Even in your simulation example, there can be facts about the simulation that are recognition-transcendent — The Great Whatever

So you say. But Dummett's argument is that meaning-as-use doesn't allow for recognition-transcendent truth conditions. The notion that there's a spoken sound here that has some sort of connection to some other thing there isn't one that seems to work with Wittgenstein's account of meaning. The meaning of the phrase "it is raining" isn't to be understood by positing some metaphysical correspondence between utterance and something else, but by understanding its practical use in recognisable situations.

So it seems that the real issue here is that you disagree more with Wittgenstein's account of meaning than with Dummett's claim that Wittgenstein's account of meaning entails anti-realism.

So you say. But Dummett's argument is that meaning-as-use doesn't allow for recognition-transcendent truth conditions. The notion that there's a spoken sound here that has some sort of connection to some other thing there isn't one that seems to work with Wittgenstein's account of meaning. The meaning of the phrase "it is raining" isn't to be understood by positing some metaphysical correspondence between utterance and something else, but by understanding its practical use in recognisable situations. — Michael

The use of it's raining has to do with whether or not it's raining – one uses it roughly to correctly describe a situation in which water falls from the sky. So the idea that language use has nothing to do with how the world is makes no sense.

Again, your false assumption is that all use must be described only in terms of things that are recognizable – so you're essentially assuming a verificationist notion of truth, which I believe Dummett holds. Scratch that and there's no argument – and there's good reason to scratch it, as I've said above.

So it seems that the real issue here is that you disagree more with Wittgenstein's account of meaning than with Dummett's claim that Wittgenstein's account of meaning entails anti-realism. — Michael

Wittgenstein has no account of meaning, tho – the Investigations are too muddy to have an authoritative interpretation. So I'm not sure this will work as exegesis, or as a decent thesis in its own right. I see the temptation to treat Witty as a kind of linguistic anti-realist, but I doubt he'd go along with this interpretation, and in the end, whether he would or not doesn't matter.

[i should mention, btw, that even speakers of the language recognize this facet of use – they take the right use of it's raining to be that you say it truly when it's raining, not that you say it when you recognize some thing other than it raining. you might use it under certain empirical conditions, but you do so insofar as you take those conditions to indicate that it's raining, i.e. that the world's a certain way. if it's revealed that it actually wasn't raining, but the relevant empirical conditions still held, one would say what one said was false.]

The use of it's raining has to do with whether or not it's raining – one uses it roughly to correctly describe a situation in which water falls from the sky. So the idea that language use has nothing to do with how the world is makes no sense. — The Great Whatever

I didn't say it has nothing to do with how the world is. I'm saying that the part of the world that has something to do with the meaning of a particular phrase is the part of the world that influences and measures its use. Which then means that the part of the world that has something to do with the meaning of a particular phrase can't be recognition-transcendent. If as learners of a language we want to know what someone means when they say "it is raining" or "il pleut" or "wubalubadubdub" then we have to look at the occasions in which the speakers utter it, and agree to it, and so on.

I'm saying that the part of the world that has something to do with the meaning of a particular phrase is the part of the world that influences and measures its use. Which then means that the part of the world that has something to do with the meaning of a particular phrase can't be recognition-transcendent. — Michael

Why?

Don't assume this position; convince me of it.

That's not it at all because it doesn't do sufficient justice to the "mind" with its goals and meanings. — apokrisis

Goals and meaning are all in relation to things,doing things with things and speaking about things and their activities ('things' in the very broadest sense, meaning entities). Ironically, it seems you are the one wanting to reify some kind of separate mind, which is "hovering over" the triadic realtion between thought, being and their inter-activity.

Because, as Wittgenstein argued, meaning is public. It is possible for me to learn what a French man means by the word "eau". But it would be impossible for me to learn what that word means if its subject is recognition-transcendent. To learn the meaning of the word "eau" I must be able to recognise the occasions in which its use is proper.

Of course you wouldn't be able to talk about the external world if you couldn't recognize it. What's the point of pointing that out?

Yes, but you do so by recognizing, for example, when it's raining.

"It's raining" is correctly used to speak a truth when it's raining. That's it. Your position seems to commit you to something further: that it raining must therefore be something that people can in principle recognize. But I submit it has nothing to do with this. It doesn't matter whether you can recognize it's raining or not. "It's raining" is true when it's raining, period. The latter constraint simply doesn't enter the picture.

Given that you disagree with this, I'm trying to figure out what premise you accept that makes you disagree. I suspect it's something like this:

If one can recognize how to correctly use a word, then one must know everything about its use.

or perhaps,

A competent user of a language must in principle be able to know everything about the use of their language.

Is that so?

