The answer exists? Where is it? — frank

No, when I say that there's an answer to the question I am saying that it is possible to answer the question with a truthful sentence.

No, when I say "there's an answer to the question" I am saying that it is possible to answer the question with a truthful sentence. — Michael

I see. So when you say the answer exists, you mean it exists in potential?

I see. So when you say the answer exists, you mean it exists in potential? — frank

I'm saying that it is possible to say something truthful that answers the question.

I'm saying that it is possible to respond to the question by saying something true. — Michael

What do you mean by "possible?" Do you mean in principle, it's possible to answer by stating a true truthbearer?

I mean what the word ordinarily means. It is possible to say something truthful that answers the question.

How is this not clear?

I mean what the word ordinarily means. It is possible to say something truthful that answers the question.

How is this not clear? — Michael

How do you know it's possible for anyone to state the reason for Park's disappearance? We may never know.

How do you know it's possible for anyone to state the reason for Park's disappearance? We may never know. — frank

We don't need to know that a sentence is true for it to be true.

We don't need to know that a sentence is true for it to be true. — Michael

But we don't even know what the sentence is in this case. Are you saying that an unknown sentence is true? If so, where is this sentence?

Are you saying that an unknown sentence is true? — frank

No, I'm saying that it's possible to say something truthful that answers the question, even if we don't know that what we are saying is true.

I'm not sure what that means. Is there an unknown truth regarding Park? Or not?

Is there an unknown truth regarding Park? Or not? — frank

We don't know what happened to Yoon Park.
We don't know if "Yoon Park was kidnapped" is true.
We don't know if "Yoon Park ran away" is true.
We don't know if "Yoon Park drowned" is true.

It's very simple. I really don't understand what you find objectionable, or even what you think I'm saying, because I'm starting to suspect that you're reading something into my words that just isn't there.

So I'll try to be as clear as I can:

1. Truth and falsehood are properties of truth-bearers
2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects

Which of these do you disagree with?

So you don't believe there is an unknown truth regarding Park. This would require accepting the existence of an unavailable truthbearer. I'm a little befuddled that you don't see the implications of that. But it is what it is.

1. Truth and falsehood are properties of truth-bearers
2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects

Which of these do you disagree with? — Michael

You can believe whatever you like. It doesn't bother me. Sentences are also abstract objects. All you have left is sound and marks, but you said gold can't have the property of truth, so I don't know how a sound is supposed to.

There is no deeper metaphysics. We say things, we write things, we sign things. There's no need to overthink this. — Michael

That's the avoidance of an answer and the avoidance of philosophy.

• Let's talk about what truth-bearers are.
• Michael: Impossible!

Again, philosophers have been talking about the status of truth-bearers for thousands of years. This is a pretty standard topic, and most everyone responding to you is critical along similar lines, including myself, frank, fdrake, Apustimelogist, and Srap.

Truth is an adjective applied to a sentence but it brings unintuitive consequences if you don't further dissect what a sentence is - that there is sentence as object and what the sentence is about. They are independent in the same way that observer and observation should be independent in order to avoid paradoxes like the liar paradox. When we say that a sentence is true, we are saying that what the sentence is about is true, what the sentence is about is the case. It is meaningless to say if a sentence is true if it is not about something - when we say a sentence is true, we are actually talking about what the sentence is about. This is doing all the work.

when we say that the sentence "it is raining" is false we are saying that the sentence is false, we're not saying that the rain is false. — Michael

We are saying that that the existence of rain in some spatiotemporal context is not the case. We are saying what the sentence is about is not the case.

A sentence not existing (the object which we would add the phrase "is true" to) doesn't mean that what the sentence is about doesn't exist.

Other adjectives or adverbs are also about things: "big" is about bigness, "gold" is about goldness. Regular adjectives are applied to words or phrases but we are talking about properties that belong to what those words and phrases are about, not the words and phrases themselves. If I remove all words from the world that are names of living organisms, that doesn't mean that there is nothing with the property of being "alive" - "alive" is a property of what the names of animals are about, not the names themselves.

I think "truth" is also about something. Truth is what is the case. We can distinguish truth and "true" "sentences" as objects - in the sense of squiggles and symbols and sounds. Removing the latter doesn't change the former... or you have to make an explicit distinction between them otherwise you endup implying the same word "truth" in contradictory ways I think. Something which you seem to try to remedy in the painting example.

