Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence — Ludwig V

We identify propositions using sentences. For instance, maybe you said "That's on the mat" while you were pointing to the cat. The proposition you expressed by uttering that sentence was that the cat is on the mat.

However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V

You say, "That's on the mat."
I say, "Yes, Ludwig, the cat is on the mat."

We're expressing the same proposition by way of two utterances and two sentences. If you look back at your own analysis:

How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways" — Ludwig V

That's exactly the standard analysis. The bolded part that follows the word, "that" is a proposition. Maybe an incentive for understanding it would be this: if you want to be a realist and avoid propositions, your best best is Davidson. It's 10 times more complicated, and will leave you with a different set of mysteries. Take your pick.

It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.

True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones.

That's an idea I'm amenable to; I mentioned it in the current thread on aesthetics. However, I don't think it's what @Banno or the original article has in mind.

Consider:

Teleology is metaphysically extravagant and misleading. Galileo, Descartes, and Newton sought mechanical rather than final causes. Hume warned against inferring purposes from observed regularities. Darwin replaced natural teleology with natural selection. Wittgenstein urged philosophers to describe how things are used in practice, not to seek hidden purposes or essences. So today, to speak of ends in the Aristotelian sense is to reinvigorate a discredited metaphysical picture

This is not the sort of claim one finds in the arts. To even call a metaphysical claim "misleading" instead of simply "ugly' is to suppose to there is something to be properly "lead to." One wouldn't be likely to find claims that Virgil or Statius' verse is "misleading" in the sense of what makes for good poetry for instance. Perhaps a theory of what makes Virgil or Horace good poets could be misleading, but that's because it's already moved halfway back to aesthetics and so to philosophy. Whereas, it wouldn't make sense to say that Milton or Keats has rendered Chaucer and Dante ugly, much less exposed them as "incoherent" or "meaningless," (claims that are quite common in the context of metaphysics). Nor do I think this difference is unwarranted. We might very well criticize "two worlds Platonism" or corpuscular mechanism as incoherent, misleading, or counterproductive (counterproductive because it occludes the progress of the sciences, for instance).

Nor would one dismiss Michaelangelo as extravagent and misleading because Rembrandt, Degas, and van Gogh have suggested something different to us. Nor would we expect to find an indictment of meter as "discredited" in virtue of the fact that some later famous poets have eschewed meter.

Which is to say, I think the two are quite a bit different, art and philosophy. Yet if they aren't, then I would expect philosophical criticism to look more like art criticism (that is, from anyone advancing such a similarity).

However, this is a tricky topic because the dominant theory vis-á-vis art today is that its quality is a matter of wholly subjective "taste." Yet plenty of thinkers argue quite the opposite, that a good education involves being properly oriented towards what is truly beautiful. Indeed, the nature of beauty itself is central to some metaphysics (mentioned in the post I referenced for instance). Hence, the difficulty in using artistic criticism as a lens for metaphysics or philosophy more generally is that these often tend to assume things about metaphysics and philosophy more generally. For instance, it will do us no good to try to put to bed concerns over anti-realism in the original article by simply appealing to a field where anti-realism is dominant (although hardly a consensus).

I think the notion of progress in the original article cuts against this comparison to some degree, as does the idea of metaphysics as centering around the improvement/betterment of language. Obviously, it cuts against the classical notion of metaphysics as a sort of knowledge, a science, as well (although classical theories tend to acknowledge a large role for beauty).

Tricky stuff. I do agree that the separation might not be as broad as suggested. I'm currently reading Homer and the Tradition of Political Philosophy: Encounters with Plato, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche by Peter J. Ahrensdorf, and he makes a strong case for the confluence of art and philosophy. But in the end I cannot agree with the suggestion that our study is will be like the art students, primarily about a doing and producing. I do think there is a real and meaningful distinction between the productive arts (including the "fine arts') and science and wisdom, and philosophy is heavier on the other side of this division.

Adding teleology here is making presumptions of Aristotelian metaphysics. It's already loaded. — Banno

The aim of philosophy... — Srap Tasmaner

Teleology.

