I've been reading this thread all along, so yes, I did see that. She knows.

Using IS giving an account of it, don't you think?

If anything they show what JTB is not.

You also find this in the Gettier examples, a bit different, but essentially same.

There is no fact of the matter in that sentence. Many of these kinds of paradox's don't amount to a hill of beans.

"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is true ≡ The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
To what does this correspond?

"Frodo walked in to Mordor" is true ≡ Frodo walked in to Mordor.
To what does this correspond?

"Frodo walked in to Sydney" is true ≡ Frodo walked in to Sydney.
To what does this correspond?

"No bachelor is married" is true ≡ No bachelor is married.
To what does this correspond?

"All bachelors are married" is true ≡ all bachelors are married.
To what does this correspond?

"This sentence is false" is true ≡ this sentence is false
To what does this correspond? — Banno

Each of these can be answered, I don't see a problem. But to think that "p is true, if and only if p" is some kind of answer, is to say nothing meaningful, it's tautological, and that's being kind. Is this how you learned to use the concept true? I took a philosophy class by Tarski and now I know what truth is. Most of that theory is just so convoluted. I get much more out of Wittgenstein's ideas, even if there are some problems, than theories like Tarski's.

What does that tell us about truth, then? And how are we even able to compare these theories? Is it that there is no truth at all, or an undefined truth? Or is there simply a toy logic we invent in the moment which allows us to temporarily compare these theories among one another, but which ultimately results in no insight -- a formalism of truth? — Moliere

When we talk about truth, we're referring to what people believe. Some theories provide a better answer to the question of truth than other theories. I happen to think the correspondence theory works well.

Usually when people agree that a particular statement is true, they agree on some fact of the matter. In some cases we're just speculating about the truth, or we are just giving an opinion about what we think is true. In still more cases we may express a theory that X is true, as Einstein did with the general theory of relativity. It wasn't until Eddington verified Einstein's theory that we knew the truth of the matter. Here of course truth is connected with knowledge, not just an opinion or speculation.

If you want to learn what truth is, then study how the concept is used in a wide variety of situations, i.e., in our forms of life. Think about people disagreeing about political or economic views, they're disagreeing about the facts associated with these views. Most don't know enough to recognize what facts make their belief true or false, so their disagreeing over opinions, and some are willing to kill over their opinions, but I digress.

What's true can also refer to possible worlds, and to works of fiction. So, there can be facts associated with things that aren't even real. Anything we do is associated with some fact, and as such it can be associated with what we believe.

There is definitely the concept of truth, so it's not as though the concept doesn't exist, or that it doesn't have a place within our various linguistic contexts.

Insight is gained by looking carefully at the various uses of these concepts. The problem is that many people want exactness where there is none, at least not in some absolute across the board sense. There are some absolutes when it comes to truth, but those absolutes are relative to a particular context.

I suppose it's better to say that correspondence seems to work-for, but it's not something you'd consider a universal theory of truth, or something. — Moliere

No theory of truth is going to cover every use of the concept truth. It seems that most uses of the concept, though, do point to a relationship between propositional beliefs, and states-of-affairs. In this sense there is a kind of correspondence or association between the propositional belief, and those states-of-affairs that make the proposition true, as opposed to false. As with the word game, we have a set of family resemblances that guide us when using the concept. There are no hard and fast definitions that work in every social context.

A twenty-seven-month-old child can know when "there's nothing in there" is false, when the speaker is talking about a fridge. I gave that real life example earlier. She demonstrated that knowledge. She has no idea whatsoever about theories of truth. The terms "truth" and "falsehood" are not even understood by her. She certainly does not understand the logic of truth. — creativesoul

Which is why use tells us much more about these concepts, i.e., tells us much more about meaning and understanding.

True.

I like to keep things as simple as possible. If someone was to read through this thread trying to understand the concept truth, they'd be confused as hell.

I think most of us would agree, maybe I'm wrong, that statements, viz., propositions expressed as beliefs, can be true or false, and these beliefs are separate from facts. A belief is an expression of what someone believes is a fact. Whether a proposition turns out to be true or false, depends on the facts of reality. So, there is a correspondence between true propositions and reality (the facts), and mostly we see this in the way we use propositions in various contexts. This is the way I explain truth to a beginner, and I think most people understand it.