So if there are no people there is nothing which has the property of being either true or false. But assuming that idealism/phenomenalism isn't the case, there is still gold and rain and so on. — Michael

You seem to think that (1) and (2) are true only if some truth-bearer existed 10 million years ago. — Michael

The truth (pun intended) is that truth-bearers didn't exist 10 million years ago (but dinosaurs did), and it is only the sentences we use now (about the past) that are either true or false. — Michael

Well clearly the issue is you have a different definition of truth we just agree on otherwise you wouldn't be repeating what seems like contradictions. You think that truth is just something you tag onto sentences. Well fine, you can do that; it just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't why you're making this so complicated. — frank

:wink:

Another contributor compared @Michael to a small dog who refuses to let go of a big bone. One admires his tenacity, but wonders as to the point.

Michael's argument talks about the existence of sentences. Hence it make use of quantification in a second-order language - a language about language. In a first-order language we can make the an inference by quantifying over a predication - from f(a) to ∃(x)f(x). In second order logic one might perform a similar operation over a group of predicates. If we have ϕ(f(a)), we can infer ∃Pϕ(P) - if f(a) is ϕ, then something (P, in this case) is ϕ. But at issue here is a choice in how this is to be understood. Is it about just the things (a,b,c...) that make up the domain of the logic, or does it bring something new, P, into the ontology? The first is the substitutional interpretation, the second is the quantificational interpretation. This second interpretation has Platonic overtones, since it seems to invoke the existence of a certain sort of abstract "thing".

Sorry for the formal stuff. More casually, when we move from talking about things to talking about sentences about things, it can feel like we have added something more to the set of "what there is to talk about" - that sentences about things are also things... And hence to the illusion of some sort of abstract doohickies. The quantificational interpretation.

Alternately our talk of sentences is still just talk about the individuals around us. The substitutional interpretation.

Michael's position relies on the quantificational interpretation.

There's nothing amiss with that per se. The quantificational interpretation works well in mathematics. But at stake here is if it works well for talk of things being true.

Extensionally, a sentence is true if it satisfied the model we are considering. But how this all pans out in @Michael's argument is far from clear. He seems to be interpreting sentences quantificational, so that he can say they exist, while at the same time insisting that they are substitutional - what he says

2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects — Michael

This might lie parallel with the questions you have been asking Michael.

Here's an example. "Michael is courageous" is a first-order predication, talking about Michael. "Courage is a virtue" is a second-order predication, about courage. Now is "Courage is a virtue" a round-about way of talking about Michael, as the substitution interpretation would have it? Just a way of saying that Michael has a virtue? Or does it bring into existence a new "abstract" individual, "Courage", as the quantificational interpretation might imply?

And again, to my eye these are things of little significance. Just different ways of talking.

Does this mean Michael is invoking a set of all possible sentences? Or did I totally misunderstand?

Well, yes. But is the set of all possible sentences different to the set of all sentences?

And of course the issues around sets of sets are problematic.

Well, yes. But is the set of all possible sentences different to the set of all sentences? — Banno

It's just that that's a big abstract object. Does it cover all sentences past and future? Like sentences from dead languages like Sumerian?

Indeed. It's not at all clear what a sentence is - what counts as a sentence for the purposes of this discussion?

All this ambiguity...

Davidson reduced language to first-order extensional prediction, removing much of the peripheral stuff. But of course that brought another set of problems. Despite that his approach has much to recommend it, by way of clarifying some issues.

What I gather is that Michael believes that truth only applies to utterances, whether spoken or written. He does keep talking about sentences, but I think that's because he doesn't realize that sentences are not physical objects. At the same time, he wants to be a realist. I don't think there is anyway to reconcile those two beliefs.

Well, its a complex, multifaceted issue. A close approximation might be that being true is something we do with utterances, rather than saying that some utterances are true. It's not the noise or the marks that are true, after all - utterances are only true if a whole lot of other stuff is included. There's a tendency to try to make a messy process much neater, but the mess is perhaps ineliminable.

What I'm saying is what I've said above:

1. Truth is a property of truth-bearers, and
2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects à la Platonism

I'll reference the SEP article on truth again:

We thus find the usual candidate truth-bearers linked in a tight circle: interpreted sentences, the propositions they express, the belief speakers might hold towards them, and the acts of assertion they might perform with them are all connected by providing something meaningful. This makes them reasonable bearers of truth.

I don't think I'm arguing for anything controversial.

And it's still not clear to me what you find objectionable about the above. At various points you seem to agree with me on both (1) and (2).

What also isn't clear to me is how you can agree with both (1) and (2) and yet also claim that there were truths when there wasn't a language. That seems to be a very obvious inconsistency. At the very least you're equivocating on the term "truth".

At the same time, he wants to be a realist. — frank

No I don't. But I don't think anything I'm arguing is inconsistent with realism. Realism doesn't require Platonism, does it?