Notice that if you reject those premises, then there's no problem – we don't need a ban on 'recognition-transcendence,' and language is still perfectly learnable, since we can figure out what the right canonical situations are, by say figuring out when it's raining. But notice, this does not guarantee that we always must in principle be able to know whether it's raining! And in fact we can figure out the meaning of the words without needing any such guarantee!

I think you have some faulty notion that everything about a language's use is transparent to its users, and therefore, that use (and hence meaning) can't be constrained by anything that they can't recognize. This, I submit, is just wrong.

That there are no recognition-transcendent truth conditions, a realist requirement.

I think there is an equivocation on the meaning of "recognition-transcendent" at work here. Of course we recognize the world, but from that it does not follow that the world is recognition-immanent. the world is not exhausted by our recognition of it; that is to say the world does not have its being 'inside' our recognition of it.

Perhaps this offers a better account of Dummett's view than my account of it:

(1) We understand the sentences of D.

Suppose, for reductio, that

(2) The sentences of D have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions.

From (1) and the Fregean thesis that to understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions, we have:

(3) We know the truth-conditions of the sentences of D.

We then add the following premise, which stems from the Wittgensteinian insight that understanding does not consist in the possession of an inner state, but rather in the possession of some practical ability (see Wittgenstein 1958):

(4) If speakers possess a piece of knowledge which is constitutive of linguistic understanding, then that knowledge should be manifested in speakers' use of the language i.e. in their exercise of the practical abilities which constitute linguistic understanding.

For example, in the case of a simple language consisting of demonstratives and taste predicates (such as "bitter" and "sweet"), applied to foodstuffs within reach of the speaker, a speaker's understanding consists in his ability to determine whether "this is bitter" is true, by putting the relevant foodstuff in his mouth and tasting it (Wright 1993).

It now follows from (1), (2), (3) and (4) that:

(5) Our knowledge of the recognition-transcendent truth-conditions of the sentences of D should be manifested in our use of those sentences, i.e. in our exercise of the practical abilities which constitute our understanding of D.
Since

(6) Such knowledge is never manifested in the exercise of the practical abilities which constitute our understanding of D,

It follows that

(7) We do not possess knowledge of the truth-conditions of D.
(7) and (3) together give us a contradiction, whence, by reductio, we reject (2) to obtain:

(8) The sentences of D do not have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions, so semantic realism about the subject matter of D must be rejected.
The key claim here is (6). So far as an account of speakers' understanding goes, the ascription of knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is simply redundant: there is no good reason for ascribing it. Consider one of the sentences introduced earlier as a candidate for possessing recognition-transcendent truth-conditions ‘Every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes’. The semantic realist views our understanding of sentences like this as consisting in our knowledge of a potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition. But:

How can that account be viewed as a description of any practical ability of use? No doubt someone who understands such a statement can be expected to have many relevant practical abilities. He will be able to appraise evidence for or against it, should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his possession bears on it. He will be able to recognize at least some of its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which commitment to it would follow. And he will, presumably, show himself sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to others, and sensitive to the explanatory significance of such ascriptions. In short: in these and perhaps other important respects, he will show himself competent to use the sentence. But the headings under which his practical abilities fall so far involve no mention of evidence-transcendent truth-conditions (Wright 1993: 17).

This establishes (6), and the conclusion follows swiftly.

Michael,

the argument conflates "knowing how" and "knowing that." that we know how to use a word doesn't mean that we know everything about its use.

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an example will help.

suppose a language group finds a yellow metal in the hills and comes up with a word to refer to it, gold. they know how to use the word, to refer to that yellow metal – and that yellow metal is the kind-referent of the word. they also can teach other people the word and how to use it, just by demonstrating the metal in question. now unbeknownst to them, gold has a certain property: it melts at temperatures above 1948 F. now suppose they have no way of figuring this out – they live in a world, say, where such temperatures aren't possible, and so they'll never figure out that gold melts at this temperature. nonetheless, i submit, it's still true that gold melts at that temperature, & if one of their scientists claimed it did, even if he could never prove it in principle, he'd still have said something true (even if people couldn't be sure he had).

so you see, everyone knows how to use the word gold, but they do not know everything about its use. what don't they know? they don't know, for example, that it is used to refer to a metal that melts at 1948 F.

---

to address the argument you have up there directly, (6) simply restates your old assumption, which i previously asked you to defend, and as such the post doesn't add anything new. if for instance a word's use is to refer to some thing, whether anyone realizes this or not, then their competence in using with word will manifest a knowledge of how to use the word in this 'recognition-transcendent' way [in our example, they correctly use it to refer to a metal that melts at 1948 F, which is a recognition-transcendent truth]. of course the people using the word will not know that it does this. but this is the whole point.

