much of philosophy is modeled on the success of science. — Fooloso4

That's true, but science cannot absorb philosophy into its inquiry, whereas philosophy can set the terms for discussing how science is done. See my example of the curious biologist. That's the peculiar self-reflexive quality I tried to describe in the OP. If a philosopher models herself after scientific method, this will be for philosophical reasons, not scientific ones.

I will sometimes argue that there is such a thing as the philosophical ascent, generally understood as moving from a state of ignorance to insight or enlightenment. And also that there are degrees of knowledge, the 'analogy of the Divided Line' in the Republic being a paradigm for that. — Wayfarer

This is a good counterpoint. A philosophical ascent, whether Platonic, Hegelian, or spiritual, ought to be about more than the ability to trump a questioner with yet further philosophy. Surely it can't be that which makes philosophy a love of wisdom? Knowledge, insight, enlightenment . . . these are the things we want philosophy to offer us. The question of the OP is, in part, can we find the path to these qualities by examining the peculiar nature of philosophical reflection?

Other disciplines have fairly clear starting points, but not philosophy. — Leontiskos

This is going to sound paradoxical, but perhaps the starting point of philosophy is in fact the realization that its inquiries cannot be brought to an end by absorption into another discipline. This connects with what I saying about temporal sequence as being different from the "lastness" of philosophy. Clearly we couldn't know that reflection is endless until we'd discovered it to be so, which is a process in time, but having learned this, we can posit that feature as the feature which makes philosophy unique -- and in that sense it's the starting point, the presupposition (of sorts).

there is nothing unique that all philosophical discourse has in common that distinguishes it from other modes of discourse. — Fooloso4

Except, as above, that all philosophical discourse resists being absorbed/reduced into a different discourse. Or at least that's the possibility we're looking at here.

I am uncomfortable with viewing the presuppositionaless-ness of philosophy as "an argumentative trick." — Leontiskos

Oh, I didn't realize that's what you meant. I was referring merely to the "gotcha" aspect, where any questioning of philosophy becomes yet more philosophy. Do you think this has to do with the lack of presuppositions? I'd like to hear more about that.

(Is "presuppositionaless-ness" translated from the German? :wink: )

You seem to want to say that philosophy has to do with thinking qua thinking, and that if all being can be thought, then philosophy has a relation to all being in a way that other disciplines do not. That seems right. Or we might say that there is no thinking or knowledge that is non-philosophical. — Leontiskos

Yes, that would all be in the spirit of what I'm suggesting. I'm sort of test-driving what I'm calling the Top-Level Thesis about philosophy, and trying to find a way in which it might be interestingly true, as opposed to merely a report about an argumentative trick that philosophy can perform.

I wouldn't assume it. But it might be the case. This OP is definitely in a speculative mode. More an attempt to tease out some possibilities as we consider what, if anything, is special about philosophical discourse.

You have used the words, so you must know what they mean, right? — Harry Hindu

Of course not, and neither does anyone else. We are building this particular boat on the ocean. We have, at best, some combination of historical information about how mentalistic terms have been used, intuitions about what they mean for us, and perhaps a sense of how to sharpen them for better use.

Where do we go if we want to know what words mean? — Harry Hindu

I can only say again:

I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?" — J

I really don't mind what language we agree on. Tell me what you'd prefer, as long as it can do the job mentioned above.

How did you come to the conclusion that I did not imply that a view from somewhere isn't a view from somewhere, as in where someone is standing? — Harry Hindu

I think you still haven't taken in the force of my point. Of course it's a view from somewhere, but that isn't what mainly characterizes it. Rather, it's the "someone" that is crucial. Can you imagine a "view" being from some particular place, but with no viewer?

This is why I asked what you mean by the words, "understanding", "trying" and "knowing". You can only say that the computer scientist and biologist is wrong in their usage when you have clearly defined the words themselves. — Harry Hindu

This is a separate point. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying they're not experts. I was replying to your notion that a computer scientist is somehow expert in the use of those words because he or she is a computer scientist. Such a person may be as correct or incorrect as anyone else, and yes, we'd need to get clear on what that would mean, but the point is that there is no built-in expertise, either way, neither mine nor theirs. If you like, I can take a shot at putting some content to mentalistic terms, but I wanted to get the "computer scientist as expert on the mental" thing out of the way first.

Go back and read what I have said. I have clearly steered away from using dualistic terms — Harry Hindu

I don't think so, but we can let that one go. Possibly the only dualism you recognize is mind/body, or mental/physical, dualism; I was pointing to a much wider application.

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? — Harry Hindu

No, but I am saying that we have every right to criticize computer scientists' language when they begin to talk about other things besides computers and science -- such as "knowledge," "thinking," "understanding," et al. The analogy would be no different for a biologist: I wouldn't dream of telling them how DNA works, but if they began using expressions like "the organism knows" or "the cells are trying to . . . " and that sort of thing, I would certainly protest. This also comes up constantly in talk about evolution.

(And I'm not saying that we philosophers aren't guilty of this kind of loose talk too. We certainly are, but we ought to be better on our guard than most, since questions of language loom so large in our concept of what we do.)

What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? — Harry Hindu

We seem to be getting a little muddled between two different questions. One is, "Is there a place for dualistic thinking in metaphysics?" The other is, "What do we mean when we use 'internal' to describe a feeling or a thought, or the mind itself?" To the first, I'm saying, "You yourself don't seem able to do without dualistic concepts when you talk about this, so perhaps this sort of dualism is important in talking about metaphysics." A statement like "I think this working model is somewhere in the brain" can have no meaning unless it's opposed to "I think this working model is not somewhere in the brain." So the dualism of "in/not in" (internal/external) seems important to what you want to say.

The second question is more complex, because there's likely not a single usage of "internal" when it comes to mentalistic terms -- it may be meant literally, metaphorically, or somewhere quite vague. Your riposte shows this nicely: In one sense, it seems absolutely true to me that mental paraphernalia are internal to the brain, by virtue of direct supervenience. But in another sense, we certainly can't take a scalpel to the brain and locate "the mind," or any single mental event. In that sense, "internal" isn't the right word. I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?"

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere? — Harry Hindu

I would say no. I believe "subjective" means "a view that someone, some viewing entity has from somewhere," so "to be subjective" means "to be an entity that has such a view." Leaving out the "someone" allows you speak about "a view," as if the view is kind of hanging around. But this is impossible -- a view requires a viewer. Hence subjectivity is crucially about the person who has the view. Or not to beg the question -- if it could be shown that a computer was an entity that could have a view, then it would be a candidate for subjectivity.

To anticipate a possible objection: All kinds of things can be viewed from a computer's point of view, but that's not what we're talking about. The viewer in such cases is me or you, seeing things from the computer's PoV. I'm arguing that the computer per se has no views at all -- it isn't the sort of thing that can have such an experience.

the problem of the subjective unity of experience which currently escapes scientific definition. — Wayfarer

Yes, another way of stating the problem I was raising. No matter how much information we end up with about the brain, we still need to know how and why it gives rise to consciousness, one vital aspect of which is "the subjective unity of experience." I think we will solve the HPoC eventually, but so far we aren't even close. Meanwhile, too many philosophers are overoptimistic that brain-knowledge will somehow "just be the same thing" as knowledge about the mind.

Some might say that this is all loose talk and the machines aren't really understanding or trying anything, but computer scientists use these terms and they authorities in this field? A better explanation is that computation has finally demystified mentalistic terms. — Harry Hindu

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying.

I think this working model is somewhere in the brain, — Harry Hindu

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain?

A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed. — Harry Hindu

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem.

Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, — Harry Hindu

Where does this working representation of the world occur? Is it discoverable by science? Which scientific discipline would we expect to discover and describe it? What would count as falsifying this theory?

Thanks, "useful analogy" seems about right to me too.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here?

I'm glad it was helpful. One way of "problematizing" the concept of language would be to step back and ask, "What am I/we trying to do by offering the Wikipedia page definition of language?" I think the answer would involve Haslanger's first approach, the conceptual one. The person who refers to the Wiki page is saying, in effect, "We do have a common understanding or definition of what language is, and this understanding is captured by the Wiki page. Our task, then, is to compare possible instances of language to the definition given, and decide whether they fit."

In addition, a possible clarification here would involve asking whether we cite the Wiki page because it captures the meaning of the concept "language," a meaning which we already know and can see reflected on the page; or whether we cite the page because we believe that Wikipedia gives or states correct definitions of concepts, by some sort of fiat or authority. I'm guessing we're not that trusting of Wikipedia, so probably the first idea is what we mean: We already (believe we) have a proper understanding of the concept of "language," and we note with pleasure that the Wiki page captures it well, and so we refer others to it as a basis for discussion. And of course a middle ground is possible: We may not trust Wikipedia implicitly, but we may be swayed by a given page's excellent sourcing and references, so that, if there is a discrepancy between what we think language is, and what the page says, we may give ground to the implied expertise of the page, and modify our concept accordingly.

Do you think this is pretty good picture of your intent here, when you refer us to Wikipedia?

Indeed! Which points up that these approaches all have their merits, and none excludes the others.

I'll try. Haslanger argues that there are four main approaches used to answer "What is X?" questions: conceptual, descriptive, ameliorative, and genealogical.

A conceptual approach would ask "What is our concept of X?" and looks to a priori methods such as introspection for an answer. This approach assumes a sort of "common knowledge" about a concept, at least as it's understood in some dialogical arena. Taking into account differing intuitions about cases and principles, the conceptual approach hopes eventually to reach a reflective equilibrium, with basic agreement on what the concept means.

A descriptive approach is concerned with what kinds (if any) our vocabulary about X tracks. The task is to hold the descriptions as givens, and develop potentially more accurate concepts through careful consideration of the phenomena in question, usually relying on empirical or quasi-empirical methods. In other words, we can change the concept based upon new information.

An ameliorative approach begins by asking: What is the point of having the concept in question—for example, why do we have a concept of "language"? What are we using it to talk about? What concept (if any) would do this conversational work best? Is "language" that concept? This approach often ends by proposing a better or more useful understanding of a concept, in terms of getting the job done. Or it may recommend abandoning the concept entirely and replacing it with another that gets better results.

A genealogical approach explores the history of a concept, not in order to determine its true meaning by reference to origins ("truth by etymology"), and not for "sheer historicist fascination," but in order to understand how the concept is embedded in evolving social practices. What role does the concept play in our web of beliefs?

So, for this thread, consider one of the opening questions:

What is the difference between language and communication, if any? — KrisGl

What kind of question is this? What sort of "difference" is being examined?

We could start by asking, "Which of the above approaches are you using to ask this question? Are you interested in how our language-using community of philosophers defines these two concepts (conceptual approach)? Are you asking what sorts of things fall under the heading of 'language' and 'communication,' with an eye toward refining the concepts accordingly (descriptive approach)? Are you asking why we need to have these two concepts in the first place, and perhaps proposing a useful discrimination between them in order to achieve our goals (ameliorative approach)? Or are you interested in knowing how the two terms have evolved within a matrix of social practices here in the U.S. (or the West, or whatever social group seems relevant) (genealogical approach)?"

This hardly does justice to Haslanger, but at least it gives you the flavor. She is pointing out how often we charge into some Big Question about, e.g., language, without first clarifying the kind of inquiry we're making. Is it about words? concepts? practices? best practices? You mentioned metaphorical and literal uses of "language," and that's just the sort of issue that could be approached by asking, "OK, what would 'a literal use of language' be? What concept of language are we going to be talking about here? Is it written in conceptual stone, so to speak? Is there somewhere we could look it up? Maybe we could come up with a better, more descriptive, more useful definition..." etc etc.

Or avail yourselves of this excellent paper by Sally Haslanger that discusses different approaches to answering "What is X?" questions. The "what is a language" question in this thread is a classic example of what she's discussing. (If you're not interested in her opening issues, concerning the language of race and gender, you can skip to p. 12, where she lays out her overall strategy.)

For awhile now I've been searching for a diagnosis of what the exact philosophical issue is that collectively Mainstream, Non-mainstream, and layman physicists have had regarding modern scientific practice. — substantivalism

This is an interesting topic, but I had trouble following you in the ensuing paragraphs. Is it possible for you to offer a fairly short answer to the question you're posing, above? What is the best diagnosis, according to how you understand the issues? Or are there several candidate answers you could draw our attention to?

Thanks, I agree it would be better if we had a good neutral term that wasn't steeped in philosophical history, but I don't know of one either. As long as we both understand each other . . .

As for Quine: "Two Dogmas" only questions analytic statements that are supposed to be true by virtue of meaning-synonymy. If you go back and look at the start of the paper, you'll see that he exempts logical truths.

Now that I think of it, @Srap Tasmaner and I discussed this earlier in the thread:

Quine himself had very mixed feelings about whether the laws of logic were subject to revision. I think his final answer was yes, but it's a last resort, and they are very insulated, resistant to revision.
— Srap Tasmaner

Just as an aside, I think Quine believed the laws of logic were true because we could supply clear definitions for all the operators and connectives. This is in Word and Object. In a subsequent work which I haven’t read, The Philosophy of Logic, he extends this to non-classical logics, according to [Susan] Haack. She says that he accepts “a meaning-variance argument to the effect that the theorems of deviant and classical logics are, alike, true in virtue of the meaning of the (deviant or classical) connectives; which, in turn, seems to lead him to compromise his earlier insistence that fallibilism extends even to logic.” — J

I think the key difference here is "true in virtue of meaning" (of the connectives) as opposed to some kind of truth that is dependent upon empirical facts. If this is right, then math and logical truths wouldn't depend on anything of the latter kind. But anyone who knows where Quine ended up on this should weigh in.

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears' — Wayfarer

I tried to pick the most neutral word possible. Is there a better term for the denizens (another neutral word!) of the "formal realm"? Happy to use it instead.

Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments. — Wayfarer

Is there a particular reference you have in mind? Quine's position wavered over the years.

The invisible and visible can't resemble each other unless we make both visible. — jkop

Why not? I must be missing something still. I thought such a resemblance was the point of your saying that "there can be resemblance between two states of affairs such as seeing things and thinking about things." One is visible, the other not. Oh well. Not a terribly important point, either way.

Ah, but can you? — Wayfarer

Good response. Maybe we need three categories: 1. genuinely contingent physical phenomena; 2. phenomena which we can imagine were otherwise but in fact could not be; 3. phenomena like mathematically necessary statements, which we can't even imagine to be otherwise.

I see three distinct grades of necessity in those three categories. 2 and 3 may both produce outcomes that are, in practice, non-contingent, but our ability to imagine 2 otherwise, but not 3, has to make a difference, modally. Rough guess -- 2 is about necessity of Being, 3 concerns necessity of Thought. The capitalizations are meant to indicate that these are placeholder terms, having something to do with the synthetic/analytic division.

There just isn't any reason to make the visible/invisible comparison central to resemblance.
— J

I didn't. — jkop

Not to run it into the ground, but here's what you said:

A resemblance-relation requires at least two objects which can resemble each other. Granted that all objects resemble each other in the abstract sense of being objects, but how can anything invisible resemble something visible?

My point is that they can't, unless you somehow make both visible. — jkop

Surely that makes visibility "central to resemblance" -- indeed, it sounds like the criterion for it ("you can't, unless . . .").

there can be resemblance between two states of affairs such as seeing things and thinking about things. — jkop

Good, this all makes sense. So why can't we claim that the "non-seeing" resemblance relation is just as central as the seeing one? You'd asked earlier, "How can anything invisible resemble something visible?" but I think you've answered your own question correctly. There just isn't any reason to make the visible/invisible comparison central to resemblance.

J: whether “the facts under question arise from a degree of mathematical necessity considered stronger than that of contingent causal laws.”

Isn't "contingent causal law" a contradiction in terms? — RussellA

The term does invite confusion as it stands. If you read the paper, you see that what Jha et al. mean by "contingent causal laws" is no different from your "nomic laws." They're called contingent to distinguish them from mathematical necessity, which the authors believe is modally stronger. They're also contingent in the sense that we can easily imagine a physical world with different constants, different explanatory equations, etc. In this world, to be sure, they are nomic.

I'm trying to get at your reasoning here. — Harry Hindu

OK. My reasoning is based on what we would reason about the phenomenon of "life." As far as I know, the efforts at creating artificial life are all biologically based. I'm not aware that any scientists are working on the idea that a silicon-based digital entity might "come alive," begin reproducing, and/or provide evidence that it is having inner experiences such as animals have -- pain, for instance. (But by all means point me to any interesting new research along these lines.)

So, similarly, I'm guessing that consciousness will turn out to be a property of living organisms exclusively. Why? Because whatever it is that makes an entity alive is going to be turn out to be what makes it conscious. Or perhaps speaking of "subjectivity" is better here, as I don't know that a plant could be conscious but I find it plausible that it has experiences.

How likely is this to be true? I can only say "fairly likely" based on what we've seen so far: absolutely no evidence of either life or consciousness in digital entities. This gets muddled because proponents of mechanistic consciousness will define "consciousness" in such a way that a digital entity might have it (I think that's what you're doing, to a degree), so perhaps it's ultimately a philosophical rather than a scientific issue.

For you, who else? — Harry Hindu

But how can any such entity as "me" emerge from a working memory and sensory info processing? I think you're assuming that the digital toolkit will produce a "me" or a subject, but that's the very thing under discussion.

If my description does not resemble what it is like for you, then please explain what it is like for you. — Harry Hindu

Well, I am a subject, so in addition to all the ruckus going on, I experience my self. Transcendental ego, if you like. Moreover, as a subject I do a lot more than connect with the "outside" world. My imaginative consciousness is extremely vivid, and doesn't depend on stimuli from experience, unless we beg the question and say that it's the neuronal activity itself that is the stimulus. But I don't think brains cause consciousness, I think consciousness supervenes upon brains.

However, the general thrust of what you're saying is important and true -- WE DON'T KNOW. It is one of the great remaining scientific puzzles.

You're quite right; as I said, we don't yet know any of the important facts that would allow us to decide this. I haven't assumed anything. I've said that I think it's unlikely that non-biological entities will turn out to be conscious.

If we say that consciousness is a type of working memory that contains sensory information . . . — Harry Hindu

Well, yes, then various things follow, but I don't think that's a good thing to say. My own consciousness doesn't at all resemble this description phenomenologically, and once again we're a long way off from being able to say that, despite this, it "really is" working memory plus sensory information. Just for starters, for whom is the information informative?

how can anything invisible resemble something visible? — jkop

It's hard to know what sort of answer is wanted here. I could reply, "Easily. When I read a biography, my mental imaginings of the subject of the biography resemble the subject quite a bit, if the book is well-written." This is ordinary-language talk, and no ordinary speaker would have any difficulty understanding me. But evidently you want to stipulate a meaning for "resemblance" that makes physical visibility more important as a criterion. I guess you can do that, but I think we need 1) an explanation for how the ordinary-language use became so common, and 2) a good argument for why this notion of "resemblance" is useful or clarificatory, in this context. What are you trying to ameliorate, with this usage?

Therefore, we can use the Correspondence Theory and say that the proposition "there are infinitely many prime numbers" is true because there are infinitely many prime numbers. — RussellA

Good, I think we're on the same page. A correspondence theory ought to work independently of the ontological status of various "worlds"; that was why I questioned limiting it to "facts about the world," which from your example I took to refer to the more-or-less-physical world that would exist without us. But now I see that your view is more inclusive, so that's fine.

But that's the thing. What makes a mass of neurons conscious, but a mass of silicon circuits not conscious? — Harry Hindu

We don't yet know. My hunch is that it's going to be a version of the same thing that makes a biological creature alive, and a computer not. And yes, this could all be off base -- the sort of thing people will marvel it a few centuries hence -- "How could those people have gotten it so wrong?" But for the moment, I haven't heard of anything that suggests a computer could have inner states. Do you know of anything along these lines? (Grant me, for the moment, the idea that an inner state would be a sign of consciousness.)

If a correspondence theory of truth demands that we do so, I'd argue that it represents a reductio ad absurdum and should be rejected on that ground.
— J

Very harsh. The word "true" has different meanings in different contexts — RussellA

So, to review the set-up here: The question is whether a standard correspondence theory has to invoke a match between statements in a language and facts about the world. If so, this would seem to rule out using such a theory to describe strictly logical or mathematical facts as true. Yes, you could say that, to demonstrate such facts, we don't need a correspondence theory and therefore we can call them true using a different meaning of the word. But isn't that a stretch? The appeal of a correspondence theory is that it seems to give a common-sense reply to the question of what it means for a statement to be true: We compare it to what is the case, and if it fits, bingo. Obviously it can't be that simple, but the concept is still powerful.

So, Euclid's proof about prime numbers claims to state a truth. When we examine it, we see that while it isn't exactly a "truth about the world," or something that is made true by facts found in the world, it nonetheless appears to express a match of language with something. What is the something? For me, none of the usual-suspect answers involves giving up using "true" to mean "agrees with what is the case." So we shouldn't limit a robust correspondence theory to "facts about the world" -- there are plenty of other facts that we want to call true in the same way. I can't defend that here, but I just wanted to give you a sense of where my objection is coming from. And yes, maybe calling this version of the theory a reductio is a bit harsh, but at the very least it requires a strong argument against its implausibility.

Any word yet on casting for L&L? I heard Tom Cruise was in the running to play Science. Or was it Metaphysics . . .

You might ask, 'Why would we need to be conscious of an imagining?" Why can't a p-zombie do the same thing but without the actual experience of imagining a purple cow? The answer is that I don't think the p-zombie is a valid argument. — Harry Hindu

I have a lot of questions about p-zombies too, but we don't need them in this instance. Any number of computer-generated entities can do all the things you mention: respond to their environment, learn, make predictions, use feedback loops, offload routines to different parts of memory. So I disagree that "Consciousness is necessary for learning and making predictions." This is why the purple cow is such an annoying example -- it doesn't do anything. It simply sits there, so to speak, being a mental image, again so to speak. If a computer-generated entity could do this, I would have to allow that it might be conscious, but I don't believe it can. Except by rather strained analogy, there's no equivalent of a digital state that also has a subjective appearance to the software that we cannot experience.

Having said this, some computer-savvy poster is going to show me I'm wrong! OK, I'm ready. . .

This is Jha et al’s argument, more or less. Math only appears to be causal when we state the problem in terms that remove, or demote to “background conditions,” the physical constraints that actually provide the explanation.

This is good. I would amend it slightly: Jha et al are asking the very question about whether logical principles can be more than contingently causal. They’re not at all “unwilling “ to entertain the idea; it’s the topic of their paper. They do end up arguing against it, true.

Interestingly, you've made similar arguments to those of @Philosophim about "effective" truths, and my response to him, just above, is similar to the one I'd make to you. It may well be that scientists don't much care whether equations are true, as long as they work. But philosophers -- and, I'm guessing, a lot of mathematicians -- care very much. We can't take "facts in the world" for granted and go about our business. A theorem (as opposed to an equation that's given a real-world interpretation) isn't described as effective, it's described as true, or at least provable in L. Do you want to abandon that way of talking? If a correspondence theory of truth demands that we do so, I'd argue that it represents a reductio ad absurdum and should be rejected on that ground.

Within the modern correspondence theory, "snow is white" is also within the object language whilst snow is white is a fact in the world. — RussellA

Similarly, I agree that this is a familiar version of a correspondence theory, but it leaves out the option of claiming truth for any facts that are not about the world (unless there's a "world" of math and logic). Is that OK? What would be the point of limiting ourselves in this way?

What a cromulent response! :smile:

This just pushes the question back a level -- why is it effective?

Now of course the picture you're painting is a perfectly good one if you're a pragmatist, or believe for whatever reason that metaphysical questions about the correspondence of thought and reality are either incoherent or unanswerable. But I keep pressing you on your use of "accurate representation" -- "accurate" simply doesn't mean the same thing as "effective" or "successful." Wouldn't it make more sense for you (if I've understood your thinking here) to abandon any talk of accuracy or truth?

Well, perhaps, but how can "accuracy" be a factor at all? What would make something an "accurate representation," to use your phrase, and of what is it a representation? None of the three factors talk about how such an idea could arise.

To put it in simple terms (borrowed from Sider), are we really not in a position to say that the Bleen people have gotten something wrong?