Michael's argument talks about the existence of sentences. Hence it make use of quantification in a second-order language - a language about language. In a first-order language we can make the an inference by quantifying over a predication - from f(a) to ∃(x)f(x). In second order logic one might perform a similar operation over a group of predicates. If we have ϕ(f(a)), we can infer ∃Pϕ(P) - if f(a) is ϕ, then something (P, in this case) is ϕ. But at issue here is a choice in how this is to be understood. Is it about just the things (a,b,c...) that make up the domain of the logic, or does it bring something new, P, into the ontology? The first is the substitutional interpretation, the second is the quantificational interpretation. This second interpretation has Platonic overtones, since it seems to invoke the existence of a certain sort of abstract "thing". — Banno

I really don't understand the difficulty you're having with the English-language argument. You seem to understand what "if human minds do not exist then gold still exists" means, and so presumably you understand what "if languages do not exist then gold still exists" means, and so presumably you understand what "if sentences do not exist then gold still exists" means, and so presumably you understand what "if sentences do not exist then gold does not exist" means.

I really don't understand the difficulty you're having with the English-language argument — Michael

Yep. I can see that.

What I'm saying is what I've said above:

1. Truth is a property of truth-bearers, and
2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects à la Platonism — Michael

Sentences are abstract objects. If you rule out sentences, your truth bearer is sounds and marks. How can a sound have the property of truth?

Well, its a complex, multifaceted issue. A close approximation might be that being true is something we do with utterances, rather than saying that some utterances are true. It's not the noise or the marks that are true, after all - utterances are only true if a whole lot of other stuff is included. There's a tendency to try to make a messy process much neater, but the mess is perhaps ineliminable. — Banno

:up:

Sentences are abstract objects. — frank

Are they mind-independent? Do sentences exist even if language doesn't?

How can a sound have the property of truth? — frank

How can an abstract object have the property of truth? How can a sound be "connected" to an abstract object?

Are they mind-independent? Do sentences exist even if language doesn't? — Michael

They're independent of any particular mind. That's what makes them abstract objects. The same is the case for numbers, sets, propositions, etc. They aren't physical objects.

How can an abstract object have the property of truth? — Michael

In the case of a proposition, it's because it's the meaning of an uttered sentence.

How can a sound be "connected" to an abstract object? — Michael

Sounds and marks are intentionally used to express truth or falsehood.

How can an abstract object have the property of truth? — Michael

Becasue that's what we do with sentences such as those...

Sometimes we use those sentences as if they set out what is the case, and call them true. Sometimes, we use them to set out what is not the case, and call them false...

It's not so much that one can prove that sentences are the sort of thing that is true or false, as deciding that being true or false is the sort of thing that sentences - statements in particular - are able to do. Or, more accurately, as deciding that statements are the sort of thing we can treat as being true or false. — Banno

This by way of reiterating 's comments.

"Truth is a property of truth-bearers" hides what is going on by implicitly adopting a quantificational interpretation. The picture it presents is of the sentence "There is gold in those hills" having the property of "truth", as Michael suggests. The structure uses a new entity, the sentence "There is gold in those hills", and in so-doing it confuses folk into looking around for this new abstraction. It misleads Michael to think that truths only exist when sentences exist.

But saying that <"There is gold in those hills" has the property of "truth"> is just a way of saying that there is gold in those hills. And "just" here is the same as "is no more than". This is the substitution interpretation.

All three of the following have the very same truth value:

• "There is gold in those hills" has the property of "truth"
• "There is gold in those hills" is true
• There is gold in those hills

It is muddled to think that the first and the second require the existence of something in addition to gold and hills - namely the sentence "There is gold in those hills". Language is bewitching. All three are just different ways of talking about gold and hills.

Of course, we can talk as if there are things called sentences, and do some interesting things with them. But we must keep in mind that sentences are in very important ways different to things such as hills and gold.

This is why

P2. If the sentence "there is gold in those hills" is true then the sentence "there is gold in those hills" exists. — Michael

is problematic. It seems to imply that the sentence is at the same level as the gold and the hills. It isn't. The sentence is a logical order above the hills and the gold.



And yes, Michael doesn't understand the difficulty I'm having with the English-language argument. But there it is.

They're independent of any particular mind. That's what makes them abstract objects. — frank

Do they exist if language doesn't? This is the core of the issue. If sentences are features of language then even if sentences are abstract my point still stands: if there is no language then nothing has the property of being true or false, much like if there is no language then nothing has the property of being semantically meaningful.

In the case of a proposition, it's because it's the meaning of an uttered sentence.

...

Sounds and marks are intentionally used to express truth or falsehood. — frank

I don't see how that's a better explanation. You say that meanings are truth-apt and are abstract objects that are, somehow, expressed by an utterance.

I will simply say that a meaningful utterance is truth-apt.

There's no need to resort to Platonism.