Sure, I already addressed that. Yep, there are sentences.

Yep, there are sentences. — Banno

Which says nothing about the conclusion, which is that if the sentence "gold exists" does not exist then gold does not exist.

This is like me saying that if the Earth does not exist then there are 7 planets in the Solar System and your response is "yes, the Earth exists".

But surely, truth isn't really about the sentence itself, its about what the sentence is about. Changing the sentence or making it disappear doesn't change truth values, changing things in the world is what changes truth values. Even if a sentence doesn't exist, what that sentence would be about exists / does not exist.

At the same time, I'm not even sure what you mean by "a sentence exists". If people decides to burn all the words and stop talking for 5 minutes, would all sentences stop existing for 5 minutes? Does a sentence exist only if uttered? Does a sentence only exist when someone is reading and interpreting it directly?

"is true" and "is false" mean something like "is correct" and "is incorrect". They are adjectives that describe a sentence.

If the world is as the sentence says it is then the sentence is correct/true. If the world isn't as the sentence says it is then the sentence is incorrect/false.

So it is appropriate to describe the sentence "it is raining" as being correct/true/incorrect/false but a category error to describe either the rain or the cloudless sky as being correct/true/incorrect/false.

The existence of rain or a cloudless sky might determine whether the sentence "it is raining" is correct/true or incorrect/false, but it is nonetheless the case that it is the sentence that is correct/true or incorrect/false. — Michael

Yes, exactly. So the fact that language didn't exist 8 million years ago doesn't affect the fact that mountains existed 8 million years ago, because the what is the case does not depend on the incidental existence or non-existence of language. The existence of mountains determines whether such sentences are correct, not whether a sentence exists.

So it is appropriate to describe the sentence "it is raining" as being correct/true/incorrect/false but a category error to describe either the rain or the cloudless sky as being correct/true/incorrect/false. — Michael

Sure, but when you say a sentence is correct, you are asserting something about the thing that that sentence is about.

'if "there is gold in those hills" does not exist (1) then "there is no gold in those hills(2)".'

Does not seem correct if (1) is about the fact that the specific sentence doesn't exist but if (2) is about what that sentence is about. I don't really see how this exact sentence could be seen in any other way.

the fact that language didn't exist 8 million years ago doesn't affect the fact that mountains existed 8 million years ago, because the what is the case does not depend on the incidental existence or non-existence of language — Apustimelogist

This has already been mentioned several times but it might help to revisit (comments in italics).

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans...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. Unless this is so, metaphysical realists argue, none of our beliefs about our world could be objectively true since true beliefs tell us how things are and beliefs are objective when true or false, independently of what anyone might think.

Many philosophers believe metaphysical realism is just plain common sense ( the majority view in my opinion). Others believe it to be a direct implication of modern science, which paints humans as fallible creatures adrift in an inhospitable world not of their making (science as a corrective to fallible ordinary perception, also a majority view)

Nonetheless, metaphysical realism is controversial. Besides the analytic question of what it means to assert that objects exist independently of the mind, metaphysical realism also raises epistemological problems: how can we obtain knowledge of a mind-independent world? There are also prior semantic problems, such as how links are set up between our beliefs and the mind-independent states of affairs they allegedly represent. This is the Representation Problem.

Anti-realists deny the world is mind-independent. Believing the epistemological and semantic problems to be insoluble, they conclude realism must be false. The first anti-realist arguments based on explicitly semantic considerations were advanced by Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam. — SEP, Challenges to Metaphysical Realism

The position I was arguing for is similar to (although not the same as) Hilary Putnam's 'conceptual relativism': 'Putnam’s Conceptual Relativity Argument: it is senseless to ask what the world contains independently of how we conceive of it, since the objects that exist depend on the conceptual scheme used to classify them.' There's a paper on this here (a Uni of Sydney Honours Thesis.)

All of that is necessary context, in my view, to make sense of why question are being asked about meaning, sentences, propositions and objective facts.

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans...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. — SEP, Challenges to Metaphysical Realism

This is presenting only one form of metaphysical realism. I'd rather say that the world is as it is, and how it is gives rise to our perceptions of objects. The objects that the world, including our own embodied senses and brains (for they are of course part of the world) presents to us together with their properties and relations determine the nature of the world as it appears to us.

The success we have in navigating the environment and the success of mathematics and science in describing the world, and the fact that all our experience leads us to think we share an environment with other humans and animals, gives us good reason to think our senses are not deceiving us.

That said, in light of what science shows us about how the microphysical world appears to us we have good reason to think the understanding of things that has evolved in us due to our experience of a macroworld simply do not apply when it comes to the very small. And I don't think that should really be a surprise, even though it might fly in the face of our preconceived macroworld notions of how things must be.

