i'm talking about your post, not dummett (idc what michael dummett thinks abt. anything)

I don't know what to tell you.

It's a thread largely about Michael Dummett. I've been doing my best to make sense of his position. If you're asking which side I'm on or something, I'm really not inclined to commit at the moment. Why should I?

yr. post was regarding yr. own opinions & that was what i was responding to. 'I am far form alone in feeling...' and in the previous: '...I don't find fitch's persuasive...' that yr. suddenly pretending to do dummett exegesis therefore bizarre

also i should note that in general a bad rhetorical move is:

*asserts implausible opinon [varificationism]*

'ah but here's a bad consequence of that'

'yeah but you didn't take into account this can be salvaged by *asserts further implausible opinion* [intuitionist logic]' it's just digging the hole, why try to keep together the house of cards with a web of dumb philosophical theses there's no reason to believe?

Given that the script for the next season hasn't been written, would it be correct to say that "Jon Snow will sit on the Iron Throne" has a determinant truth value? — Michael

That proposition would have a determinate (in principle only, of course) truth value iff metaphysical determinism is the case, and not otherwise. If the future is open then nothing about the present can determine exactly how things will be in the future. In that case "Jon Snow will sit on the Iron Throne will only be true 'retrospectively' if and when Jon Snow does sit on that throne.

I see your point, yes.

There were two different stands of thought there I was trying to keep separate. I even numbered them: one is Dummett's intuitionist response; one is my own sense that there's something odd going on in Fitch's argument.

The first time Dagfinn Føllesdal saw the slingshot argument in Word and Object (iirc), his immediate reaction was, roughly, "There's no way that's right." People do feel that way about Gettier, and I feel that way about Fitch's paradox. All three have produced cottage industries attempting to refute them.

I don't have handy a refutation of any of those arguments, but I still don't trust them.

That's not to say there isn't much to be learned from arguing about these, and about the Liar, for that matter. But I do not feel compelled to accept Fitch's argument as a refutation of anything.

why do philosophy if you've decided a priori that whatever prejudices you currently have are sufficient to refute any argument?

i mean i don't think that's a bad way to go, i'd just stop doing philosophy (which incidentally i do recommend)

to me fitch's paradox is fine because it doesn't have an 'unacceptable' conclusion, it just refutes a dumb and already unintuitive philosophical hypothesis (verificationism), unless one has other grounds to believe in collective omniscience, i.e. classical theism or hard idealism

verificationism has so little going for it that i don't sympathize with the need to defend it in the face of any argument

why do philosophy if you've decided a priori that whatever prejudices you currently have are sufficient to refute any argument? — The Great Whatever

Oh no! I wouldn't say that at all. I am intensely curious about everything I've mentioned in this thread, and open to being persuaded either way. My resistance to an argument or an approach is a hurdle it must clear, that's all.

and open to being persuaded either way — Srap Tasmaner

but u just said the opposite?

My resistance to an argument or an approach is a hurdle it must clear, that's all. — Srap Tasmaner

a hurdle that u set the standards for, and so will never abandon. the fitch argument is super duper simple, it's hard to see how you could have better proof. if u have no standards for what would convince u, that's no different from nothing being able to convince u. if u see a simple 11 step argument, u'd rather disbelieve the logic than accept the conclusion, so what's the pt.?

this is why philosophy is a joke - it's so lacking in method that 'nuh uh' is always a viable professional option.

the fitch argument is super duper simple — The Great Whatever

I think there's room for debate.

there is always room for debate in philosophy, because one can always say 'nuh uh' or pull a new distinction out of thin air. u have no criteria for what would convince u and are claiming to be open-minded in bad faith.

in other words that there is room for debate is a sign of philosophy's lack of method + subject matter, not yr. open-mindedness.

Whether philosophy as a whole or my approach to it are intellectually bankrupt is off-topic here. We should have ended this long ago.

it's on-topic in that yr. deflecting criticism of a position u hold by falling back on false claims abt. yr. own open-mindedness. u've already obstructed the conversation by admitting yr. not interested in evidence and will stick to 'that can't be right' & then look for a reason why, so why have a conversation? why do phil.?

nb: it's fine to feel like smthn's wrong, but i just ask u don't pretend to do philosophy on that pretense, what u feel is irrelevant, so leave it out of the thread and let it bounce in yr. head instead

TGW

I just want to say that both of the following can be the case simultaneously:One can have no criterion for what would convince them, and still be arguing in good faith. Those are not mutually exclusive. That is the case because deliberately suspending one's judgment is a required means for entertaining another worldview.

From the OP...

The principal connection with metaphysics is via the notion of bivalence—the semantic principle that every statement is determinately true or false. If the truth of our statements depended on the obtaining of a worldy state of affairs (as the realist maintains), then our statements would have to be determinately true or false, according to whether or not that state of affairs obtained. However, given that we cannot guarantee that every statement is recognisable as true or recognisable as false, we are only entitled to this principle if our notion of truth is recognition-transcendent. By the above argument, it is not, and hence bivalence must be rejected and metaphysical anti-realism follows (Dummett 1963).

A statement's being true/false depends upon certain states of affairs obtaining, if by that we mean what was said to be so was, and/or what was said to not be so, was not. However, a prediction about what will be the case has yet to have been determined as either true/false. That doesn't make it unable to be determined at a future time. So, it is still determinately true/false.

What does a statement being recognizable as true or recognizable as false have to do with it's being determinately true/false?

Dummett's argument seems to rest upon this conflation...

I'm fairly certain that this is close to what TGW has been arguing.

Being verifiable/falsifiable is not equivalent to being true/false.

