the original is merely re-arranged, or, conditions are attached that were excluded as irrelevant in the original.

Doncha just love it, when you invent something, and some guy comes along later and tells everybody you invented it wrong?

I disagree with Platonism. — Michael

I don't think you understand what it is, otherwise, you wouldn't keep talking about propositions existing at a certain time.

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward. — Michael

Ok. You don't need to say anything about propositions to make that point.

@Janus, here is a different but related idea that Paine cited two years ago:

It is also worth considering how time can be related to the soul; and why time is thought to be in everything, both in earth and in sea and in heaven. It is because it is an attribute, or state, of movement (since it is the number of movement) and all these things are movable (for they are all in place), and time and movement are together, both in respect of potentiality and in respect of actuality?

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be some one to count there cannot be anything that can be counted either, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted. But if nothing but soul, or in soul reason, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if movement can exist without soul. The before and after are attributes of movement, and time is these qua countable. — Aristotle, Physics, 223a15, translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye

So I'm asking:
1 ) Take the world without humans.
2 ) Imagine that nevertheless one human existed.
3 ) Get that human to look at Boorara.
4 ) Imagine that human asserts "There is gold in Boorara".

The assertion in ( 4 ) would then be a true assertion, right? But there were no asserters in ( 1 ), so no assertions, so no true assertions. But that process still gives you a roundabout way of mapping a state of affairs (the gold being in Boorara) to an assertion ("There is gold in Boorara"), albeit now through modal contexts. — fdrake

But what is continually happening is that folks are sneaking in (2) despite (1). So there is a human in a world without humans, and there is language in a world without language, etc.

For example:

But gold does exist in the absence of language. It's very straightforward. — Michael

Michael is here trying to use language in the absence of language. He thinks it is straightforward to achieve the effect of language even in the absence of language.

-

Again, the issue here is about how truth relates to minds. Those who want minds to be accidental and unnecessary for truths are doing things like focusing on language or propositions or concepts, and saying that because such things do not cause what they describe to exist, therefore it is true that such-and-such exists even if propositions or language or concepts do not. This is a failure to grapple with the issue at hand. It is a superficial approach to truth, apparently common among Analytics. It is the idea that free-floating truths exist, even when minds do not.

Again, fabricating stuff. Try reading. — Banno

Fortunately at this point in the thread everyone is simply ignoring your plea to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" Such is always only a matter of time.

I agree with Aristotle that time is in one sense measurement of change (movement) and have recently said as much in this thread I think, or perhaps in some other thread. I don't agree with Aristotle's assertion that time is only measurement of change—I think time just is change. But then how we choose to define the idea of time is a matter of which definition seems the best fit.

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense. — Michael

Yep.

The accusation of Platonism is another fabrication from .

The claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense, but there will still be gold.

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind. — Michael

Yes. There's an ambiguity in "truth" such that "a truth" is also used to talk about a state of affairs that is the case - It is true that there is gold in those hills. It is true that there would still be gold even if there were no propositions. That is unproblematic. For most folk.

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions. — Michael

'Gold in Boorara' is just shorthand for 'any empirical fact'. And the assertion of any empirical fact, even one that would be so in the absence of any mind, is dependent on many factors, linguistic, geographic, etc. Given that one is in possession of this manifold, then you can be sure that there must be many facts of which nobody is aware, or ever will be aware. Lasseter's Reef may well be out there somewhere. We know of vast areas of space and enormous periods of time in which there were no humans, so no human minds. Those are objective discoveries, no less certain than that there is gold in Boorara. But I still maintain that asserting those fact absent any perceiving mind still relies on an implicit perspective. Humans have the intellectual facility to measure and depict such facts, and to communicate them to others. When you talk of undiscovered gold and unseen planets, I will know what you mean because we share a common framework of understanding, language, concepts etc. But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible, as it would mean abandoning or standing outside of conscious thought and language altogether. So 'the argument from unknown facts' is really an example of what Schopenhauer calls 'the subject forgetting himself':

Since all imaginable characteristics of objects depend on the modes in which they are apprehended by perceiving subjects, then without at least tacitly assumed presuppositions possessed by the subject, no sense can be given to terms purporting to denote the object. In short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all, and therefore even so much as to assert their existence, without the use of words the conditions of whose intelligibility derive from the experience of perceiving subjects — Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

Perusing the SEP entry that has been mentioned, Challenges to Metaphysical Realism, there are many convergences between this general style of argument and Hilary Putnam's 'conceptual relativism'. I'll do some more reading on that.