I think I could plausibly talk about this involving minds and ask a similar question. Not as an argument but I am just interested how you will answer...

What if me and you both existed 8 million years ago and we saw these mountains but had no language. Incapable of it. But now we are: did the mountains exist 8 million years ago?

What if me and you both existed 8 million years ago and we saw these mountains but had no language. Incapable of it. But now we are: did the mountains exist 8 million years ago? — Apustimelogist

The existence of mountains 8 million years ago, for that matter the entire record of paleontology, comprises empirical facts, which I have no intention of calling into question.

But there are two senses of 'mind-independent' in play. The first is the obvious, commonsense one - that there are all manner of things now and in the past which have existed independently of anyone's knowledge of them. Science and the fossil record tell us that. But the second is more subtle (or more philosophical if you like.) It is drawing attention to the fact that you and I both are possessed of the necessary concepts to understand paleontology, geology, and 'mountains', and '8 million years'. That ability includes, but is not limited to, language. When we gaze out at the external world, or back at the geologically ancient world, we are looking with and through that conceptual apparatus to understand and interpret what we see. That is the sense in which the mountains (or objects generally) are not mind independent. They're mind-independent in an empirical sense, but not in a philosophical sense.

Why is that important? It's important because in a scientific age, what exists independently of any mind, is presumed to be what is real. Philip K. Dick 'reality is what continues to exist when you stop believing in it.' But that overlooks the fact that scientific hypotheses and theories are themselves a web of belief, through which we see the world. (Not just belief, also enormous amounts of data, but that is not relevant to this point.) That doesn't invalidate science or question it's efficacy but it does call into question the instinctive sense that reality is 'mind-independent' in the scientific sense. I say that sense of 'scientific realism' over-values empiricism by imbuing it with a kind of metaphysical certitude that it doesn't possess. And that's what I think 'metaphysical realism', as defined in the reference article, means.

But there are two senses of 'mind-independent' in play. The first is the obvious, commonsense one - that there are all manner of things now and in the past which have existed independently of anyone's knowledge of them. Science and the fossil record tell us that. But the second is more subtle (or more philosophical if you like.) It is drawing attention to the fact that you and I both are possessed of the necessary concepts to understand paleontology, geology, and 'mountains', and '8 million years'. That ability includes, but is not limited to, language. When we gaze out at the external world, or back at the geologically ancient world, we are looking with and through that conceptual apparutus to understand and interpret what we see. That is the sense in which the mountains (or objects generally) are not mind independent. They're mind-independent in an empirical sense, but not in a philosophical sense — Wayfarer

I agree with the distinction you make here, but it just boils down to the difference between the actual existence of things and our conceptions of that existence. As such it's not controversial at all, but commonsensical. The only part I don't agree with is the assertion that the things are not also, depending on perspective, both mind dependent and mind-independent in the philosophical sense. Whether we think of them as being one or the other just depends on the perspective we take. Why should we think there to be but one philosophical perspective and sense? Philosophy is broader, more comprehensive, than that.

That ability includes, but is not limited to, language. When we gaze out at the external world, or back at the geologically ancient world, we are looking with and through that conceptual apparatus to understand and interpret what we see. That is the sense in which the mountains (or objects generally) are not mind independent. They're mind-independent in an empirical sense, but not in a philosophical sense. — Wayfarer

Yes, I see what you mean though I may have put it a different way.

The only part I don't agree with is the assertion that the things are not also both mind dependent and mind-independent in the philosophical sense, depending on perspective. Whether we think of them as being one or the other just depends on the perspective we take. Why should we think there to be but one philosophical perspective and sense? — Janus

Yes, I sympathize with a pluralistic way of looking at things in comparable kinds of ways. And ofcourse, the enactive / embodied viewpoints.

the actual existence of things — Janus

But belief in the 'actual existence of things' is precisely what is at stake in the meaning of metaphysical realism. It is exactly what is at issue: you can't know anything of the 'actual existence of things' apart from what your mind enables you to conceive or perceive. You have something in mind when you indicate 'actual things' but you can never actually say what that something is. Not that I want to start yet another of these arguments but I can't just let it go.

I think where you are confusing yourself is that you seem to think we cannot conceive that things have an existence of their own independently of us. But we do conceive of such a thing even though we obviously only know the existence of things as it is experienced by us. We naturally are capable of conceiving the two perspectives—'for us' and 'in itself'.

I see the fact that we can conceive of the in itself as being of the greatest importance because it allows for mystery, for uncertainty, for the creative imagination. We can conceive of the in itself, but of course we cannot conceive it, if you get the distinction. Perhaps we have a feeling for it, who knows. On the other hand, because we cannot experience the in itself it is literally nothing for us. That is the paradoxical as well as the creative nature of the human condition.