We need not assume that meaningful discourse requires a teleological structure. - that we must have an aim. — Banno

So if we use the word "aim" then we're Aristotelians? How utterly strange. You even contradict yourself:

A goal, at least. — Banno

If "clarity" is a goal, then it is an aim. You must be an Aristotelian! Arg! :wink:

As I said:

At this point I think Aquinas is helpful insofar as he moves us out of the metaphorical space. It is much harder to respond to Aquinas with, "But what about the guy who wants to aim at something he is not aiming at?" Or, "But what about the guy who wants to do philosophy purposelessly?" — Leontiskos

Apparently @Banno's answer is, "I want to do philosophy purposelessly. I want to do philosophy aimlessly!" This is deeply confused.

The claim would be that philosophy does not aim at knowledge, as science does, but at understanding. — Srap Tasmaner

where the verb is "understand" not "know". — Srap Tasmaner

What's the difference?

(Aquinas will contrast wisdom with knowledge, but it's not a hard-and-fast division.)

Defeasibility, speech acts and illocutionary force are ideas that are quite well established in philosophy. But you may not [know them?]. So if you have come across them, please forgive me if I seem to be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs. — Ludwig V

Not at all, better than assuming I already understand! I am fairly familiar with those ideas but am trying to suggest that, though established, they may not take us as far as we want to go. @Banno quite reasonably keeps asking what is in doubt here. If I had to put it into a sentence, it would be: We are so used to working with the nailed-down logical uses of natural language that we forget that those uses are agreements, often hard won. I think "assert" and "judge" are cases in point, but clearly I need to make a stronger argument for why they seem problematic to me. So I'll work on that.

So if I merely assert the sentence, without you and I stipulating what an assertion is going to mean, are you able to come to a conclusion about whether I think it's true, or only quite likely to be true?
— J
I'm not sure what "without you and I stipulating what an assertion is going to mean" is doing here. — Banno

I mean that we have to agree on what an assertion is, what counts as an assertion, for Philosophy Room purposes. In real life, we don't, and as a consequence people conceive of themselves to be asserting a variety of things, at various levels of connection to truth, and they're not wrong to do so, because this kind of "wrongness" can only happen in the Philosophy Room.

Let's say I call an assertion "a statement I make about some state of affairs that I think is quite likely to be true." And let's say you call an assertion "a statement I make about some state of affairs that I know to be true." If we never compared our working definition of "assertion," we would sooner or later misunderstand each other, leading to words like "misfire" or "insincere."

I don't mind there being a question about whether this matters much, but is it at least clear? :smile:

There is a more definite take on all this available, but I can't name anyone who holds this position. (@J,. . . anyone come to mind?)

The claim would be that philosophy does not aim at knowledge, as science does, but at understanding. — Srap Tasmaner

Hermeneutics. Dilthey, Gadamer. They might not say that all philosophy is interpretation, but I think they would say that most of the important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand, not a desire to know. Habermas is somewhat in that tradition too.

the verb is "understand" not "know". — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and arguably any philosopher who focuses on structure -- "hanging together" -- is going to use this verb. It's not just what's going on, but why. And this is a big issue within hermeneutics, whether the interpretation controls the "what." Do we have something to interpret if the knowledge claims are in question?

:up: If you note the part I bolded, that's what we call a proposition
— frank
Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence; I would say that when it is used - to tell someone where the cat is, for example, - it becomes a statement in that context. However, I've learnt the philosophical dialect and so I know what you mean, in one sense. However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V

Yes. It's so hard to detach from our reliance on "proposition." @frank calls the bolded bit a proposition; you call it a sentence; I say -- and I mean it -- that I don't know what to call it because I don't know how to analyze the context in which I'm seeing it, here in a post on TPF. And I say further that the problem is much bigger than just assigning the right terms. We have a problem about subjectivity and objectivity, about how language is in the world.

That's exactly the standard analysis. — frank

And exactly the problem. The standard analysis insists that we read "the cat is on the mat" in this context in the way you did: a sentence that somebody uttered -- Ludwig? -- that asserts a proposition. But what's the warrant for that? Is that really what Ludwig did? You say he "expressed" a proposition by "uttering" a sentence? Where did that happen? How did I miss it? Please don't mind that I'm teasing a little, because I have a serious point to make: All this is indeed the standard analysis, but how is it supposed to be clearly correct?