:up:

I just want to add a little more to what I said in my last post, and I apologize for interrupting the ongoing discussion.

One of the main differences between Davidson and Wittgenstein is over the idea of social convention, Davidson doesn’t believe social conventionalism is a necessary ingredient to successful communication. (And, to be fair this is the way he interprets Wittgenstein, so he believes he is expanding the notion of what it means to communicate. I happen to think this is incorrect, but of course we can go around and around on how Wittgenstein should be interpreted.) Davidson uses intention, and again, this is where he thinks Wittgenstein leads, it’s a wider form of social agreement for Davidson, which includes what the speaker intends by their utterances. This is Davidson’s interpretation of a form of life. However, what do we mean by conventions, if not the very activity derived from social activity, including the idea of rule-following, and the social practices that follow. This, in my opinion, guts Wittgenstein’s ideas of forms of life.

One of the differences between Wittgenstein and Davidson, it seems, is Davidson’s idea that rule-following and convention is not essential to “language communication.” Davidson’s view is that communication doesn’t require “rule-governed repetition (this is taken from Davidson’s paper Communication and Convention 1984).” Davidson points out that a speaker may use words differently from those around them, and it seems that the interpreter usually understands what the speaker is intending to mean apart from convention. It seems, in Davidson’s view, the intention of the speaker is more important than the rule-governed activity of language-games within a community. I’m not saying that Davidson eliminates language conventions. He just believes that what the speaker intends by their words has a more prominent role. This seems to fly in the face of Wittgenstein’s view that the inner self plays no role in the meaning of words. Or, more precisely, that the role of the subjective doesn’t play the role that Davidson seems to emphasize. Wittgenstein emphasizes the community much more than Davidson does. My current belief is that this idea, at first glance, flies in the face of Wittgenstein’s ideas, or what many believe to be Wittgensteinian ideas.

A thread on Davidson would be as absurd as a single thread on Wittgenstein. But it might be interesting to start a thread on one of his essays - say Truth and Meaning, since it sets out his early views. — Banno

Well, I wasn't suggesting that the thread would cover all of Davidson's ideas.

We will disagree as to whether Davidson's ideas flow parallel with Wittgenstein, if you mean by parallel, there is agreement. Just from the little I read in the SEP, I don't get that idea. There are other philosophers who do a much better job of extending Wittgenstein's ideas.

And, of course, there is more to philosophy than Wittgenstein, who would think otherwise, certainly not me.

I've a keen interest in reconciling Wittgenstein and Davidson. Been at it since I were a lad. In a way Davidson's semantic theory might be a more recent and sophisticated version of the formalisation of language found in the Tractatus, an attempt to explicate what is important in our natural languages by setting out the conditions under which our utterances are true. — Banno

I've already started reading about Davidson in the SEP, so yes, that's where I've started. I'd rather start with primary sources, but that's a lot to wade through, so this will have to do. Generally speaking I'm not a fan of Davidson, so I'm already starting with a certain bias, but that's because I think Wittgenstein, even with his faults, is a far better philosopher in my opinion. I don't think that the early or later Wittgenstein would agree with Davidson's semantic theory. However, Wittgenstein's early philosophy is much more in line with the kind of analytic philosophy that Davidson is doing, but in saying that, I'm not saying that there is much overlap, although some.

If you want to understand Wittgenstein, don't look at him through the eyes of others, which is difficult, because we usually start by reading what others have written as a guide to get a general feel for a philosophers thinking. Moreover, this is all I'm bringing to the table in terms of Davidson, a general feel for his philosophy, because I haven't read much Davidson.

My impression so far, is that Davidson went his own way in developing a theory of semantics. And, I don't believe that your going to be able to reconcile Wittgenstein with Davidson unless you do some fancy interpretative moves (aka spin). These kinds of interpretative moves will probably lead you away from Wittgenstein's thinking, not closer to it. This isn't to say that there isn't some overlap, because there is, but Wittgenstein is one thing, and Davidson is quite another.

My suggestion, for those of you who have a background in philosophy, and of course are interested, is that you concentrate on Wittgenstein (except for background information, for e.g., vis a vis Frege and Russell), if you want to understand Wittgenstein.