If I may...

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible — Wayfarer

Again, who is it who disagrees? Without language, nothing can be said.

But there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.

But I still maintain that asserting those fact absent any perceiving mind still relies on an implicit perspective. — Wayfarer

Does this say anything more than that a language requires a community? Sure, Asserting those facts requires a community that understands assertions. But that is a very different point to those facts being true, asserted or not.

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible, as it would mean abandoning or standing outside of conscious thought and language altogether. — Wayfarer

And here again is the little man who wasn't there: "...to know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework", as if that "conceptual framework" were something apart from what it is we understand. When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. The very idea of a conceptual schema is problematic...

This is why argumentum ad lapidum is important: the rock puts limits on the motion of the foot, just as the world puts restrictions on what is true. What we can do is limited, and especially what we can do with words is limited. Not just any sentence is true.

In short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all... — Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

...and yet that is exactly what we do. Schop fixated on the "subject" and so could not notice that understanding is a group activity, not a solipsistic one.

While the SEP article provides some interesting insights, it is important to note that it is not representing a consensus view. It might be worth reminding folk of one of the very few results in the Philpapers survey that shows broad agreement.

Idealism and scepticism are very much minority views amongst those who pay consideration to such things.

When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. — Banno

You will agree, though, that 'gold at Boorara' is shorthand for 'any empirical fact', right? All of your arguments contra idealism are question-begging, because they're pitched at the wrong level of meaning. You say that the idealist argument denies the reality of empirical fact when it does not. I am not disputing empirical facts.

But there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara. — Banno

Which you are referring to, and relating to me, who understand what you mean by it, as I already acknowledged.

Previously, you denied that you defend the position described in SEP as 'metaphysical realism'.

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans or other inquiring agents take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world’s nature and these objects [together with the properties they have and the relations they enter into] exist independently of our ability to discover they do.

Where do you disagree with that description? Because it seems to me to describe your view in a nutshell.

The fact that idealism is not well supported in academic philosophy neither surprises nor impresses me. It is contra the zeitgeist, to quote a well-known idealist.

You will agree, though, that 'gold at Boorara' is shorthand for 'any empirical fact', right? — Wayfarer

What we can do is apply existential generalisation... If there is gold at Boorara, then it follows that there is gold; and if there is gold, it follows that there is stuff. But the word"empirical" has unnecessary baggage.

All of your arguments contra idealism are question-begging, because they're pitched at the wrong level of meaning. — Wayfarer

Actual I'd flip this and say that you are reading the argument at the wrong level. I am not saying that the idealist argument denies the reality of empirical fact; I would not happily use "empirical". So I think you are misreading me by introducing notions of the "empirical".

Which you are referring to, and relating to me, who understand what you mean by it, as I already acknowledged. — Wayfarer

And yet you have previously said that there would be no gold, or at least no fact of the matter; and here you agree that "there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.". Can you see why you seem to me (and others) to be hedging?

I've tried to be clear that ultimately neither realism nor idealism will do. The part of what you say that I agree with is that we construct our understanding of how things are; I've set this out in some detail in posts about both "counts as..." and direction of fit. The part on which it seems we disagree is that since not just any understanding will do, there is something else that places restrictions on the understanding we construct.

If you were to restrict your assertion to "the mind is essential to our understanding of the word" we would be in agreement. But you instead say that the mind is essential to the existence of the world. That's an unwarranted extension.

Even with Quantum.

