Where do you see prevarication coming from? — Mww

I thought you were evading the question (of the regress).

It does seem to be the case that if truth is only in the mind there isn’t a foundational reason for judging it. You have to make an appeal to the theories of analytic philosophers, which is to make an appeal to their reason, then reason in general. But why judge reason to be a foundational reason for judging truth? You’re left suspended unless you posit that truth isn’t a judgement, but something we discover.

Silencing or locking up or torturing people you see as heretics because they have beliefs or practices that don't match yours. — leo

Yeah. You’re just axe-grinding against ‘religion’. It’s understandable, not wanting to believe in God, but there’s really no need pretending people who do are looking to “torture people” who believe different. It shouldn’t need pointing out that evil isn’t exclusively done by religious believers.

You take this holier-than-thou attitude with your appeal to emotion using an extreme example — leo

Well yeah, I should hope I am “holier-than-thou”. Your attitude seems to be we should let people do what they like, including murdering their children, so long as they can provide an excuse. Then presumably - with the world crashing down around you - you say, “Well it’s not actually crashing down,” and get upset with anyone who tries to re-establish some order.

I actually take facts to be true things, since I don’t see a problem with that (that analytic philosophers say otherwise I don’t take to be a problem). It’s just that I’ve been arguing with you on your terms.

I think it's harder to be a tyrant when you see that your point of view is a point of view, rather than when you believe it applies to everyone everywhere for all eternity. — leo

Maybe it’s easier because you think you can do no wrong.

The parents are feeding rat poison to their children. The children are dying. The parents, however, believe it’s true the rat poison is harmless and they’re actually looking after them. According to you they’re not wrong.

I think my objection still stands.

I understand you as saying a proposition is true when, in reality, its subject (the cat) corresponds to its predicate (on the mat). The way you judge this correspondence is by seeing if your conception (how you think of it) matches your intuition (what you perceive). But on what basis are you judging this to be the way you judge truth? Then, whatever your answer, on what basis are you judging that to be your reason? And so on.

There’s an obvious reply to this, but there’s no point making it if you can’t figure it out yourself.

I would rather say, not so much an explanatory regress, but a tentative quality of knowledge, and by association, of truth itself. I shy away from explanatory regress because there are theoretical predicates for the human rational system, logically consistent and governed by the principles of universality and necessity. In other words, laws. But then, no matter what anybody says about it, somebody else can say something else, so.......so much for laws. That being said, experience informs us empirical knowledge is never static, even if pure a priori knowledge most certainly is. — Mww

This strikes me as prevarication. I can’t see where it answers the problem of there being an explanatory regress, which in effect means there is no foundational reason for judging a proposition to be true.

Actually, no. Very concrete and definite reasons having to do with statistics, which I understand well enough to know when they smell. — tim wood

Prejudice:

Anyone who supposes that guns make people safer is someone who left off thinking when he entered the room. — tim wood

Vagueness (and prejudice):

Some guns can make some people safer than they were under some conditions, and with certain prior qualifications. I see no evidence of that kind of consideration. And as well, the gun that makes that person safer in some ways increases his or her risk or danger in other ways, as well as affecting the safety of others. — tim wood

So you don't answer questions but ask them, draw false conclusions, are ignorant, and throw a little shade because you think that's argument. You must be a Trump! — tim wood

I’ve answered your questions. The only conclusion I’ve drawn is it’s very possible legal guns make people safer. I’ve been citing from two respectable books by two intelligent authors. I’m not claiming to be well informed, but you’ve only read an Amazon preview.

Or try being a bit more intelligent - I suspect you have it in you. Or quit. You've made this thread to this point useless. See if you can put back into it the life you've sucked out of it. — tim wood

I’m happy to quit this particular exchange.

So you’re suspicious for a bunch of vague reasons to do with your obvious prejudice. Great.

A no-brainer thought experiment: in a bar full of drunks late a Saturday night do you feel safer if all have guns or none have guns?

Or everyone: no guns? Some guns? Everyone carrying a gun at all times? In my opinion Lott is selling something and I wonder what. — tim wood

If they’re people who shouldn’t have guns in the first place then no, I wouldn’t feel safe. If they’re responsible people deserving of their permits, who are also drunk, then I feel perfectly safe; very safe in fact, since a loose cannon will be taken down by the rest of them (which would make that loose cannon less likely in the first place).

You performed a mind-independent judgment? :brow: — Terrapin Station

Read it again you tendentious nitwit.

If the example proposition doesn’t correspond to the state of affairs unless I judge it to, on what basis am I making that judgment in the first place? — AJJ

I think I can answer this as well. You’re making it on the basis of whether the proposition relates properly to the state of affairs. That too is a judgement, which you’re making on the basis of what? Your answer to that will be a judgment also, so on what basis are you making that?