I was thinking about starting a thread on Davidson, but I don't know if I'm mentally up for it. :yikes:

Banno, before I respond further I'm going to do some reading on Davidson. I'm not that familiar with his work. All I have to go on is what's being said in here about him, and that's not enough for me to respond intelligently. It seems I disagree with some of the things he's proposed, but I want to make sure.

It seems the further we look at W. the further apart our disagreements become. I'm not really a fan of Davidson's ideas.

:up:

I think in the Tractacus he's presenting that as the way we normally imagine things: propositions corresponding to the world the same way a photograph corresponds to a scene. — Tate

Exactly.

But the picture can never be in the picture. When we present a theory of propositions, we've strayed beyond what language good for, into nonsense. We're just so enthralled by the theory that we don't realize this. We've forgotten that some things can't be explained. We should pass over them in silence. — Tate

Parts of this I agree with, other parts would have to be explained further. I'm not a fan of passing over anything, or much of anything, in silence. This has become a kind of cliché for many philosophers.

If the picture is that the cat is on the mat, then Davidson's criticism applies. If the picture is "the cat is on the mat", then it doesn't. — Banno

The model is my or someone else's contention that there is a cat on the mat in my living room (that there's a fact of the matter). A proposition by itself, without the belief, is just a potential picture of a fact that hasn't been presented as a particular belief about the world. It's neither true nor false.

At least a dozen more. :yikes:

My concern with this approach is that it's not clear what the pictures are picturing. How does language function as an image for what you insist is not already linguistic ? — Pie

So, if I describe a picture to you, you wouldn't be clear what the picture is picturing. Now I'm not saying that all propositions fit this approach, but I am saying that some propositional uses do fit this approach.

Yes; it's in a sense the elimination of the picture giving the meaning in favour of the use replacing the meaning in an expression. That the cat is on the mat is not a picture of the world, it is the world. — Banno

He didn't eliminate the idea that propositions can picture. He just expanded the idea. Some propositions are a kind of picture. Propositions can be a model of reality, and that model either agrees with reality or it doesn't. Even Einstein's theories were models that were confirmed, i.e., it agreed or it didn't. When the experiments confirmed the model, then the model was accepted as a fact of reality.

I think the point is that reality, the one we (can) talk about, is 'already' linguistic...and not something 'subintelligble' that words can somehow picture, as if holding up concepts to judge against something real-but-non-conceptual. The 'picture,' if true, is the world. — Pie

If that's what Davidson is saying, then I disagree. Reality isn't, in my view "already linguistic." We use language (propositions) to describe reality, propositions are separate from the facts of reality.

I'm not even sure what Davidson is saying, it seems a bit confusing to me. I'm pretty sure I understand what Wittgenstein is saying, at least in terms of the picture theory. A proposition, whether true or false presents a picture of reality. So, if a proposition gives us a picture of a cat on the mat, then that pictorial form either matches reality or it doesn't. If it does, then it's true, if it doesn't, then it's false. W. didn't give up the picture theory (i.e., some propositions are a kind of picture of reality), he just gave us a much broader conception of language based on how we use the concepts.

"NDE" is not the (existential) death-state itself so it's not informative about life after life. If it were death, then (A) it's irreversible brain decomposition would somehow reverse itself and yet no such "reports" are forthcoming and (B) irreversible brain decomposition entails absence of memory-formation and cessation of "experience" of a purported life after life. This 'folk interpretation' of a brain-state phenomenon is absurd (ludicrous) on its face and even worse under both philosophical and scientific scrutiny. I think it's far from "closed-minded" to say so."


I will agree that a near-death experience is not a death state, if we’re using the word death as you’re using it. However, clinical death is another matter, and it’s different from your use, and it’s the use that most use in this context. However, the point of near-death experiences (I’m using bold to over-emphasize the point) is not that they are death experiences, it’s that they are near-death experiences. I would never claim that a near-death experience is the same as death.

I would dispute the claim that NDEs are not informative about the death. And, my inductive argument, which is given at least twice in this thread, explains why it’s informative. Your contention that it’s absurd is going to need a bit more support, to say the least. Here’s why…

Why do I say that the testimonial evidence, and it is evidence, is strong in support of consciousness surviving the death of the body (here I’m using the word death as you’re using it)? Because the same criteria that makes any testimonial evidence strong is the same criteria being applied in my argument.