... now unbeknownst to them, gold has a certain property: it melts at temperatures above 1948 F. now suppose they have no way of figuring this out – they live in a world, say, where such temperatures aren't possible, and so they'll never figure out that gold melts at this temperature. nonetheless, i submit, it's still true that gold melts at that temperature, & if one of their scientists claimed it did, even if he could never prove it in principle, he'd still have said something true (even if people couldn't be sure he had). — The Great Whatever

I'm not sure about this. Your hypothesis does seem to beg the question by presupposing that there's an unrecognisable melting temperature.

to address the argument you have up there directly, (6) simply restates your old assumption, which i previously asked you to defend, and as such the post doesn't add anything new. — The Great Whatever

The last part of that post defends 6):

The semantic realist views our understanding of sentences like this as consisting in our knowledge of a potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition. But:

How can that account be viewed as a description of any practical ability of use? No doubt someone who understands such a statement can be expected to have many relevant practical abilities. He will be able to appraise evidence for or against it, should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his possession bears on it. He will be able to recognize at least some of its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which commitment to it would follow. And he will, presumably, show himself sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to others, and sensitive to the explanatory significance of such ascriptions. In short: in these and perhaps other important respects, he will show himself competent to use the sentence. But the headings under which his practical abilities fall so far involve no mention of evidence-transcendent truth-conditions (Wright 1993: 17).

This establishes (6), and the conclusion follows swiftly.

confuses knowing how w/ knowing that, cf. above

here's a practical ability one has: to refer to a metal with a melting pt. of 1948 f, but this is the relevant sort of truth per the example, hence wright is wrong

his use is sensitive to the melting pt. of the metal since to say the metal melts at that pt. is a truth even tho he doesn't know this, hence his use is sensitive to the 'transcendent' truths tho he doesn't know exactly how.

a speaker's knowing how to use a word doesn't guarantee transparency re: every fact abt. its use

he is competent in use of gold iff he uses it to refer to gold, but gold is a metal w/ melting pt. 1948 f, so to know how to refer to gold is ipso facto to know how to refer to a metal w/ melting pt. 19848 f, which is a transcendent truth, q.e.d.

Perhaps this simplification works better:

1. From Frege, to understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions.
2. From Wittgenstein, to understand a sentence is to possess the practical ability to use it
3. Therefore, to possess the practical ability to use a sentence is to know its truth-conditions.
4. Possessing the practical ability to use a sentence is recognition-immanent.
5. Therefore, truth conditions are recognition-immanent.

Regarding 4), possessing the practical ability to use the sentence amounts to nothing more than "be[ing] able to appraise evidence for or against it, should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his possession bears on it ... be[ing] able to recognize at least some of its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which commitment to it would follow ... show[ing] himself sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to others, and sensitiv[ity] to the explanatory significance of such ascriptions."

You seem to take issue with 4), claiming that there's more to the practical ability to use the sentence than the above, but is that consistent with Wittgenstein's account of meaning-as-use, especially given that meaning is public and so the practical ability to use a sentence must be public (i.e. not transcend recognition)?

I think that whatever you mean when you talk about recognition-transcendent conditions playing a role in the meaning of a sentence, you're not talking about the practical ability to use the sentence, and so not committing to Wittgenstein's view on language. And I'm not here to defend Wittgenstein's view on language, but to ask if Dummett is right in arguing that it entails anti-realism.

idk i see no reason to believe 4) and have made my reasons why perfectly clear, respond to those

I think this essay provides a good gist of Wittgenstein's philosophy and an answer to the OP.

Thanks. Interesting read. Although I wonder if what the author means by realism and anti-realism is different to want Dummett means. From the article, "if representationalism is rejected as incoherent or empty, the stakes in affirming either realism or antirealism go down considerably, if not completely." He understands the debate as one over whether or not sentences "represent" reality-as-such, with anti-realism treating truth as a convenient fiction, whereas Dummett turns this around into debate over whether or not truth is bivalent, and so doesn't depend on this notion of representation at all. Truth isn't a fiction under anti-realism, according to Dummett; it's just that truth-conditions are not recognition-transcendent. I think this claim is consistent with Wittgenstein's account of meaning, and even entailed by it if Dummett's argument is valid.

Let's say that we are each put in a shared simulation that may or may not represent the world outside the simulation. We assume that the simulation is an accurate representation of the outside world, and so assume that when we talk about it raining when it rains in the simulation we are talking about it raining outside the simulation, and that our claim is true if it is raining outside the simulation and false if it isn't. — Michael

You seem to be forgetting that language itself would be part of the simulation. Language is sounds and visual scribbles - no different from any other sound or visual that we would categorize in the simulation. Language means things because we have established a new category for these particular sounds and scribbles as referring to the other kinds of sounds and visuals we experience. We can even use a sound or scribble to refer to itself when we use quotes around a word.