It seems, so long as you lock truth within the mind, you get an explanatory regress.

Perhaps you can answer this for me:

State of affairs (objective fact): the cat is on the mat
Proposition: “the cat is on the mat”

Person A judges the proposition true
Person B judges the proposition false

Who is correct (from our perspective)?
Person A, Person B, both, or neither — AJJ

I think I can answer this myself. The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is Person A. This is because the proposition “Person A is correct” matches the reality of person A being correct, since I’ve judged the example proposition to be true also. All of that is mind-dependent judgment. So the more pertinent question is this:

If the example proposition doesn’t correspond to the state of affairs unless I judge it to, on what basis am I making that judgment in the first place?

I’m just going to reply to Mww here.

Perhaps you can answer this for me:

State of affairs (objective fact): the cat is on the mat
Proposition: “the cat is on the mat”

Person A judges the proposition true
Person B judges the proposition false

Who is correct (from our perspective)?
Person A, Person B, both, or neither

You won't answer a fair question? And how can any relevant question "be beside the point"? — tim wood

It’s not relevant, because it’s beside the point I was making. But regardless, I think these are pertinent examples, from Hitchens’ book:

A school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi in 1997 was stopped by a teacher with a legal gun before police arrived. Another shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania was stopped by the owner of a nearby restaurant producing a legal shotgun, also before police arrived.

I have now read on Amazon a sampling of Lott's book and am deeply suspicious of his methodology and his conclusions. Others can read there as well. — tim wood

What makes you suspicious?

The thing is you can oppose tyranny and believe in objective truth, and you can be tyrant who believes there is no objective truth; so I don’t buy your claimed motivation.

If it’s not objectively true rat poison harms people (barring some peculiar exceptions maybe), then there’d be no problem arbitrarily feeding it to children. Its harms might be true to you, but not to the parents feeding it to their kids. So there’s no problem with them doing that, right?

Ok. What does he say? — tim wood

His book is called More Guns, Less Crime. The quote in the OP is from it.

And the question, "How exactly, does a gun make you safer," is a fair question. Either answer, or say why you won't. — tim wood

I won’t, because it’s beside the point. If John Lott’s research shows what he claims it shows, then the freedom to carry guns does make people safer, however that may be the case.

No, it's not beside the point. Answer the question; let's see where it goes. — tim wood

It is beside the point and I think I made it clear why.

John Lott’s research shows allowing them to be legally owned and carried reduces violent crime.
— AJJ
I am unfamiliar with the research, but one thing I know immediately:it does not say what you say it says. — tim wood

Fair enough, it doesn’t say what I say it says, but it may actually say what John Lott says it says.

A bizarre misunderstanding of what I said followed by more assertions.

Like I said: Only once. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

I’m going to explain this once. If you don’t get (which I know you won’t), then you don’t get it.

A lot of that statistic, according to what I’ve shared, is made up of gang members killing other gang members, who they “know”. This means that the statistic is for the most part not referring to regular people being killed by other regular people known to them.

You say, ignoring what I’ve just posted. Assertions, nothing but.

Also, Lott isn't a statistician. Not that I think that that's at all the only relevant expertise. — Terrapin Station

Well alright. He’s an academic who works extensively with statistics then.

For one, most people are not murdered by strangers, or in situations where they might be carrying concealed weapons. — Terrapin Station

Hitchens mentions the most-people-are-killed-by-people-they-know-claim:

In fact, the FBI’s category of people who ‘know’ their victims includes a huge number of rival gang members who know each other. This is not quite why this oft-quotes statistic is taken to mean.

If you assume it can be known, then how? Can you give any example of such objective truth? — leo

By thinking about and examining the world. I think that “something exists” is an example of objective truth.

You can live consistently by your truths, that's what people do. Some believe in a higher truth that doesn't depend on them, but again I simply see that truth as their truth. — leo

What I was saying was you can’t live consistently as if there’s no objective truth. You have to behave as if certain things are objectively true, such as that rat poison affects the body differently to aspirin.

What I wonder is why do you so badly need a truth that doesn't depend on you? What are you afraid of? — leo

I’m afraid, or troubled anyway, by you lot; because I think you’re motivated in your belief by a desire to avoid right and wrong.

I don’t see why. I certainly feel very inclined to behave myself around people with guns. What I find dubious is your claim that you’d credibly be able to “examine and critically analyze” data already subjected to those things by an academic statistician.

Cheers, it’s nice to be agreed with from time to time.

I don’t want the confusion to disappear. Knowing what’s true is important, and so is being unsure of things. It doesn’t seem coherent to say there is no objective truth, and I assume it can be known; I don’t know how a person could consistently live otherwise.

How exactly, does a gun make you safer? Obviously there's a trick; don't fall for it. — tim wood

It’s easy to think why one could, but that’s beside the point; the point being John Lott’s research shows allowing them to be legally owned and carried reduces violent crime. Peter Hitchens cites Lott’s and other research as well in support of this claim. I’m not familiar with the wider debate so perhaps they’ve got in wrong, but if they’re right and ignored simply because they defy prejudice and liberal consensus then people will get needlessly hurt as a consequence of being denied that protection. It runs both ways: Whichever side you’re on, it’s bad to be wrong here.

No. That wasn’t my full explanation. You’re ignoring that.

Thank you mate for caring about what I think, but I’d like to stop this now.

And don’t think I don’t notice when you ignore important points of mine as well.

You didn’t quote my explanation. You’re still ignoring that.

No, you said things like "S proposes a description and then the description corresponds with a fact" (paraphrasing, obviously). That doesn't address how the description corresponds with a fact, especially not mind-independently. You're leaving the actual correspondence part unanalyzed. — Terrapin Station

Yeah. I accuse you of ignoring my explanations and your response is to “paraphrase” my explanation in a way that ignores all of it.

I've explained this a number of times. The dilemma is that correspondence/matching--whatever we want to call it that amounts to the same thing--has to work some way. It needs to be some process that occurs, or some property that obtains in something . . . somehow. We need to be able to describe how it works, or just what the property is. I gave you a couple examples of the sort of answer that addresses this dilemma from "your side"--from a perspective claiming that correspondence can occur mind-independently, and I talked about what the problems with those answers are for this particular issue. — Terrapin Station

I’ve given my explanation several times of how correspondence obtains. You ignore it and assert your own view. I’m sorry mate that I wan’t giving you the answers you wanted (the ones you already had responses to); I didn’t know that’s how arguments work.

He's not understanding that correspondence needs to occur or obtain somehow, and I'm focusing on just how it occurs or obtains. He's not addressing that. He just keeps taking for granted that it works without wanting to analyze how it works. — Terrapin Station

The above is what you said. I’ve just demonstrated I understand your argument. I’ve made objections to your argument and offered my own explanation on how correspondence obtains. I don’t know what dilemma you’re referring to, but assume it’s buried somewhere in your tragic misunderstandings and refusal to engage properly with what I say.

Let's try this to check if you understand the issue I'm getting at: paraphrase the dilemma in a way that I'd agree that it's what I'm saying. — Terrapin Station

Correspondence obtains via a judgement made that a meaning matches a fact; judgements are mind-dependent, so therefore correspondence/truth is mind dependent.

I’ve had a look back over the posts on this page and that seems to be your argument. But the first part is just something you assert. You’ve ignored or bizarrely misunderstood every response I’ve made to that idea.

You edited your post. I’m responding to that now.

Buddy, I don’t think you have any idea what I’ve been saying, or in fact what you’ve been saying. I’m happy to leave this alone now.

The words that indicate that he understands that correspondence can't occur outside of making a judgment about it. ;-) — Terrapin Station

I’ve addressed that over and over again.

He's not understanding that correspondence needs to occur or obtain somehow, and I'm focusing on just how it occurs or obtains. He's not addressing that. He just keeps taking for granted that it works without wanting to analyze how it works. — Terrapin Station

I am understanding that, and have given explanations in answer to your requests. I have addressed it over and over again. You ignore what I say, you ignore my questions, or you go quiet when presumably you have nothing to say.

If the proposition/description amounts to nothing outside of thinking about it, then how does it mind-independently correspond with anything? Mind-independently, it's nothing. Nothing can't correspond with anything, can it? — Terrapin Station

...

...Because its correspondence depends on something independent of the mind...

...

That is, just how does the correspondence relation obtain? The way it obtains is via a judgment about whether the meaning "matches" the fact. — Terrapin Station

Another thought that seems to contradict the above:

The cat is on the mat. You make that proposition and on seeing the cat judge that it corresponds with a fact. But if the cat was on the mat prior to your judgment, what relationship did the fact and proposition have then? If they don’t correspond until you judge them to, on what basis are you making that judgment in the first place?

What does a description amount to outside of thinking about the description? — Terrapin Station

Nothing. That you’re asking that only shows you’re not understanding my point. A proposition/description is a thing within a person’s mind. However, it will only correspond with an independent reality if that reality is as the proposition describes. If it is, the proposition is true; if it isn’t, it isn’t. The question you have never actually answered: What role does a mind play there, beyond thinking up the proposition?