I think where you are confusing yourself is that you seem to think we cannot conceive that things have an existence of their own independently of us. — Janus

Name one!

We can conceive of the in itself, but of course we cannot conceive it — Janus

Yet, somehow, I’m confused?

That's a silly request. It's like asking me to show you a round square—impossible by definition. If you want to say we cannot conceive of even the possibility of the transcendental, then for you it can mean nothing to us. But of course that is not correct. Did Kant not conceive of the in itself? You are failing to see the difference between being able to conceive of the possibility of the existence of the independently Real and being able to conceive it in the sense of knowing or grasping what it is.

Yes, exactly. So the fact that language didn't exist 8 million years ago doesn't affect the fact that mountains existed 8 million years ago, because the what is the case does not depend on the incidental existence or non-existence of language. The existence of mountains determines whether such sentences are correct, not whether a sentence exists. — Apustimelogist

I'm not denying this. I'm simply explaining the proper use of the adjectives "true" and "false".

The traditional view is that there are truth-makers and truth-bearers. Truth and falsehood are properties of truth-bearers, not properties of truth-makers, and not the truth-makers themselves.

If the appropriate truth-maker exists/occurs then the truth-bearer is true, otherwise the truth-bearer is false.

A truth-maker can exist even if a truth-bearer doesn't, but if a truth-bearer doesn't exist then nothing exists that has the property of being either true (correct/accurate) or false (incorrect/inaccurate).

And as for my debate with @Banno, there's a very simple solution; we ought be more precise with P1:

P1. If someone expresses the sentence "it is raining" then their expression is true if and only if it is raining

Then we no longer derive the absurd conclusions that if the sentence "it is raining" does not exist then it is not raining and if the sentence "it is not raining" does not exist then it is raining.

And it helps us avoid any Platonic interpretation of propositions.

If we uploaded your consciousness to a self repairing robot and checked back in 10,000 years from now and asked you about the sentence thing, we'd find your view had not changed at all. Gotta respect that.

A truth-maker can exist even if a truth-bearer doesn't, but if a truth-bearer doesn't exist then nothing exists that has the property of being either true (correct/accurate) or false (incorrect/inaccurate). — Michael

The way you've been presenting this thought completely fails to acknowledge the fact that you can distinguish between the existence or non-existence of a sentence and what that sentence is about. If you cannot do that then I don't think it can be a complete or good characterization from my perspective because this is something i can do very intuitively, regardless of what i think about truth or objectivity. My intuition is that your analysis is making a similar kind of error that moral realists sometimes make when they confuse normative statements with meta-ethical statements, in the sense that your account obfuscates the distinction between a sentence and what a sentence is about. Obviously, I have seen you say that you don't do that. But in order to do that you have to use sentences that says gold exists in some world even though you have said that sentences about gold existing cannot exist and so gold doesnt exist in that world.. and that makes no sense to me. This kind of paradoxical thing wouldn't happen if you acknowledge the distinction - you need to distinguish truth and meta-truth. This seems rather general; we must always make the distinction between "objects" and talk "about-objects" otherwise we get paradoxes - trivially if a sentence about an object becomes the object it is talking about, you get paradoxes - e.g. I am lying. And this doesn't have to be direct, e.g. if you have networks of statements that are about each other recursively.

The way you've been presenting this thought completely fails to acknowledge the fact that you can distinguish between the existence or non-existence of a sentence and what that sentence is about. — Apustimelogist

I'm not failing to distinguish them. I'm saying that the adjectives "true" and "false" apply to sentences, not to rain or gold. I think I've been very clear.

If we uploaded your consciousness to a self repairing robot and checked back in 10,000 years from now and asked you about the sentence thing, we'd find your view had not changed at all. Gotta respect that. — frank

What is so problematic about my view?

Sentences are true and cardboard boxes have 8 corners. Your claim that sentences merely express (abstract) propositions and that it is these (abstract) propositions that are true is like the claim that cardboard boxes merely exemplify cubes and that it is these abstract cubes that have 8 corners.

If you want to talk about things in terms of abstract objects then go ahead, but I'm quite happy in saying that sentences are true and that cardboard boxes have 8 corners. Abstractions might be conceptually useful, but given that they lead some to Platonism I'd rather just not give them much significant thought.

For me, I think truth possibly would make sense as more like a condition that asserts what those sentences are about, which then maybe eases the problem I said in my post after I acknowledge that you already said you don't fail to distinguish them.