"The cat is on the mat."

Did I just utter that? Seems to me that I wrote it in a context so bizarre that it calls the whole thing into question. Besides, perhaps I only mentioned it.

My point right here will be that, once again, clarity is a means, not the goal. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. Means and ends are being confused. :up:

When we clean a dirty window we do it to make the window clear, but this is not an end in itself. The end/goal is to see. To allow light to pass through. The blind man has no need to clean his windows.

Even aesthetically, clarity is not an end in itself (except when it is used as a synonym for beauty). What is beautiful has a certain clarity, but it is beauty that is desired, not clarity per se. If there were nothing beautiful or interesting to look at, one also would have no need to clean their windows.

So there's all sorts of clarity we might want. First, we'll want to be able to tell when we have an answer, and it should be clear. Second, we want to know how to proceed toward finding an answer. For some sorts of problems, this is clear ― maybe you just need to do a calculation. But for a whole lot of questions, and I think the ones Williamson is valorizing here, we absolutely are not clear how to proceed, what procedure will, if carried out, produce an answer. — Srap Tasmaner

The uses of "clarity" in this paragraph seem highly metaphorical. I'm not really sure what the concept is supposed to mean in a substantive sense. For instance, we could say <If we are able to tell when we have an answer, then we have clarity; we want the former and therefore we want the latter; therefore we want clarity (it is good - it is an aim)>. That seems like a rather vacuous sense of "clarity," namely being able to tell when we have an answer.

Even so, let's run with it. The irony here is that @Banno is being consistently unclear each time he answers the question, "What are you seeking?," with the answer, "Clarity and nothing else." Does Banno know what he means by "clarity"? Is he able to tell when he has it and when he doesn't?

Great. They have enough clarity to get on with what exactly? Making other parts of mathematics clear? And in the meantime of what? Of making set theory even clearer? — Srap Tasmaner

:grin:

The reason "dissection based on clarity" is problematic is because it is aimless or purposeless, insofar as it confuses a means for an end. Such a person is like someone who goes around tightening things with a wrench and screwdriver. He wanders around randomly finding screws, nuts, and bolts to tighten. "What are you doing?" "Tightening." "Why?" "Because tight is good."

Who are we to argue with him? After all, isn't it true that, "Tight is good?" The only difficulty is that it is ridiculous to set an end of tightening simpliciter. The question, "Why?," cannot be reasonably answered, "Because it is good in itself. It is an end in itself." Or in this case, it cannot be reasonably answered, "Because it is an end of [mathematics] in itself. It is not a means qua [mathematics]."

If I had to put it into a sentence, it would be: We are so used to working with the nailed-down logical uses of natural language that we forget that those uses are agreements, often hard won. I think "assert" and "judge" are cases in point, but clearly I need to make a stronger argument for why they seem problematic to me. So I'll work on that. — J

I mean that we have to agree on what an assertion is, what counts as an assertion — J

The difficulty is that you seem to be the only person in the room who doesn't understand what an assertion is. Not all speech acts are assertions, but all assertions have to do with judgment and truth-claims.

P1: "X is quite likely to be true"

Is P1 an assertion? In natural language it need not be. In a natural context it could mean nothing more than, "Go your way. I am not going to contest your point." But if you know what you mean when you utter those words, and you also know what an assertion is, then you will know whether P1 is an assertion when you utter it.

I think you might be more at home in an anti-realist place. Language games. That's anti-realism. Propositions really come from analyzing realism, where we have truthbearers and truthmakers. For the language gamer, truth is not a central issue, in fact there is no one truth.

most of the important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand, not a desire to know. — J

Interested in the term of art distinction here between understand and know.

Do you mean “important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand what others are saying, not a desire to know the things in the world they are talking about.”

So understanding is of language.
Knowledge is of the world.

Is that something like it?

I disagree with where you apply “important” between the two, but that is only because I don’t think anyone can interpret anything without both a language and a world about which the language speaks. When interpreting a language, one uses the world as the measuring stick and arbiter of meaning of the language; when interpreting the world, one must use language as the measuring stick and arbiter of the world.

