The anti-realist (at least of Dummett's kind) says that if a sentence is true then it's possible to know that it's true (subject to the appropriate restrictions as per Fitch's paradox), whereas the realist allows for the possibility that some true sentences are unknowably true. — Michael

That's about verifiability. You're a truth skeptic in the sense that you don't think P is true until someone expresses P.

you don't think P is true until someone expresses P. — frank

I also don't think that a painting is accurate until someone has painted it. But that's because a painting being accurate (or inaccurate) before it is painted makes no sense. Just as a sentence being true (or false) before it is said makes no sense.

This isn't truth skepticism.

I also don't think that a painting is accurate until someone has painted it. But that's because a painting being accurate (or inaccurate) before it is painted makes no sense. Just as a sentence being true (or false) before it is said makes no sense.

This isn't truth skepticism. — Michael

It is. A truth realist believes there are truths which have never been uttered.

Stop stirring the possum.

It is. A truth realist believes there are truths which have never been uttered. — frank

A platonist does, but I don't think that a realist must be a platonist. A realist can be a non-platonist by accepting that only the things we say are true or false but that some of the things we say are unknowably true or false.

Stop stirring the possum. — Banno

Australian possums are cute. North American ones are ugly.. and mean.

Australian possums are cute. — frank

But they sound like daemons escaping from Hell.

But they sound like daemons escaping from Hell. — Banno

I'll have to go to youtube and find the audio.

North American ones are ugly — frank

When I was a kid, my family kept some chickens and ducks as pets, I don't know why. Sometimes a fox ― or more often a feral cat ― would get into the pen and cause trouble. I remember running out to the pen one night with a flashlight to see what the ruckus was, and my light landed on a possum sitting there looking right at me with egg yolk dripping out of its little fanged mouth. Most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

Just as a sentence being true (or false) before it is said makes no sense. — Michael

What are the chances that anyone has ever said that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753?

What are the chances that anyone has ever said that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753? — Srap Tasmaner

Well you've just said it now?

Are you perhaps suggesting that it was true before you said it? What does the word "it" here refer to? Does it refer to the sentence "799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753"? Then we're back to what I said above; saying that a sentence is true before it is said makes as little sense as saying that a painting is accurate before it is painted.

Perhaps the word "it" refers to the fact that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753? I don't think that facts are the sort of thing that can be true or false, i.e. it's a category error to say that the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true. And what if I were to assert the false sentence "1 + 1 = 3"? Was it false before I said it? But the word "it" here can't refer to the fact that 1 + 1 = 3 because 1 + 1 does not equal 3.

Perhaps the word "it" refers to the fact that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753? I don't think that facts are the sort of thing that can be true or false, i.e. it's a category error to say that the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true. And what if I were to assert the false sentence "1 + 1 = 3"? Was it false before I said it? But the word "it" here can't refer to the fact that 1 + 1 = 3 because 1 + 1 does not equal 3. — Michael

It would be worthwhile discussing whether there is anything more to the fact that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753 than how the sentence "99168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753" ought be interpreted. Because it seems such a thing takes a particular expressible form. If that form precedes the utterance, all uttering a sentence whose content was that form would do is state what was true anyway on that basis.

Which isn't quite the same thing as "platonism", because there's no mention of mind independence in it: the form's partly determined by the mind, but not totally, and it seems how things are suffices for whether the utterance is true or not. The sufficiency of how things are in determining whether utterances are true or false speaks to that bizarre form of priority - implication is an ordering. And it's certainly not necessary that everything we say is true. So in some sense "how things are" is strictly prior to statements of fact in the order of things.

Which is rather odd, as the order of things resembles the true statements made about it to a large degree.

And what if I were to assert the false sentence "1 + 1 = 3"? Was it false before I said it? But the word "it" here can't refer to the fact that 1 + 1 = 3 because 1 + 1 does not equal 3. — Michael

I think this introduces the additional assumption that a sentence must refer to an extant state of affairs, rather than corresponding to it.

There's a real puzzle in trying to say what more is there to the fact that 1+1=2 than the truth of the sentence "1+1=2". Which you can grapple from either side of that purported equivalence. If you take the quoted side as primary, you find it odd that the state of things can determine what would be truly assertible of it regardless of whether there are speakers, since the interpretation of a sentence depends upon their existence. Conversely, if you take the unquoted side as primary, you might find it odd that true shape of things resembles how we interpret sentences., since the state of things determines whether the sentence is true or not regardless of the equivalence between the fact and the sentential content.

Those two issues are the same thing viewed from two perspectives, and taking either for granted advances nothing in the debate (also @Banno).