As Srap has said about the slingshot argument and Gettier's paper...

It's a sleight of hand.

suspending one's judgment and deciding beforehand that any evidence to the contrary of it will be met with a response of 'that can't be true' are not mutually possible. if one does this one is engaging in apologia, which as a domain of inquiry is distinct from philosophy for this reason. or maybe not – my suspicion is most phil. is just apologia for whatever prejudices the 'thinker' happens to have. but then, i'm coming to think phil. is garbage & not a real discipline.

I'm fairly certain that this is close to what TGW has been arguing. — creativesoul

y, the thread seems to be predicated on verificationist prejudices. therefore the only way to progress is to assess verificationism (tho i don't think the para you quotes shows this – rather it's what 'the above argument' points to, and this in turn has to do with the thesis, which i've argued is wrong, that all facets of use must be transparent to users, and the misconception that language use is self-contained and not dependent on the world outside of what's recognized by the language users).

Do I experience the scribbles as they really are? — Harry Hindu


What do you mean by "as they really are"? The scribbles are just patterns of light displayed by your screen.

If not, then am I really reading what you typed and posted to the outside world?


And what does that mean? I just press keys on my keyboard. Me pressing keys on my keyboard isn't anything like the patterns of light displayed by your screen. — Michael

I thought the answers to your questions should be obvious given your example of an outside world and a simulation of it. Are the scribbles only patterns of light displayed by your screen in the simulation or in the outside world? Is your post in the outside world, or only in the simulation? In your example, is the outside world meant to represent reality as it is, and the simulation meant to represent our minds?

There's an inherent difficulty in suspending one's judgment that arises by virtue of how thought/belief formation works. I mean, we look at the world and/or ourselves and make sense of it all by virtue of a pre-existing baseline. So, I'm not sure how reasonable it would be to expect another person to not already have certain core thought/beliefs in place. These would be what underwrites one's "oh, well that can't be true, because of X", where X represents some pre-existing thought/belief.

I think that the trick is not to disallow such pre-existing thought/belief to do their job, but rather it is to become aware of how that works and thus be as careful as possible to work from the strongest ground possible, if for no other reason than to minimize likelihood for error.

At any rate, Dummett's argument concludes that the principle of bivalence be rejected based upon the notion that we cannot always recognize whether or not a statement is true/false. The principle of bivalence only says that all statements are determinately true/false, not that we can recognize them as such. The criterion for being determinately true/false is remarkably different than being recognized as true/false.

Knowing what it would take for a statement to be true/false includes recognizing that there are some times when those conditions/events have yet to have taken place, and other times when we know what it would take but quite simply do not have the ability to recognize it. You've given examples of these...

So, I'm not sure how reasonable it would be to expect another person to not already have certain core thought/beliefs in place. — creativesoul

that's not what's being asked, tho - the demand isn't psychological but dialectical. one ought not to bring one's prejudices to bear in the discussion as to whether smth's right, unless those prejudices are specifically framed as part of the parameters of the debate. what the debater might believe for independent reasons, or for independent prejudices, can't help them in the argument, tho of course they're free to think whatever they want, as long as they don't pretend that matters for anything acc. to the debate.

Dummett's argument concludes that the principle of bivalence be rejected based upon the notion that we cannot always recognize whether or not a statement is true/false. — creativesoul

i don't think that's quite it, but it may ultimately hinge on such prejudices. i find dummet's anti-realism in general somewhat tedious, tho, b.c. as with all anti-realist prejudices it's hard to dig at what's actually at stake and the core propositions the anti-realist is endorsing, that drives the rest of their project.

...that's not what's being asked, tho - the demand isn't psychological but dialectical. one ought not to bring one's prejudices to bear in the discussion as to whether smth's right, unless those prejudices are specifically framed as part of the parameters of the debate. what the debater might believe for independent reasons, or for independent prejudices, can't help them in the argument, tho of course they're free to think whatever they want, as long as they don't pretend that matters for anything acc. to the debate.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that one cannot avoid bringing their pre-existing worldview into a discussion.

sure you can. whenever you use it with the pretense that it has argumentative weight, you simply note this and refuse to allow the interlocutor to place that weight, as i did. thus whether anyone 'feels' that fitch's argument must be wrong is simply not relevant – one might think that, but it has no power to be used as a tool of conviction in the debate.

How is "sure you can" anything other than 'nuh-uh'? How is your conviction that one can avoid bringing their own worldview into a discussion any more well-grounded than my assertion that it is not possible?

All I'm attempting to point out is that everyone has a baseline by which they assess the world and/or themselves. That baseline is one's worldview, and everyone has one. Everyone uses pre-existing thought/belief to assess another's claims. That said, more to your point...

One must be able to provide more than just a suspicion or a feeling that something is not right - say with Fitch's proof. Interestingly enough, this notion of what counts as sufficient reason to believe/justification is what underwrites a verification/falsification paradigm.

i just did it above

One must be able to provide more than just a suspicion or a feeling that something is not right - say with Fitch's proof. Interestingly enough, this notion of what counts as sufficient reason to believe/justification is what underwrites a verification/falsification paradigm. — creativesoul

y, the interlocutor failed to do this above

All justification ends somewhere...

I agree though, in this case, that Srap offered little to no justificatory ground regarding Fitch's proof. Seemed a flippant dismissal.

What did you just do above?

What did you just do above? — creativesoul

How is your conviction that one can avoid bringing their own worldview into a discussion — creativesoul

i avoided my interlocutor's bringing their own worldview into the discussion by not conceding in the discussion when they attempted to do so