So I would say it is as important to know as it is to understand because you can’t have one without the other, (or you can’t have the objects of one without the objects of the other).

I'm increasingly unconvinced that Banno is willing to provide his ends at all.
— Leontiskos
"Ends" are a figment of Aristotelian framing. So, no. — Banno

Ok. If meaning is use, then use must have an end. Otherwise, there cannot be any use in replying.

Or… I can just say meaning is use and that is enough; that "ends" bring baggage unnecessary to make use of language. But then, when language has been used, would we notice if the use actually occurred, would we notice it was language at all, if we did not notice some purpose or some end connected to that usage, or some effect by using the language?

Or in other words, what is the “use” of speaking becomes the same question as what is the “purpose” of speaking?

What is the use "Aristotelian framing" makes of Leon's idea, if not to relegate it and flesh out how "ends" are "figments"? "Aristotelian framing" does not merely have a use, but serves a purpose, an end, of clarifying a specific "figment".

If meaning is informed by use, then use is informed by purpose.

I think it's clear this is not Williamson's view at all. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I agree.

The part that makes me wonder is -- while "knowledge" might mean different things to different philosophers, I'm not sure there's a philosophy which aims at understanding as opposed to knowledge. But then I'd accept 's example if it's important down the line.

I'm not sure there's a philosophy which aims at understanding as opposed to knowledge. But then I'd accept ↪J 's example if it's important down the line. — Moliere

No, it needn't be an opposition, as my example suggested. In a too-simple sense, we could think of it as hierarchical: Knowledge can lead to understanding. And understanding is something philosophy can provide, that no other inquiry can, on this view.

Interested in the term of art distinction here between understand and know.

Do you mean “important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand what others are saying, not a desire to know the things in the world they are talking about.” — Fire Ologist

Great question. "Understanding" can encompass both, I think. As above to Moliere, no opposition is implied. What's especially interesting is that, for someone like Habermas, in order to understand a subject, or a problem, you do have to reach an understanding with others about it. For him, philosophical is dialogical. You can't stand up from your armchair and declare to others that you have discovered the arguments that will solve some particular problem, or even result in understanding it, if the others haven't participated in formulating the questions which the arguments and understanding address. "Framing" vs. what's inside the frame.

I also like your question because it reminds us not to let what you rightly call a "term of art distinction" become too mesmerizing. These are just words, and vague ones at that. There seems to me to be an interesting difference between, say, knowing how grammar works, and understanding how language works. A child, or a computer, can be taught the rules of grammar. Understanding language -- although arguably a kind of knowledge, if you like -- is different. So, even if we want to think of them both as types of knowledge, calling one "understanding" helps us focus on this interesting difference. That's about as far as I'd go in defending some technical use of the terms. Within hermeneutics, others go much farther, and there are cases where interpretative understanding clearly can't be the same as knowledge.

it is as important to know as it is to understand because you can’t have one without the other, (or you can’t have the objects of one without the objects of the other). — Fire Ologist

Let's take the interpretation of a text. In a sense, yes, we can say that there is an "object" that exists pre-interpretation, or pre-understanding. And yes, without being able to interact in some way with that object, and not some different object, we can't talk about what we want to understand. But to try to bring in "knowledge" at the pre-interpretive level starts to warp the whole description. If there's indeed an "object of knowledge" here, as opposed to a vehicle of meaning, can it be pointed to in the same way that we point to, say, the book in which it is inscribed? (I don't mean point literally, of course). To me, what we're trying to describe is a structure in which knowledge and understanding don't play equal roles, however much both may be necessary.

I think you might be more at home in an anti-realist place. — frank

Heaven forbid! :grin: But thanks for the thought. No, my doubts aren't a good fit for anti-realism. And I don't have any stake in convincing you, or anyone else, that the "standard analysis" of truth-makers, truth-bearers, propositions, etc. can perhaps be challenged while still keeping a robust sense of non-language-game truth. I may not be advocating well for my own doubts, and I'm very far from having a worked-out theory of any of this. If you do have a look at either the Kimhi or the Rodl books, you might get a better sense. Though you have me wondering now . . . Rodl styles himself as an "absolute idealist" in the Hegelian tradition. I wonder if he would agree that that makes him an anti-realist. I don't think so -- the opposition here is not the old one between idealism and realism -- but it's an interesting question.