A platonist does, but I don't think that a realist must be a platonist. A realist can be a non-platonist by accepting that only the things we say are true or false but that some of the things we say are unknowably true or false. — Michael

I guess the realist is thinking that engaging the world just automatically comes with assumptions, some of which aren't held in consciousness until there's a reason to. Maybe a behaviorist would say these un-thought-of assumptions don't exist in a netherworld, but are implicit in behavior until they become explicit in speech?

I don't care too much about which account is true, they both seem like cromulent ways of doing business. It's just two ways of answering "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound...", Michael says no or "mu" or "cannot compute", Banno says yes, in ye olde page 2-10 @Leontiskos sort of says "yes, because God hears it" and @Wayfarer sort of says "no, because what it means to be a sound is to be heard". — fdrake

What do you say? There is a problem on TPF of criticizing views without giving one's own view. You pointed it up in Michael quite well, but to be complete you should also be willing to give your own view.

- :up:

You pointed it up in Michael quite well, but to be complete you should also be willing to give your own view. — Leontiskos

Largely pointless pseudoproblem conjured by insisting upon the meaning of sentences being separate from but mirroring the world they engage with. It's ye olde how does the representation correspond to the represented but with sentences. IMO there isn't a correspondence or symmetry of content, there's mutual constraints of word and world, so I don't care much.

What does the word "it" here refer to? — Michael

That's pretty explicitly the quantificational interpretation. The "it" in "...it was true before you said it" is the sentence, which is a first order predication, and predicating truth to "it" is a second order predication. That's fine and dandy, so long as you keep this in mind.

Alternately, on a substitutional interpretation, ""...it was true before you said it" is about 799168003115, 193637359638, 992805362753 and how we use "+" and "=". And on that account yes, 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753 is true regardless of saying so.

Edit:

And moreover, it's not an error to say that the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true, it's just redundant. All facts are true. This is why logicians treat the referent of a proposition as ⊤ or ⊥. "1+1=2" refers to ⊤ and 1+1=3 refers to ⊥.

All of which may be another way of saying what fdrake said here:

It would be worthwhile discussing whether there is anything more to the fact that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753 than how the sentence "99168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753" ought be interpreted. — fdrake

Even if we say God invented the constant symbols we still have to make the predicates. — fdrake

No need to invoke god here. We do make the predicate, and the constant symbol.

...what's at stake is whether it makes sense to be able to form it in that world. — fdrake

The notion that a truth-bearer is a thing in a world is quite problematic. @Michael apparently thinks truth bearers are utterances, and so events in a particular world - this despite calling them "sentences". That's one way to interpret them, but it brings wth it a whole gamete of issues. It seems to be dropping transword identification, for a start. The moon is still the moon regardless of whether a man from the USA or the USSR first stood on it. The T_@ and T_R business is bypassed by adopting an extensional, substitutional interpretation. We are back to the very direct point that in a world in which everything remains the same, except that there are no people, there will, by the very stipulation given, still be gold in those hills; and if there is gold in those hills, then the second order predication "There is gold in those hills" is true, even if never uttered.

Banno says yes — fdrake

Just to be clear, Banno says that you can go either way, saying that the tree makes a noise and dealing with the consequences, or saying that it doesn't, and dealing with a different set of consequences.

...cromulent... — fdrake

Nice word.

the second order predication "There is gold in those hills" is true, even if never uttered. — Banno

This second order predication is still a sentence that you have written and have described using the adjective "true", and asserting that it is true even if never uttered is like asserting that a painting is accurate even if never painted. It simply makes no sense.

This second order predication is still a sentence... — Michael

I'll stop you there and point out that a predication isn't an individual sentence; it is not just an utterance. If I point out again that 1+1=2, I am pointing out something that I said in the previous post, and that you said in the one before that.

There is a reason we have different words for utterance, sentence, statement, proposition, predication...

Which of these is true? Any of them.

And moreover, it's not an error to say that the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true, it's just redundant. — Banno

And how does this work with the case of "1 + 1 = 3" being false? We certainly can't say that the fact that 1 + 1 = 3 is false. So if you want to say that "it" is false even if not uttered, what other than the sentence is the sort of thing that can be false?

As for redundancy, I addressed something like that several times. The claim that it is true that X can be interpreted in one of two ways:

1. "X" is true
2. X

And the claim that it is false that X can be interpreted in one of two ways:

1. "X" is false
2. not X

If we interpret it as (1) then we're predicating truth of a sentence. If we interpret it as (2) then the phrase "it is true that" is vacuous, with the words "it" and "true" not referring to any entity or any property, and nothing is added by using such grammar, but in using such grammar you risk equivocating.

There is a reason we have different words for utterance, sentence, statement, proposition, predication...

Which of these is true? Any of them. — Banno

Sure, but there are no sentences if there are no utterances, there are no statements if there are no utterances, there are no propositions if there are no utterances, and there are no predications if there are no utterances.

