If the world is a collective representation, why can it not be false. — Janus

I'm not saying the world as a whole could be false, but that even some things which are taken to be facts might turn out to be inconsistent with subsequent experience. — Janus

This, my friend, is garbled. I think we're done here.

You made the mistake of asserting that the world can somehow be false. By definition, it can't.

It went down hill from there.

What I said is in line with the well-worn use/ mention distinction which you apparently don't understand. — Janus

I'm quite familiar with use/mention. Your account of the t-sentence is garbled.

I'd say it's more that you can't seem to get the distinction. — Janus

If you tried making sense, maybe I'd understand you a little better.

So what does the proposition say? Why, it says that the kettle is boiling...

But that bit in bold is a proposition... — Banno

Correct. It's content. That's just how English works.

Al said that he was tired.

We don't know exactly what words he uttered, but we know what he said, that is, we know the content: that he was tired.

Is it? So what is a proposition? Fill out your point. — Banno

I had no point other than that the part the follows "that" is a proposition.

You don't know what a proposition is?

The RHS is a linguistic expression that can be in accordance with, correspond to, this collectively represented world or not. — Janus

Remember the RHS is not to be thought of in this context as a linguistic expression,. — Janus

You can't seem to make up your mind.

that the kettle is boiling. — Banno

The part following "that" is a proposition.

The RHS is a linguistic expression that can be in accordance with, correspond to, this collectively represented world or not. — Janus

Then what's the LHS?

I'm continuing this reading on my own. Before continuing, this is a pretty good review of popular takes on the Overhuman as it related to the eternal return:

"Relation To The Eternal Recurrence

"The Übermensch shares a place of prominence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra with another of Nietzsche's key concepts: the eternal recurrence of the same. Over the course of the drama, the latter waxes as the former wanes. Several interpretations for this fact have been offered.

"Laurence Lampert suggests that the eternal recurrence replaces the Übermensch as the object of serious aspiration. This is in part due to the fact that even the Übermensch can appear like an other-worldly hope. The Übermensch lies in the future — no historical figures have ever been Übermenschen — and so still represents a sort of eschatological redemption in some future time.

"Stanley Rosen, on the other hand, suggests that the doctrine of eternal return is an esoteric ruse meant to save the concept of the Übermensch from the charge of Idealism. Rather than positing an as-yet unexperienced perfection, Nietzsche would be the prophet of something that has occurred an infinite number of times in the past.

"Others maintain that willing the eternal recurrence of the same is a necessary step if the Übermensch is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. Therefore, it could seem that the Übermensch, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism.

"Still others suggest that one must have the strength of the Übermensch in order to will the eternal recurrence of the same; that is, only the Übermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made." --here

I actually like the last one best. The Ubermensch is like Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith: he has the grace to accept himself and the world as it is.

I'm not saying the world as a whole could be false, but that even some things which are taken to be facts might turn out to be inconsistent with subsequent experience. — Janus

Then the world is something like a set rather than a place. It's the set of things that are taken to be facts?

The RHS is an element of this set?

If the truth or falsity of T is dependent on the evidence, — Luke

Redundancy says truth or falseness is a sign of endorsement or rejection. Justification for endorsement is a different issue.

This static picture is not our lived experience but the idea of human experience in general and in common, and it is to his this static factual picture: the world, that all our propositions correspond, or not. — Janus

You're saying the world is an idea. In what sense could it be false?

Right, but then for what reason would scientists - or anyone else - ever change their minds about anything? I don't believe that scientists just decide on a whim that T is false all of a sudden, for no reason. — Luke

They found evidence that supports the belief that they had feathers. But say the original scientist isn't buying it and now there's a conflict.

Opposing statements are being endorsed. We non scientists don't know who's right, so we'll have to suspend use of the truth predicate until it's settled.

In all of this, truth is just playing a social role. Nothing more.

I see what you're saying, though. I think there are other kinds of deflation that might be compatible with relativism.

If the world is a collective representation, why can it not be false. Lived experience cannot be false, but anything we say or think about it can be. — Janus

Can you rephrase that? I don't understand.

Could you say more about "comes to light"? Is the falsity of T due to a lack of correspondence between T and the world, for example? — Luke

With redundancy, "truth" is just a social sign that generally means endorsement. Correspondence isn't involved. Redundancy is basically saying there's no such thing as truth as people usually conceive it.

Where correspondence is involved, that's not deflationary.

P might subsequently be determined to be false.
— Tate

How? — Luke

Say a scientist asserts that T. Rex didn't have feathers. Later, it comes to light that they did.

Doesn't that make truth relative to a person or society? — Luke

I wouldn't use the word "relative" because that implies an inflated version of truth. There are different types of deflation, though.

The problem is that the RHS can be false. It's not the world in any sense.

If the use of "is true" is equivalent to endorsing a statement, or if "p is true" is equivalent to the assertion of "p", then what is true is whatever statement someone asserts or endorses. No? — Luke

If someone endorses P, we know they would say P is true. P might subsequently be determined to be false. People would say it was always false.

Redundancy says the truth predicate plays a social role and nothing else.

Deflation implies that truth is relative, right? — Luke

How would it imply relativism? I'm not seeing it.

Sounds right. As mentioned, the substantive theories of truth try to tell us which sentences are true, and not what truth is. — Banno

Then you agree that we aren't expecting to be able to define truth.

Hey? What argument? — Banno

With any theory of truth, you look for certain criteria to determine truth or falsehood. For instance, with correspondence theory, you look for correspondence between an idea and reality. Specifically, you need to determine if it's true that correspondence exists.