Knowledge can lead to understanding. And understanding is something philosophy can provide — J

Think I agree with this rough-and-ready take.

I think you might be more at home in an anti-realist place.
— frank

Heaven forbid! :grin: But thanks for the thought. No, my doubts aren't a good fit for anti-realism. And I don't have any stake in convincing you, or anyone else, that the "standard analysis" of truth-makers, truth-bearers, propositions, etc. can perhaps be challenged while still keeping a robust sense of non-language-game truth. I may not be advocating well for my own doubts, and I'm very far from having a worked-out theory of any of this. If you do have a look at either the Kimhi or the Rodl books, you might get a better sense. Though you have me wondering now . . . Rodl styles himself as an "absolute idealist" in the Hegelian tradition. I wonder if he would agree that that makes him an anti-realist. I don't think so -- the opposition here is not the old one between idealism and realism -- but it's an interesting question. — J

In the context of the OP, anti-realism is just the attitude that speech doesn't conform or correspond to states of affairs. Language is first and foremost a mechanism of social dynamics.

By way of Davidson, you can ditch propositions, but at the cost of buying into the notion of identifying truth-conditions. Plus with Davidson, realism is just an add-on. Davidson is compatible with either realism or anti-realism.

I dig Hegel, but I feel a little more resonance with the Neo-platonism that he was working with.

Davidson is compatible with either realism or anti-realism. — frank

I agree, mostly. I'm rereading "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" right now, on a different issue also prompted by @Banno.

It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.
True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones. — Ludwig V

This is very much how I look at training in philosophy.

I think people misunderstand how much training and discipline goes into the arts when they react against this comparison.

Well, there is the possibility of working out how to answer a question, if you don't know. — Ludwig V

Fair point. So how would that work? I'd suggest Cartesian method, breaking the question down into sub-questions, answering each, and putting together an overall solution, as one possible path.

That is, one might work out how to answer a question by asking answerable questions.

The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. — Ludwig V

This works for me. The reason for reading the cannon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item.

I quite agree with what you have to say about propositions. Best set aside. Did you suppose I thought otherwise? If so, where?

But not for his idea that there is only one such hierarchy — Ludwig V

I am a bit down on Aristotle at present, mostly becasue his ideas are being used broadly and badly in the forum. But on this, at least, we might agree.

Anyway, the usual mischaracterisation is occurring here (not by you), so I'll go back and re-trace some of what I've said. What I am suggesting is that there need be no explicit overall goal for ontology - or any other study - prior to or in virtue of which that study proceeds. No "essence" of ontology. This is a pretty commonplace point, since Wittgenstein. It's misrepresented by others here as my asserting that there can be no overall goal, no essence of ontology, but that's not what I suggested. Of course folk can stipulate a goal, if they so desire. There's just no need to do so, in order to get on with the work.

To even call a metaphysical claim "misleading" instead of simply "ugly' is to suppose to there is something to be properly "lead to." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, no. And this seems to me to suffer the same error as your argument in the Two ways to Philosophise thread. “To call a metaphysical claim ‘misleading’” doesn’t require that there is something to be properly led to—it only requires that the claim presents itself as if there were. “Misleading” is a pragmatic evaluation of the function or effect of the claim, not necessarily a commitment to metaphysical realism or a teleology of inquiry.

One can say that a metaphysical claim is misleading because it invites a way of thinking or framing that leads us into confusion, pseudo-questions, or circular debates—even if one doesn’t think there is any final “truth” about Being or substance or whatever at the end of the metaphysical road.

Apparently Banno's answer is, "I want to do philosophy purposelessly. I want to do philosophy aimlessly!" This is deeply confused. — Leontiskos

And deeply misrepresentative. Your standard practice, when you don't like an argument, is to misreport it.