Abstractions might be conceptually useful, but given that they lead some to Platonism I'd rather just not give them much significant thought. — Michael

For me, I would say everything we talk about is an abstraction on some level. Sentences are abstractions, "conceptually useful" is an abstraction, thought is an abstraction. The beauty of the complexity of the human brain is that we can use these abstract concepts even when it is not always straightforward what they actually mean in some clear, concrete, determinate sense.

I think truth possibly would make sense as more like a condition that asserts what those sentences are about — Apustimelogist

I don't understand what this means.

The sentence "it is raining" is a sentence about the weather and is true if it is raining and false if it isn't.

Nothing more needs to be said about truth and falsity. We don't need them to be both properties of sentences and properties of something else.

This notion that the existence of rain either entails or requires that something has the property of being true is misguided.

This notion that the existence of rain either entails or requires that something has the property of being true is misguided. — Michael

Yes, it just requires the property of rain existing. To say something is true simply asserts this, and the non-existence of a sentence doesn't affect the truth, only the existence of the thing the sentence is asserting the existence of.

the non-existence of a sentence doesn't affect the truth — Apustimelogist

There's no such thing as the truth; there's only the truth of a sentence, so this remark doesn't make much sense.

What you should say is that the non-existence of a sentence doesn't affect the existence of rain.

There's no such thing as the truth; there's only the truth of a sentence, so this remark doesn't make much sense. — Michael

And yet your view entails it. You say that in the cases we are speaking about, "gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false." When asked whether this commits you to the idea that it is true that gold still exists, you bury your head in the sand.

Here are three sentences:

1. "Gold exists" is true
2. It is true that gold exists
3. Gold exists

(1) and (3) do not mean the same thing; (1) describes a sentence as being true but (3) doesn't.

To me, (2) and (1) mean the same thing; they both describe a sentence as being true – (2) just does so without the use of quotation marks.

But perhaps you want to say that (2) and (3) mean the same thing? If so, the phrase "it is true that" is vacuous, adding nothing to the sentence that isn't already given in (3). The word "it" in the phrase "it is true that" doesn't refer to anything, and it doesn't make sense for some non-existent entity to have the property of being true.

In fact, I think "is true" can be replaced with the phrase "is an accurate account of the world" without issue. So, we have:

1. "Gold exists" is an accurate account of the world
2. It is an accurate account of the world that gold exists
3. Gold exists

My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. Which is true; there can't be an accurate account of the world if nobody is saying or writing or signing or thinking something about the world.

Here are three sentences:

1. "Gold exists" is true
2. It is true that gold exists
3. Gold exists

(1) and (3) do not mean the same thing; (1) describes a sentence as being true but (3) doesn't. — Michael

Here is what you said earlier, which is both better and contradictory to what you are saying now:

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

-

But perhaps you want to say that... — Michael

I am saying that when you assert that gold exists you are involved in a truth claim. When you try to assert that gold exists while simultaneously eschewing all instances of truth/falsity, you are contradicting yourself.

My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael

Again:

But now you should go on to ask yourself how it is that you are claiming, "(It is true that) gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false." You've highlighted sentence-Platonism, but you still haven't reckoned with your own truth-Platonism. — Leontiskos

The sentence-Platonism or description-Platonism is clear enough at this point, and it was salutary in canvassing Banno's blindspot. But I'd say you are still involved in truth-Platonism. So:

In fact, I think "is true" can be replaced with the phrase "is an accurate account of the world" without issue. So, we have:

1. "Gold exists" is an accurate account of the world
2. It is an accurate account of the world that gold exists
3. Gold exists

My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael

Our earlier exchange:

• Leontiskos: When you say that gold exists are you not uttering a truth?
• Michael: ...

The adapted exchange would be as follows:

• Leontiskos: When you say that gold exists are you not providing an accurate account of the world?
• Michael:

There are two planets, A and B. I live on planet A. Planet B is uninhabited and rich in gold. I say "gold exists on planet B but nothing true or false is said on planet B". What I say is true, and is being said on planet A.

There are two possible universes, A and B. I live in universe A (the actual universe). Universe B is uninhabited and rich in gold. I say "gold exists in universe B but nothing true or false is said in universe B". What I say is true, and is being said in universe A.

See Truth in a World vs. Truth at a World for a more in depth examination.

- Okay, but your distinction between universe A and B is ad hoc for the purposes of predication. What began as a simple contradiction, "It is true and not true that gold exists," ended as a more complex contradiction, "That gold exists in universe B is true in universe A and neither true nor false in universe B." This use of "possible universes" is little more than a thin construct constructed to band-aid a contradiction.

We can see this if we consider the simple and non-"universe"-scoped question of whether it is true that gold exists in universe B. The answer to this question is either yes or no. Truths are not scoped to universes in your sense that what is true about Asia in Europe is not true about Asia in Asia (to alter the metaphor).