The Philpapers survey is there just to keep some perspective on the discussion. It is the degree to which philosophers are here in agreement that is extraordinary. There are good arguments in the SEP article, but they are not the orthodoxy.

But the word"empirical" has unnecessary baggage. — Banno

I myself didn't come up with the term 'empirical' nor how it is used in philosophical discourse. 'Empiricism is the philosophical view that all knowledge is based on experience, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.' Any fact of the matter, such as whether there is or is not gold in them thar hills, is an empirical matter which can be resolved by discovery.

The part on which it seems we disagree is that since not just any understanding will do, there is something else that places restrictions on the understanding we construct. — Banno

Admirable clarification. I think the existential factor that I wish to take into account can be stated in a couple of different ways. First, that reality includes the observer. Or put another way, reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from. The reason that is significant, is because the realist view neglects to consider this fact (hence 'subject forgetting himself'). Hence the ever-present implication that the proposition is one thing, the fact another. That has to be embedded in the 'self-other' framework, doesn't it. But that is such an ubiquitous factor in the mind, that we don't see it.

When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. The very idea of a conceptual schema is problematic... — Banno

So: notice that this differentiation assumes a separation between the observer and the observed. We have the concept, it is in the mind, whereas the object is in the world. But that very distinction is a mental construct, it can only occur to a mind. Self and world, assertion and fact, as separable things. But we are not actually separate from or outside reality. Even Einstein, scientific realist, twigged this:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

There is an historical background to this. The advent of modernity, and with it modern philosophy, is inextricably bound up with individualism. I read recently that prior to Descartes, 'ideas' were not something that were not even understood to be the prerogative of the individual mind. But with modern liberalism and individualism, the individual becomes as it were the fulcrum of judgement. With that comes the awareness of separation from the world and others. Hence the 'cartesian anxiety' which 'refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other". (Bernstein Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. This became a theme in the influential book The Embodied MInd, although I encountered it separately through my own discovery.) The key point is, it's a fact about the human condition, not a matter of propositional knowledge as such. That's why I think it is better explored by (not to say explained by) phenomenology and existentialism than analytical philosophy. But I know the response of analytical philosophers is, generally, 'tosh'.

From my perspective, this is because of something they don't see. From their perspective, its because I'm seeing something that isn't there.

One of my now-standard quotations:

From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts.

When we leave our house in the morning, we take the objects we see around us as simply real, factual things—this tree, neighboring buildings, cars, etc. This attitude or perspective, which is usually unrecognized as a perspective, Edmund Husserl terms the “natural attitude” or the “natural theoretical attitude.”

When Husserl uses the word “natural” to describe this attitude, he doesn’t mean that it is “good” (or bad), he means simply that this way of seeing reflects an “everyday” or “ordinary” way of being-in-the-world. When I see the world within this natural attitude, I am solely aware of what is factually present to me. My surrounding world, viewed naturally, is the familiar world, the domain of my everyday life. Why is this a problem?

From a phenomenological perspective, this naturalizing attitude conceals a profound naïveté. Husserl claimed that “being” can never be collapsed entirely into being in the empirical world: any instance of actual being, he argued, is necessarily encountered upon a horizon that encompasses facticity but is larger than facticity. Indeed, the very sense of facts of consciousness as such, from a phenomenological perspective, depends on a wider horizon of consciousness that usually remains unexamined. — The Natural Attitude

Even though Husserl was critical of Kant, you can hear the echo of the Kantian point I keep making about the empirical and transcendental.

Analytical and academic philosophy is not generally existential in that sense. It is professional, cool, detached, impartial. Whereas my attitude is more like this:

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. He even seems to have suffered from a version of the more characteristically Judaeo-Christian conviction that we are all miserable sinners, and to have hoped for some form of redemption from philosophy.