If meaning is use, then use must have an end. — Fire Ologist

The phrase "If meaning is use, then use must have an end" equivocates on “end.” It reads “end” as telos—as if every use must aim at a final goal or fixed purpose. But that misrepresents the point of saying meaning is use (as in Wittgenstein). “Use” in this context refers to the way expressions function in language-games: in asking, asserting, commanding, joking, praying, etc. To say meaning is use is to locate meaning in those practical, varied, rule-governed activities—not to suggest that every instance of use must point toward a singular purpose or culminate in some definable outcome. So no, use needn’t “have an end” in the teleological sense. It need only have a role—a place in a practice, a regularity, a way it makes sense to respond. Saying that meaning is use does not bind us to the idea that use must be goal-directed in some ultimate or final way. Instead, it resists that very assumption by inviting us to look at the variety of language’s functions—how words are used in actual human life.
The quote imports a metaphysical constraint (an “end” to use) that Wittgenstein’s insight was meant to avoid.

I'm not sure there's a philosophy which aims at understanding as opposed to knowledge. — Moliere

There's an obvious equivocation between understanding and knowledge, but natural language philosophy does pretty much seek understanding before knowledge. “Understanding” in this context often refers to a kind of clarity—seeing how language functions, how confusion arises, and how philosophical problems dissolve when we attend closely to our forms of life and linguistic practices. It’s not about accumulating true propositions (knowledge in the epistemological sense), but about achieving perspicuous representation.

Given the ubiquity of the methods of natural language philosophy, in practice if not in name, seeking understanding is found throughout.

Perhaps the divide, isn’t between traditions that aim at knowledge vs. those that aim at understanding, but between those who recognise this methodological humility and those who think philosophy can deliver substantive, positive theories in the mode of science. The accusation of scientism runs both ways.

, , Better perhaps to think of Davidson, like Wittgenstein, as rejecting the realism/antirealism dichotomy, than as compatible with either.

Don’t this:

doesn’t require that there is something to be properly led to — Banno

And this:

that leads us into confusion, pseudo-questions, or circular debates — Banno

Contradict each other?

Aren’t you just disagreeing with the substance of where you are being led, (somewhere specific vs. confusion). not disagreeing with the fact that you are being led (acting with a goal)?

To call something misleading is to say it leads somewhere—but crucially, somewhere we didn’t intend, or that doesn’t fulfill the function we took ourselves to be engaging in. That’s not the same as saying there is a metaphysical end-point we ought to be led to; rather, it’s to say that a particular use diverts us from how the practice normally works or what it aims at internally.

Better perhaps to think of Davidson, like Wittgenstein, as rejecting the realism/antirealism dichotomy, than as compatible with either. — Banno

True, but Williamson is holding Davidson up as an example of realist semantics, and he is compatible with both.

He mentions Davidson in relation to "systematic application of compositional truth-conditional semantics to natural languages", suggesting that it might be helpful if those who follow Dummett made use of such an approach. Not sure that amounts to claiming Davidson as a realist. Maybe.

The core difference is that for Dummett truth concerns verification, but for Davidson truth is a primitive notion. For Davidson, world, belief and interpretation are inseparable. Davidson collapses the distinction between scheme and content on which Dummett depends.

The reason for reading the canon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item. — Banno

Yes. In the arts, "improve" might better be thought of as "develop" or "enrich" or, of course, "react wildly against"! And then we have the question of self-expression. There's a curious sense in which an artist does reach for a perfect or ultimate item, but that would be their very self, as expressed in the art. And no one "has that idea" at the start, if ever.

Yep. The very idea of an overarching framework in which art takes place and is to be judged is anathema, to be immediately challenged. The framework becomes the target.

Much the same in philosophy. It questions the framework (aim) rather than submits to it.

, pay attention.

The core difference is that for Dummett truth concerns verification, but for Davidson truth is a primitive notion. — Banno

The difference between realism and anti-realism comes down to this: how we handle the unknowable. If you think the unknowable is still truth-apt, you're a realist. If you think language doesn't conform to some mind-independent world, but rather aids group dynamics, then you're likely to agree with Dummett, truth is a social fixture.

Davidson, a champion of truth-conditional semantics, is a hero to the realist, because he offers a way to be a realist without propositions. Whether he actually was a realist is another matter. :grin:

Pretty close.

But look at "A nice derangement of epitaphs", were conventions are rejected in favour of interpretation - an active process! And so closer to Dummett's group dynamics, but keeping the primacy of truth.