This means that in order to make sense of correspondence theory, you'll need to already know what truth is.

* Frege uses the wording "idea" and "reality" in The Thought.

poses the truth is unanalysable, but what counts as a simple depends on what one is doing, hence what is analysable or not analysable is a question of choice. — Banno

I think truth is the exception, per Frege's argument.

Tarski presents us with an analysis of truth in terms of meaning. — Banno

If it's an analysis, it's not a particularly informative one.

This includes any ideal that depends on a notion of progress toward truth or goodness or oneness. — Joshs

I like it. It all eternally returns anyway. If you transcend yourself, that was always going to happen just the way it did.

It's no big deal.

Take a look:

This strikes me a narrow reading of Nietzsche , — Joshs

Like the Nazi interpretation, there is a basis for it in Nietzsche's writings, the Over-human and the concept of the eternal return are closely linked.

The Overman’s affirmation of life is not an affirmation of the truth of life as the real — Joshs

And yet another version of the Over-human is one who is capable of self-subversion: in other words, one who can overcome old rules and habits in order to grow into something new.

This is nihilism and negation masquerading as affirmation — Joshs

Well, that would be bad. What's your take on the Over-human?

I think I'll start another thread on Nietzsche's aphorisms. Or if the Blue Meanies are gone, I'll continue the reading.

Another popular view, one I like, is that the Overman, or Over-human, as some scholars call it, is a person who has the characteristics of the saint, the ego has melted away, there's a sense of oneness with all life, but earthly life has not been abandoned.

Rather all of life is greeted with a "yes".

How does this person make sense of the Holocaust? Surely not as something that's acceptable. Something that's overwhelmingly painful, though. Accepting life even though it hurts.

you might need a certain amount of context or background knowledge, all manner of things before your statement is, as I was putting it, "fully saturated" and ready to be true or false. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. We don't assign the truth predicate to strings of words, but to the content of an uttered sentence.

What I mean is, if asked how much context we need to pull in before a statement is truth-apt, the answer is something like "enough for it to be truth-apt." The initial answer anyway. I guess I'm asking for reams a theory, because I have dim memories of work on this problem. Just wondering if you have any sense of how such a project is faring. — Srap Tasmaner

I didn't know anyone was researching that. :grin: I would guess you'd have to go in the direction of Chomsky and provide a theory of language acquisition. It appears that a fair portion of it is innate.

Sure, although I don't understand the relevance of this? — Michael

Me neither

What abstract object? All I see there is a sentence with no explicit referent. — Michael

And that's not truth apt.

I think you're making things far too complicated. — Michael

It's not me. This is a long standing objection to correspondence: that it lacks analytical clarity.

We use speech and writing to talk about/describe the world. If there's nothing mysterious about this then there's nothing mysterious about correspondence. — Michael

And yet, "It's fuzzy" isn't really truth apt until you know the context. At that point, you have an abstract object on your hands.

We have a sentence "the cat is on the mat", we have the cat on the mat, and we say that the former is about or describes the latter. Is that mysterious? I don't really think so. So why would it be mysterious to say that the former corresponds to the latter? — Michael

Sentences are not favored as truthbearers outside artificial systems. Propositions work better for that purpose, although they're abstract objects. There's no 'aboutness' to a proposition. It's the content of an uttered sentence, which can take many forms: usually speech or writing.

How would you say a proposition corresponds to a truthmaker? Where do we look to see this relation?

If that's what we've done, then I was way off. Wouldn't be the first time. — Srap Tasmaner

:grin: I just meant we don't have to get our boxers in a bunch over the status of truthbearers, the content of truthmakers, and the mysterious correspondence relation that's supposed to hold between them.

And we definitely don't need Tarski.

The sort of thing you can come to know is the sort of thing that makes our sentences true. — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe. Or maybe it's more that we have a constant yearning for revelation, occasionally satisfied by various means, by evidence, by reason, by a moment of clarity where facts come together more comprehensively, or in a new way (if you're Isaac Newton or Einstein).

I'm not saying truth is always like that, of course, but that kind of experience clarifies the distinction between your ignorance, before you saw the truth, however much evidence you may have had for your beliefs, and your knowledge, once you have. — Srap Tasmaner

At least we've drawn the scope of our analysis to our experience, as opposed to trying to tie it to something metaphysical.

And that's kin to the idea of truth as revelation. We start out not knowing which of all the possible worlds we're in. The evidence reveals this to us. What was hidden is unconcealed.

Somehow truth is the speech that is properly of here and properly of us. — Srap Tasmaner

Hypotheticals are also truth apt. "If the volcano blows, a cooling trend will begin.". This isn't specifically about us, and it isn't here.

Whether truth is about a particular relationship between us and the world falls to the point of the Tractacus.

It was embedded before humans started counting?
— Tate

That's not what was claimed. — Banno

It became embedded after they started counting? Also interesting.

Sure, counting is embedded in the things around us. It has that in common with all language games. Any view that suggests otherwise would be bonkers. — Banno

It was embedded before humans started counting? That's interesting.

What are you talking about?

Why doesn't everyone just sum up their views of truth in roughly two to three paragraphs. No responses to the summation, just your particular point of view. At least no responses until the summaries are complete. — Sam26

It's too basic to analyze. Apparently we don't learn it, since it can't be taught. Maybe it's part of the structure of mind and thought.

Although, it's not just here. Elsewhere in a discussion about the same topic:

"This place is filled with cringe jp fanboys, im officialy out. Nietszche would’ve been ashamed….."

The world is full of loonies. :joke: