With the shape of the earth, we don't run into challenges to determining its shape. With the long-range impact of AGW, there are challenges.

Unfortunately, some of the people who have broadcast concerns about AGW didn't point to best information and didn't take seriously the challenge of determining what we should do about it. Surrounding the issue with apocalyptic sermonizing gathered attention, but it ultimately sets the stage for apathy when people find out that the fireball generators didn't know what they were talking about.

Sorry, it's really not clear to me what you're saying.

I had thought I was being cautious in only claiming that what we say must be able to correspond to what we experience, — John

If I say I want an apple, I don't mean that I want a mental state (which is usually what we mean by experience.)

If you mean something other than that... then yea, you're probably committed to metaphysical realism

I want to consider correspondence independently of truth. — John

You aren't the only person who thinks correspondence is fundamental. It's assumed in the representational theory of mind (RTM).

To understand why people would abandon that view in favor of something like knowledge externalism, I think you have to zero in on the challenges to representationism.

If you want to do a sort of group reading of this SEP article, we could.

Nor there is a problem with Rand. I just pointed out that even If they share the "sanction of the victim" idea in its generalities, in its specifics they were opposite. — Πετροκότσυφας

I know.

In some ways Chomsky is and was naive. So was Rand. Bottom line is that the way forward is presently unknown. We'll work it out when the next opportunity presents itself.

The fact that there isn't much organized labour (in the US) just makes the democratic self-organization of the workforce even more pressing. — Πετροκότσυφας

Yes, but it also makes it harder to conceive a path from here to self-organization of the workplace. The world has changed in far-reaching ways since he gave that speech.

At any rate, the lecture was linked as a reminder that Chomsky proposed things from day one. — Πετροκότσυφας

I was explaining why it was easier for him to propose solutions back then and why, at present, his response to questions about solutions are nothing more than "Be moral."

Yeah, Rand, among others. It should be noted though, that they were appealing to opposite audiences. No wonder then that their politics were also antithetical. — Πετροκότσυφας

Interestingly, Chomsky presented ideas from a dude from the 18th Century. We have no problem snatching the idea from the contrasting setting in that case. Why is that a problem with Rand?

Think of an epithet that implies gender... like "hag." And yes.. that's exactly what's going on here.

My concern with PF is that I think I'm morally and intellectually superior to the folks running it. — Hanover

I'm so glad your self-esteem issues have subsided. I was worried you'd show up to a high-school with a shot-gun for a while there...

Yep. As it turns out, you'll do. :)

Does the deflationary account of truth exemplified in the T-sentence: "'p' is true iff p" escape the logic of correspondence? Does it not rely on 'p' corresponding to p? That is, does not the phrase "snow is white" correspond to the actuality snow is white? If not, then how else could it make sense ? — John

Nagase (the excellent dude from the other forum) explained that Tarski's goals were not clear. He may have wanted to somehow redeem Correspondence, but the T-sentence doesn't do that.

For a good explanation of Tarski's definition of truth, see Scott Soames' Understanding Truth.

In that speech, he was suggesting a proletariat revolution. He didn't foresee the de-industrialization of the US that started in the 70's and proceeded into the 90's. Today, where American factories still exist, they're largely automated, which is good for electronic engineers, but it also means that there isn't much organized labor in the US anymore. So the message of that speech doesn't translate well into contemporary language.

One interesting feature of that speech is that he mentioned several times that in order for socialist libertarianism to flourish, people will have to wake up and stop accepting a system that results in the erosion of their own financial status. In other words, a critical ingredient of Chomsky's plan is an insight expressed by Ayn Rand... 'stop thinking that it's ok that you're a victim.'

Well, once one has grabbed the bull by the tail and faced the situation, it's either accept it or let go of the tail. — Bitter Crank

That's the coolest way to put it I've ever heard. I'll have to keep that one.

Chomsky dislikes it when nations (like the USA) dissembles about what it is up to. As he pointed out, the only people to whom our secret wars are secret is the American taxpayer who is paying for it. Certainly the people on whom the bombs are dropping know about it. But expecting nations to be truthful the same way we demand truth on the witness stand is likely to result in disappointment. — Bitter Crank

So one form of American exceptionalism is the attitude that the US ought to be different from any other nation that's ever existed.

I sympathize with Chomsky because he reminds me of my brother: flaming bleeding-heart liberal (not the neo-sort). Most of what he says is true. It's just that talking about it doesn't fix anything. He's singing for the sake of the song.

Maybe one day we'll evolve into something better.

There are, none the less, outstanding government employees who excel by delivering excellent service to citizens. — Bitter Crank

That's true. A government employee can be like a fairy god-mother to a hapless citizen. I've experienced that.

I think Chomsky's gripe is that people generally fail to understand the insidious side to government on both foreign and domestic issues. I think it has to do with identity. To the extent that people identify with their governments, they want to see something good there. The ugly part is hard to face.

The problem, as you pointed out is: what do you do with it once you face it?

He is great on diagnosis. I agree with most of what he says. He has stated that he does offer a solution: "Stop being immoral."

I think that's just restating the condemnation, though.

So let's cut to the chase, Aaron. Do you adhere to Correspondence Theory?
— Mongrel

I'm undecided. I tend to think that correspondence has some role to play in the theory of truth, but I don't think it works on its own. — Aaron R

You're expressing some ambivalence. What I'll say is that if you accept that the proper way to think of truth is as a property of statements, then Frege's argument is a brick shit-house. There's no room for being undecided. There's no addition to Correspondence that's going to redeem it. End of story.

So you don't acknowledge a difference in truth-value between "Harry Potter married Ginny Weasley" and "Harry Potter married Lord Voldemort"? How could you ever hold a discussion about a fictional story? — Aaron R

In the actual world, there is a way the Harry Potter story is told. I think you know that.

The claim that there are unstated statements is peculiar to realism. It's a very odd metaphysics that suggests that there are no truths which have not yet been stated.
— Mongrel

How so? — Aaron R

I think we're done here. Thanks!

In every day speech I most commonly hear the word truth being used in sentences such as "well, yes, I suppose that's true", "that is so true!", "you tell me the truth, or else!", "but if that were true, then...", "is that really true?", etc., in which the referent is some claim that has been made. That's not the only way to use the word, but I find these to be very common indeed. — Aaron R

So let's cut to the chase, Aaron. Do you adhere to Correspondence Theory?

Yes and no. A deflationist will say that truth is a property only in the "thinnest" possible sense. SEP explains this better than I can: — Aaron R

What we can do is just credit one another with some familiarity with the topic. I wouldn't insult you by suggesting otherwise.

Perhaps, but my point was more that a statement can be true even if what it is about is not actual. I can't see how that would be possible if truth and actuality were equivalent. — Aaron R

You're pressing this point, so I'll press back. If you assert that Harry Potter married someone, I would answer that this can't be true because Harry Potter doesn't exist.

This is a peculiar claim:"there are statements which have never been stated which are true" (emphasis mine). To my mind, a statement that has never been stated does not and has never existed, by definition. If truth is a property (ontological) of statements, then there are no true statements that have never been stated. — Aaron R

The claim that there are unstated statements is peculiar to realism. It's a very odd metaphysics that suggests that there are no truths which have not yet been stated.

Ha! How does one measure possibility, anyway? — Aaron R

What I was pointing out to you is that the actual world is considered to be a possible world. This is uncontroversial.

So.... why don't we all just go back to the other forum?

My objection to doing that is that I'm still suspicious of the reasons the new owners bought it.

Thoughts?

19th Century liberalism was opposed to aristocracy. What is neo-liberalism opposed to? Government?

Noam Chomsky agrees. All governments are corrupt, hypocritical, and amoral.

I agree that thinking about truth as a property of statements is confusing. Nevertheless, truth is something that is most commonly ascribed to statements/propositions. There's ways of accommodating this fact without theorizing truth as a property. That's what deflationary approaches are all about, right? — Aaron R

Most common among philosophers? Yea. Most common in everyday speech? I don't know. When you speak of truth outside a philosophical discussion are you thinking of speech acts? Or the way things are?

A deflationist is likely to admit that truth is a property of statements. They just don't attempt to define truth.

Yes, but the events described by the both the actual Harry Potter story and the non-actual Harry Potter story are non-actual events. — Aaron R

This issue can easily be resolved without rejecting truth as a property of statements.

What's interesting to me is that if we insist that truth is a property of statements, then it appears that there are statements which have never been stated which are true. The unstated statement problem is a plague to a realist.

I am being a little loose here. In philosophy/modal logic the word "actual" is commonly used in opposition to "possible", but the word is also commonly used in opposition to "fake", "fictional", "imaginary", "abstract", "deontic", etc. So the actual tree in my yard is the one that I believe to be "there right now" as opposed to trees I might plant in the future, or trees that I might have dreamt about last night, or the plastic tree that my neighbor discarded in my yard while I was out getting groceries, etc. — Aaron R

Of all the possible worlds, the actual world is the most possible. :)

It seems like truth and actuality are conceptually distinct. Statements that describe non-actual states of affairs can be true (e.g. "Harry Potter is married to Ginny Weasley"), and things can be actual without being true (e.g. I would not describe the actual tree in my back yard as being "true"). Seems like a category error to equate the two. — Aaron R

I think you're illustrating why truth as a property of statements is a confusing way to think of it.

The actuality is that a story is told involving a character named Harry Potter. In the story, he marries somebody (I assume? I never got that far.) There's the way the story is actually told, and the way it could have been... for instance the story could have been told that Harry Potter emigrated to Zaire and became a malachite dealer.

If you want to know the truth about the story.. look for the way it's actually told.

If you describe a tree in your backyard as "actual," what do you mean by that? I would assume you mean what is (as opposed to what could have been.)

The plausible is not the true. I feel much conversation hinges on plausibility not truth. And the pleasure of fiction seduces us by being plausible...ok, so what if...? - and then...? — mcdoodle

I wasn't building an edifice here. I just meant to suggest that thinking of truth as a property of statements is a recipe for confusion. The fact that "the truth" often stands in contrast to a state of affairs that conceivably could be indicates that truth is actuality.

Now, my Heidegger reading has already reached 'Higher than actuality stands possibility.' For me actuallity flits by and then is irretrievable, ah, memories, evidence, ghosts, what am I to believe? All we can do is make up dialogues and narratives about it. The possible is great fun, and rebounds back on the actual. Rub on a lamp of Moliere's and a genie appears to grant a wish, tell a marvellous story. So they say over in 'fiction'. Or over there in 'science', it turns out we can use lamps for wifi - who'd have thought there was even such a possibility until some geek imagined it? — mcdoodle

The motto of the IEEE used to be something like: 'Engineering: Bringing Ideas into Reality.'

On the one hand, you're right. Possibility is an engine of the mind. Any case of determining actuality is a little grave because it's a question answered.

On the other hand, you say actuality is something we make up stories about. If that true, it is actual.

Marketing usually takes some work. It involves building mutually beneficial relationships. Sometimes it involves advertising.

The reason I thought you were reifying truth is because actuality is thing-like . . . or at least contains things in it. So my thinking was that if truth is actuality, then the lamp on my desk and the desk and my phone, and so forth, are all parts of truth, because they are also parts of actuality. — Moliere

A world contains things. We reside in the actual world, as opposed to the one in which Christianity never came into being, for example

There's something interesting that happens when we consider actuality in the light of probability. In a sense, the actual world is the only possible world.

Chalmers starts his book, Constructing the World, by contemplating Laplace's Demon. He reviews the main objections to it and refines the idea to dispense with those objections. If you're interested, we could sort through that. What is a world really? I think we're basically examining the way we think when we talk about worlds.

But to answer your question, the meaning of "actual" is bound up with our ability to imagine, to hypothesize, to create fiction, and to lie. Obviously, truth and actuality are associated in meaning in a fundamental way.

My guess is that the most common use of "true" has to do with deception. Consider the requirements of a good lie. It has to be believable. It has to be a possible world. What is the truth in these cases? The actual world.

What this thread lacks is a clear explanation for why philosophical examinations of truth tend to center around the idea of truth as a property of statements. It's a good question.

But even so, then it would seem that truth is part of reality, where I would say that reality or actuality are metaphysical questions, and truth is a concept. There's no truth "out there", so to speak, or behind the veil of appearances. — Moliere

Reality and actuality are also concepts... both closely related to the concept of truth.

My point would be that when you want to know the truth about your lamp, you aren't saying you'd like to become acquainted with a useful speech act.

Sorry. I missed that Throngil was talking to mcdoodle.

So do something about it, start a thread worth while posting on. X-) — Sir2u

Don't worry, Sir2u... I'll be gone again soon enough. And you won't have to be soiled with the likes of me.

The Jekyll/Hyde story does it justice.

Woody Allen has demonstrated himself to be an amoral figure with his statement (now a fixture of American English): "The heart wants what it wants."

But I know you're right. Society couldn't persist without those who embrace simple mercy in their dealings and just flow like water around the assholes of the world.

I know...

I'm not going to pop up with anything pronto on that front. I'm attending a course of lectures starting tomorrow, so it may be March before I even have a semblance or appearance of knowing what H is talking about! — mcdoodle

Interesting. I got interested in AP for wanting to know how their answers to questions would vary from H's. So.... I would love to hear from you after you've digested some of H's ideas.

I've long wanted to do a group reading of the OWA. Maybe you'd be interested after your sojourn?

Don't know if this help...

... I find truth (or certainty) to be a 'process' rather than an 'actuality'. It is a dynamic process subject to adaptation of actuality of status via the accumulation of information/experience.

I find this to be more deductive and empirical than intuitive. — Mayor of Simpleton

As my lately adopted mense on issues of mental health, I pay close attention to what you say.

But I wasn't saying that truth is empirical or intuitive. It's the way things are, whether we observe it or intuit it. The truth may be beyond our grasp. What this means, though, is that truth is the way things are.... that which actually is.

Banno would sniff at non-propositional truth.

But he's not on this forum, so we can proceed without his council.

To suggest that the truth doesn't matter is itself a truth claim. Hence, it clearly does matter, otherwise, the person making such a claim would never make it in the first place. — Thorongil

I think Yaha was thinking that I've dug myself a ditch for no reason. Not very charitable of him.

I wasn't digging a ditch. I expressed something that occurred to me while studying theories of knowledge on the way to understanding Chalmers' book: "Constructng the World."

The first thing that pops to mind, at least, is that in saying "Truth is actuality" you're just reifying truth -- treating the concept of truth as if it were a thing. Now, maybe it is an object, as you say -- but you'd have to qualify that somehow, I think. Clearly truth is not like my desk, or my cup, or a myriad other objects. If truth is an object then it would seem that it is closer to numbers, as long as they are objects too.

Then there would be the question -- is it true that truth is actuality? How would you deal with that?

I don't know if these are problems. Just thoughts of mine. — Moliere

Could you explain how I'm reifying it?

My thinking is that it's a word. I'm defining it. This is AP heresy because of Frege's proof that it's unanalyzable. That proof starts with the assumption that truth is a property of statements or propositions.

"True" does appear in language as a property of statements. But I think it's easy enough to translate these usages to "truth" as an object of knowledge. The truth is what we want to know.

Most often, it's that we want to know what is, as opposed to what could be. In short: actuality.

Mathematical truth is something I handle with tongs. I'm not a mathematician, and I've concluded that Banno is right. Math is a game. Truth in math works pretty much the way truth works in a game.

For him it's a question of the linguistic community 'validating' talk among themselves, as far as I grasp it at one remove. — mcdoodle

I'll look for Habermas. Sounds interesting.

What did you come up with on the Heidegger front?

Somebody made a little documentary about Roger Ebert. He was a really cool guy.

Everybody dreads Yoko. John... yea... he's dead.

I hope some balance will be achieved, more (but not too many) posters will be inclined to join, or post more often, and the very smart people already here will persevere. — Pierre-Normand

I understand. I would appeal to you to post more stuff here, though. My conception of things may be at variance with the goals of the forum administrators. I'm partially convinced that this is true.

But my thoughts about it stray back to moments I've spent wandering through the woods with friends and falling into philosophical discussions... academic stuff falls away because people are talking about stuff that's really important to them. There's something they're trying to understand.

As it happens, academic stuff enters into it. Grounding in real concerns... that's what I see as the fire that drives the whole thing. Know what I mean?

Whether or not someone gets away with something has no effect on its ethical significance — TheWillowOfDarkness

This thread was mainly directed at Ciceronianus.. because I know he isn't a moral realist. At baseline, I am, though it's not that I think God has decreed that I must act thus and so. It's something else.

'The unexamined life is not worth living' means me, and my life, not a lot of rules about other people. — mcdoodle

This is the kicker, really. It's enough to swallow knowledge of man's inhumanity in cases like the Soviet Union or Rwanda. I had some Nietzsche moments along that trail. It's when I encounter it first hand.. in myself, that another dimension to it opens up.

Not to burden you with TMI, but I'm a mean drunk. Fortunately it doesn't happen often, but it has happened. It's a Jekyll/Hyde situation. I don't identify with that person. I called her Bitch Monster.

It's by way of Bitch Monster that I discovered that being an asshole can be magic. You get what you wanted, there's no price to pay for it, and it earns rewards down the line. As opposed to making your situation less secure, people rally round in approval.

I don't know what to do with that. I look out at history and present day affairs and I think... that's it. The world is full of bitch monsters getting what they want. And the ones that correspond to my normal, sober self... what are they doing? Embracing death? Yea, sort of.

Do you know what I mean?

Yea.. money is confidence. A drop in stock prices reflects worries... known as the Bear.

A crash means the bottom has dropped out of confidence in the economy. There's usually something gravely wrong that precipitates a crash. These days, a sign that a crash is trying to happen is that markets halt trading. If they're doing that.. that's a bad sign.

You say that stock markets don't have anything to do with the liquidity of industries. That's true when the stock market is characterizes by what's called a "speculative bubble." That means the market has become a casino.

There has never been a speculative bubble that didn't eventually pop.

My advice: broaden your view of the situation. But you've never taken my advice before so...

Carry on. :)

For anybody who's interested:

Correspondence theory didn't fall out of favor because somebody thought disquotationalism was a better idea. It was because of a brick shit-house of an argument that it doesn't make sense (by way of Frege.)

I wrote Frege's argument out twice on the old forum. I'm not writing it again. See Scott Soames if you're interested.

Unfortunately, Nagase didn't join us over here.

Damn.

Thanks for all your comments! I think I may have fuel to keep going with my scheme. Does it matter if it makes sense to anyone else? In the final analysis... probably not.

You aren't a moral realist and you aren't a utilitarian. You lean toward saying that mastery of the passions is a virtue. Very Roman of you.

Do you know about the religious ceremonies the Romans did to justify their wars? Originally, a priest would appear at the battlefield and toss a sword out toward the enemy to signify that the gods approved of the bloodshed that was about to commence. Eventually, they just tossed the sword into a vacant lot somewhere... the front line was too far away.

I'm just saying.. if you're a Roman, you aren't the old school variety who turned to a priest to learn whether there is a good reason to kill somebody's son. You're more the naturalistic, Lucretius style Roman, right?

But if we're going to be thorough about our naturalism, we should note that "survival of the fittest" isn't the contemporary evolutionary biology viewpoint because their is no scientific criteria for "fittest." It's all mutation, genetic drift, and some adaptation.

So if scientists can't identify the "good" the way Rand would have liked to think, how do we come to understand that good reason for killing? Just sentiment? Because people in general deserve respect?

Maybe.

But I think it's more that people who are treated with respect know how nice that is and empathetically want others to feel that goodness too. Vast swaths of the human population don't know what it means to be treated with respect. Thus Mark Twain was right: 'Sometimes it seems a pity Noah didn't miss the boat.'

Thanks for discussing this with me.

In short, if the market disappeared tomorrow it would have almost zero impact on 90% of Americans. The stock market is owned by the superwealthy and the wealthy. Nobody else has a stake in it. — Landru Guide Us

I think you're overlooking the fact that if the superwealthy catch cold, the poor die of pneumonia.

A stock market crash triggers a series of events that result in increased unemployment and economic stagnation. When unemployment reaches 25%, it's a depression.

It's unclear to me why anyone would believe that the fact people get away with murder bears any relation to whether it's good or bad to murder, unless they assume that murderers must be punished somehow in order for it to be bad. — Ciceronianus the White

What does "murder is bad" mean to you? Is it just true instinctively? Is it true because a lot of people agree that it is? Is it empathy that makes it bad? I guess I'm asking for your theory of morality.

I think that begs the question. It's also unclear to me why the fact that a person prospers after doing something bad indicates that the universe is unjust or is an injustice.

There's no reason why the universe should conform to our expectations. The fact it doesn't shouldn't be surprising, given that we're such a tiny part of it. — Ciceronianus the White

I think what's shocking about it is the realization that brutality, for instance, can be a magic. In some cases, it gets you what you wanted, there's no blowback from it, and as opposed to making your position less secure, it makes it more secure. It continues to pay dividends down the line. Isn't this why parents teach their sons to belt the playground bully right in the nose? Because they know it works this way.

It just occurred to me that this may be a case of a woman trying to understand men. (I'm female.)