You wrote:
For the realist there is a large class of statements whose truth-value is strictly undecidable since it lies beyond our utmost powers of verification or falsification yet concerning which we can rightfully assert that they must be either true or false – objectively so – despite our lack of knowledge concerning them. What decides that value is the way things stand in reality, that is, the existence of certain truth-makers (facts, circumstances, real-world [including historical] events, mathematical or other such abstract verities) to which those statements correspond in their role as truth-bearers. Truth is conceived as recognition-transcendent in the sense that it depends not at all on the scope and limits of our cognitive or epistemic powers.
For the anti-realist, conversely, any truth-apt statement has to meet the condition that its truth-value can be specified in terms of some available proof-procedure or method of verification [my emphasis]. To suppose otherwise is to believe – nonsensically – that we could somehow acquire or manifest a grasp of what it takes for that statement to be true (or false) while lacking just the kind of knowledge required to decide the issue either way. In which case we should think of truth as 'epistemically constrained', or of statements as possessing a truth-value only in so far as we can (or at any rate could in principle) find it out by some investigative means. The realist must therefore be deluded – metaphysically out on a limb – if he or she asserts the existence of truths that would lie beyond our utmost cognitive, epistemic, or probative reach.
Even TGW essentially admits this by allowing that we may have the practical ability to use a word, say "gold", without knowing everything about gold. — Srap Tasmaner
things we don't know about will very much affect us, and our language use — The Great Whatever
the extension/intension distinction doesn't matter here. to use 'gold,' you have to be able to pick out samples of gold – that doesn't just mean happening to point to the right samples, it might also mean using 'intensional' capacities that allow you to figure out which things are gold. to do this, however, you may very well need only a superficial sensory clue, as to its color for example. gold, of course, is infinitely complex beyond this mere sensory signal. — The Great Whatever
whatever goes on beyond our recognition won't affect how we use our language — Srap Tasmaner
My understanding of your view was that you're using the word "gold" right so long as you use it to pick out gold. When you talk about gold, you're talking about a substance that has properties you don't (and maybe can't) know about, but that doesn't mean you're using the word wrong. — Srap Tasmaner
Stay on target. Your argument was that language can't be used to refer to things outside of the simulation. I showed that if language can be used in the outside world to refer to things in the simulation, then why couldn't it be the reverse? Both the programmer and the simulated Michael would both be referring to the things in the simulation with their words. The programmer created the language you'd be using, and how you use it, in the first place. Your whole example of a simulation and how "language is use" is nonsense when you get down to the root of it.By "corresponding" you appear to just mean "causally responsible". That's not the kind of correspondence I'm talking about. Obviously things have a cause. Consider the correspondence theory of truth. It claims that a statement is true if it corresponds to some obtaining state of affairs. If "correspondence" just meant "causally responsible" then every statement would be true as every utterance is caused by something. — Michael
Your whole example of a simulation and how "language is use" is nonsense when you get down to the root of it. — Harry Hindu
But the sort of competence we were looking for should give us a way of mapping words onto observations, what we might describe as associating meanings with truth conditions. — Srap Tasmaner
i just don't see what observations have to do with anything. — The Great Whatever
a way of mapping words to their extensions via appropriate criteria. — The Great Whatever
That's the sort of thing I mean. I just mean "observation" in the sense that, presented with a sample of gold, you would assent to "That's gold." Nothing more subtle than that. — Srap Tasmaner
may occasionally fail — Srap Tasmaner
but that failure we wouldn't usually describe as not knowing which word to use (though that happens too) but as not knowing whether the word applies in the case at hand. — Srap Tasmaner
competence using the word "gold" does require competence in recognizing gold. — Srap Tasmaner
We don't expect the congenitally blind to be able to acquire competence in using color words, for instance — Srap Tasmaner
And the only way we have to judge another's linguistic competence is by observing how consistently they link occasion features we recognize to words we expect. I don't want to leap to the conclusion that this is what competence consists of, but it is the criteria by which we judge it. (Just as there are criteria by which we pick out gold.) — Srap Tasmaner
And honestly the ideal would be high empirical competence coupled with high linguistic competence. Failure of either sort degrades the effectiveness of communication, right? — Srap Tasmaner
But we immediately face an issue I'm not sure how to handle: competence using the word "gold" does require competence in recognizing gold. — Srap Tasmaner
For example can I not competently say "Gold used to be found in those hills", even if I am not someone who can tell real gold from fool's gold? — Janus
Also, re the OP I would say that this kind of competent use presupposes some kind of realism and would be incompatible with antirealism; it presupposes that there really is such a substance as gold, and that it really was found in those hills, and so on. — Janus
For example can I not competently say "Gold used to be found in those hills", even if I am not someone who can tell real gold from fool's gold? — Janus
we don't judge whether someone knows what 'gold' means by how good of a prospector they are. — The Great Whatever
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