The desire for such completion, whether or not one thinks it can be met, is a manifestation of what I am calling 'the religious temperament'. One way in which that desire can be satisfied is through religious belief. Religion plays many roles in human life, but this is one of them. I want to discuss what remains of the desire, or the question, if one believes that a religious response is not available, and whether philosophy can respond to it in another way. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

'Empiricism is the philosophical view that all knowledge is based on experience, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.' — Wayfarer

Sure, and as presented, it is wrong. There are things we know that are not based on experience alone. So don't attribute "empiricism" to me.

Or put another way, reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from. The reason that is significant, is because the realist view neglects to consider this fact (hence 'subject forgetting himself'). — Wayfarer

We went for a walk once...

I pointed out at length that you and I agree that we are embedded in the world, that it's not something to neglect, but that we can achieve greater agreement as to how things are arranged in the world if we set out our explanations so that broader perspectives are taken into account.

For the rest, There's little here with which I find cause to disagree. Self is as much a construct as language. your generalisations about Analytic philosophy are a bit trite - Nagel is, after all, more analytic than not. OL philosophy could hardly be described as "individualistic", given its emphasis on shared language. Even if the criticism of Kant in Bounds of sense mischaracterises Kant's position, the view it does critique is not unpopular.

We've been here before, where we find between us a place, if not of agreement, at least of stability. You don't think Idealism is quite sufficient, any more than I think realism complete. But given a few months we will probably repeat the exercise again.

I think that's near enough to a meaningful consensus. I don't know if I will repeat it, though. I'd like to find another tree to bark up.

Michael is here trying to use language in the absence of language. — Leontiskos

I'm not trying to use language in the absence of language. I'm using language in the presence of language. Language exists and I'm using it.

And I can use language to talk about what the world will be like without language, just as I can use a pen to write about what the world will be like without pens.

One day, websites will no longer exist but stars will continue to exist.
One day, the English language will no longer exist but the Earth will continue to exist.

There's no contradiction in me using the English language on a website to assert either of the above.

There's an ambiguity in "truth" such that "a truth" is also used to talk about a state of affairs that is the case - It is true that there is gold in those hills. — Banno

So we have three different claims:

1. "there is gold in those hills" is true
2. it is true that there is gold in those hills
3. there is gold in those hills

Are you suggesting that (2) is semantically equivalent to (3) rather than semantically equivalent to (1)?

Either way, I think the use of (2) is confusing matters. Perhaps it's better to just stick to (1) and (3) as there's less ambiguity.

Presumably they are the same in at least this way: whatever truth value you assign to one, you must also assign to the other two.

Presumably they are the same in at least this way: whatever truth value you assign to one, you must also assign to the other two. — Banno

Sure, but that's not the same as semantic equivalence.

Take these two biconditionals:

1. John is a bachelor if and only if John is an unmarried man
2. John is the Prime Minister if and only if John was appointed as Prime Minister by the King

With (1), the antecedent and the consequent mean the same thing and so (1) is true a priori.
With (2), the antecedent and the consequent do not mean the same thing and so (2) is not true a priori; it is true a posteriori, subject to whatever law determines how someone becomes Prime Minister.

So given these two biconditionals:

1. "there is gold in those hills" is true if and only if it is true that there is gold in those hills
2. there is gold in those hills if and only if it is true that there is gold in those hills

In either case are the antecedent and the consequent semantically equivalent?

If they are truth functional equivalent, what more do you need? What's your point?

What's your point? — Banno

This sentence is true:

1. If the King of France is bald then the King of France exists

And this sentence is true:

2. If "there is gold in those hills" is true then "there is gold in those hills" exists.

Now let's assume that another sentence is true:

3. "there is gold in those hills" is true is semantically equivalent to there is gold in those hills

It would then follow from (2) and (3) that this sentence is true:

4. If there is gold in those hills then "there is gold in those hills" exists.

It would then follow via modus tollens that this sentence is true:

5. If "there is gold in those hills" does not exist then there is no gold in those hills.

It would then follow that this sentence is true:

6. Either Platonism about propositions is correct or the existence of gold in those hills depends on the existence of language.

So to avoid (6) it would appear that one would have to deny (3).