And how would you know that the words you read on this forum (which would be part of the simulation) accurately represent the words on the forum in the outside world (that they actually mean the same thing in both the simulation and reality) - unless you are saying that language isn't part of the outside world but then that would answer the question about whether the simulation is an accurate representation of the outside world.

Your argument seems to only state that our words only mean something if they refer to what is happening in the simulation, and that they would be meaningless if they didn't. It is irrelevant that the simulation does or doesn't represent the outside world. Either the words we use mean something because they can refer to things that we all experience in the simulation or not. Our words would still be true in referring to the true state of the simulation. Whether or not the simulation accurately represents the world outside is something different. That is where we would discuss how our visual system evolved (or was designed in the simulation) and how better visual systems tend to leave more offspring.

I'm not sure about this. Your hypothesis does seem to beg the question by presupposing that there's an unrecognisable melting temperature. — Michael

so you think that in such a scenario, gold would have no melting pt., just because no one can show that it has a certain melting pt.?

this seems really bizarre, why accept it?

do you hold this sort of verificationist notion of truth generally? if you abandoned it, would you have any reason to believe all this? if so we could, if you want, talk about verificaitonism instead (as i said, that's what this topic seems to be 'actually' abt.)

so you think that in such a scenario, gold would have no melting pt., just because no one can show that it has a certain melting pt.?

this seems really bizarre, why accept it? — The Great Whatever

In your hypothesis, "they live in a world, say, where such temperatures aren't possible". If such temperatures aren't possible then it isn't possible for gold to melt. And if it isn't possible for gold to melt then it what sense is it correct to say that gold has a melting temperature?

replace the scenario with any sort of fact abt. gold they aren't in a position to discover, it doesn't matter, their utterances abt. gold are still t/f w.r.t. those properties they can't figure out, hence their competence in use of the term has to do w/ those properties, whether they know abt. those properties or can figure them out is simply irrelevant

or if you like just say those temperatures are possible & gold actually melts, but for whatever reason, doesn't matter, they can't figure this out. notice that in such a scenario gold still melts, & they can still claim this truly. example doesn't matter.

or if you like just say those temperatures are possible & gold actually melts, but for whatever reason, doesn't matter, they can't figure this out. notice that in such a scenario gold still melts, & they can still claim this truly. example doesn't matter. — The Great Whatever

Aren't you just asking me to assume your conclusion here?

i just want to know whether this is 'actually' a thread abt. verificationism, as it seems to be. note that verificationism abt. truth results in the position that gold can't melt unless people have a way of figuring out that it does, if it's taken for granted that there's a language in which smth. semantically equivalent to 'gold melts' can be asserted. is that yr. position? i ask b.c. if it is, that seems to be driving the rest of this, & the comments abt. witty & so on are irrelevant.

re: verificationism itself, i'm not asking you to assume it's wrong (tho i think it is & if you believe it a good place to start would be fitch's knowability paradox: verificationism entails omniscience). i will say tho that prima facie it's absurd (e.g. that gold can't melt unless ppl can figure out that it can).

in other words michael the above argument has seemed to reduce to yr. doubling down on 6) and 4), respectively, & this doubling down in the face of my refusal to accept them (& giving examples to the contrary) has seemed to be no more than an affirmation that verificationism is true (and so my examples can't be taken to be right b.c. they'd entail verificationism was false). do i have the situation right?

in other words, given what i've written above, to anyone who doesn't accept verificationism, there's no reason to accept 6) / 4), so the argument doesn't work, & you must independently convince that person of verificationism in order to have a case.

their competence in use of the term has to do w/ those properties, whether they know abt. those properties or can figure them out is simply irrelevant — The Great Whatever

In the scenario you described, people would make no use of gold's melting point in teaching others how to use the word "gold", and by hypothesis could not, if the melting point of gold is something they are unable to know. They would make no use of the melting point of gold, and could not, in judging whether the word "gold" was being used correctly.

This much is agreed, yes?

Then what do you mean by "has to do with" in the above quote?

@Michael
Here's a variation on your simulation:

Suppose the tv series "Game of Thrones" followed the book series exactly in Season 1, but began to diverge halfway through Season 2.

Can we sensibly describe the behavior of characters in Season 3 (and later) in terms of what happens in the books?

Can we sensibly describe the behavior of characters in Season 3 (and later) in terms of what happens in the books? — Srap Tasmaner

I think we could sensibly describe the behaviour, but that there aren't any determinant truth-conditions, and so it would be wrong to claim that such descriptions are either true or false. The third season hasn't been written yet, and nothing about the existence of the books makes it the case that the third season will follow them. It isn't until the third season is written that there is a (recognition-immanent) truth-maker.