There is a red mountain (which isn't truth-apt) and there is the utterance "the mountain is red" (which is truth-apt). There isn't some third thing – the fact that the mountain is red (allegedly truth-apt) – distinct from the former and independent of the latter. Which is why I disagree with platonism.

"1+1=3 is false" because by substitution 1+1≠ 3.

"1+1=3" is true ≡ 1+1=3.

"1+1=3 is false" becasue by substitution 1+1≠ 3.

"1+1=3" is true ≡ 1+1=3. — Banno

I don't see how that answers my question.

You didn't address the argument, which is that different utterances are understood as saying the same thing; therefore what they say is not peculiar to an individual utterance. 1+1=3 says the same thing in this post as it did in the previous. But it is a different utterance.

I don't see how that answers my question. — Michael

I'm not surprised.

You didn't address the argument, which is that different utterances are understood as saying the same thing; therefore what they say is not peculiar to an individual utterance. — Banno

I haven't claimed otherwise. I've only claimed that the only things that can be true or false are the things we say (which I'm using as a catch-all for speech, writing, signing, thinking, believing, etc.).

Whether you want to interpret "what we say" as referring to an utterance or a sentence or a proposition makes no difference; either way, we must be saying something for something to be true or for something to be false.

The claim that there are true and false sentences/propositions/predications even if nothing is being said is incoherent.

The claim that there are true and false propositions even if nothing is being said is incoherent. — Michael

And yet showed you an example that negates your assertion.

Perhaps you start with "there are no utterances without something being said" and erroneously conclude that therefore there are no propositions that are unsaid. But utterances and propositions are not the very same. Here is yet another, different, utterance, expressing a proposition already several times: 1+1=3.

And yet ↪Srap Tasmaner showed you an example that negates your assertion. — Banno

No he didn't.

But utterances and propositions are not the very same. — Banno

I'm not saying that they're the very same. I'm saying that if there are no utterances then there are no propositions, i.e. that platonism is wrong.

No he didn't. — Michael

Yes, he did.

I'm saying that if there are no utterances then there are no propositions, i.e. that platonism is wrong. — Michael

This is a conflation of seperate issues. If you would read my posts. There are unuttered propositions. Srap showed this by uttering one. The only alternative is for you to claim that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753 was not a proposition, and also not true, until Srap made it so by uttering it. But that is just to misunderstand addition.

And Platonism is wrong, becasue propositions are not elements of the domain of first order logic. They are constructed in the second order. All that stuff you keep ignoring about a,b,c and f(a) and F(a) is true.

Michael says no or "mu" or "cannot compute" — fdrake

I think Michael is driving in the direction of the kind of consistency I was gesturing towards at the very beginning of this discussion, and I maintain that the best entry point is to ask about whether there can be truths absent minds (rather than talking about sentences or utterances).

I think Nietzsche would have us be nominalists after killing God. At the outset Banno implied that there is gold in Boorara absent minds. The view that we imbibed with our mother's milk is that there is gold in Boorara, and that this is true independent of human utterances and human minds. That makes sense for a Platonist, or an Aristotelian, or a Stoic, or a Christian, or a Muslim. It therefore makes intuitive sense for the Western mind. But it no longer makes sense if we move into a principled atheism.

Largely pointless pseudoproblem conjured by insisting upon the meaning of sentences being separate from but mirroring the world they engage with. It's ye olde how does the representation correspond to the represented but with sentences. IMO there isn't a correspondence or symmetry of content, there's mutual constraints of word and world, so I don't care much. — fdrake

Does that really address any of the issues? For example, how is the question about the metaphysical status of truth the same as the debates of representationalism? They seem quite distinct, although not entirely unrelated. And I don't see anyone disputing the idea that "there are mutual constraints of world and word."

There are unuttered propositions. — Banno

Only in the trivial sense that there are unborn babies.

Srap showed this by uttering one. — Banno

That's a contradiction. You can't show that there are unuttered propositions by uttering a proposition. In uttering a proposition you only show that there's an uttered proposition.

The only alternative is for you to claim that 799168003115 + 193637359638 = 992805362753 was not true until Srap made it so by uttering it. — Banno

This is like saying "the only alternative is for you to claim that the painting was not accurate until the painter made it so by painting it". You're not making any sense.

I'm not saying that some sentence wasn't true before it was said, because any talk about a sentence before it is said is incoherent. I'm only saying that only the things we say are true or false.

Only in the trivial sense that there are unborn babies. — Michael

And yet Srap showed that it is so. I'll count this as progress.

You can't show that there are unuttered propositions by uttering a proposition — Michael

Of course you can. Show, not say.

You are headed to absurdity, forced to conclude that the number of true additions is finite, since it is limited to only those that have been uttered.

Nonsense.