These criteria are as follows:

1) Number of reports (although numbers are not enough)
2) Variety of reports, variety adds to the strength of the reports.
3) Truth of the reports, which is determined in the following ways:

(a) Since we are dealing with testimonial evidence, in order to know if the testimonial evidence is true, we need corroboration, i.e., we need an objective way to verify some of the testimonial evidence. This helps to establish the truth of the testimonial evidence, and since the evidence is testimonial evidence, it helps to establish the truth of the premises.

(b) Another important factor in determining the truth of testimonial evidence is firsthand testimony, as opposed to hearsay or secondhand testimony. Firsthand testimony is stronger than hearsay or second-hand testimony, all things being equal.

(c) Consistency of the reports is another important criterion in terms of getting to the truth. However, testimonial evidence does not have to be perfectly consistent to be credible. When dealing with a large number of reports you will inevitably find some inconsistency. So, inconsistency itself is not enough to rule out the reports unless the inconsistency is widespread, and of such a number, that it affects the quality and number of consistent reports. So, although consistency is important, it must be looked at in terms of the overall picture.

There are other criteria used in my inductive argument that make a strong inductive argument, but these are enough to make my point. There has been quite a bit of data by scientists that support the consistency of the reports. This consistency has been compared to the consistency of veridical reports and shown to be at least as consistent. Moreover, the memories of these reports tend to be stronger than many of the memories of veridical reports.

To say that this kind of testimonial evidence is just “folk interpretations,” is not to understand the nature of the testimonial evidence. We’re not dealing with a few stories, or a few anecdotes, that haven’t been scrutinized in the ways I’ve outlined. We’re dealing with millions and millions of reports that have come from every culture from around the world; and many thousands of these reports have been analyzed in the way I’ve outlined.

I keep talking about the testimonial evidence, but where is it? It’s on sites devoted to collecting such material, such as https://www.nderf.org/Archives/NDERF_NDEs.html

This is not the only source. There have been hundreds of books published about people’s experiences, and there have been hundreds of scientific articles published from various universities from around the world.

Further data to support my argument.
https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2020/11/Nov-2020-NDE-C-CC.pdf

There are other universities from around the world involved, not just the University of Virginia.

All of the testimonial evidence must be looked at in terms of the whole of the reports. Moreover, to say that this evidence is ludicrous or absurd is a comment that is itself ludicrous and absurd. And, given the strength of such evidence, it is absolutely closed-minded to reject it in such absolute and dogmatic terms.

The argument also applies to , who says that this inductive argument is just an opinion.

:up:

I can think of some people on this forum who could use a DMT trip. :nerd:

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism. — Isaac

I would take this further. It seems to me that if the solipsism is correct, then how is it that there is a language (PLA)? There would be no argument about other minds, language is logically dependent on other minds, if W. is correct, and I believe he is.

do you believe all living things are conscious? — dazed

There are different levels of consciousness. For example, dreaming, meditative states, DMT states (and other drug induced states) , monkeys, dogs, all the way down to insects. It's not clear how far down the biological life scale this goes, but it's clear that there are levels of consciousness, and different states of consciousness. Based on my research, and the research of others, I believe we are in a dumbed-downed state of consciousness as humans. This isn't our natural state of being or existence. Death returns us to our natural state, which is probably why so many NDErs feel like they're home when they experience an NDE.

A peer reviewed study is consistent with my own research, viz., that NDEs are not consistent with hallucinations. This is confirmed in the following study:

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/948999

Moreover, research is being done all over the world into the experiences of NDErs, including the following universities and disciplines.

The following quote is take from the above link:

"The researchers on the study represent many medical disciplines, including the neurosciences, critical care, psychiatry, psychology, social sciences and humanities, and represent many of the world’s most respected academic institutions including Harvard University, Baylor University, University of California Riverside, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Wisconsin, and the Universities of Southampton and London."

In other words, unlike other philosophical ideas, Wittgenstein's views remain unchanged or static since the time of its inception. Is it, in that case, a work that's perfect as it is? — Agent Smith

I wouldn't quite go that far. There are people who are trying to work out the implications of his ideas, but as far as I know, and I'm just guessing, it's a small number. Moreover, I'm not up to date on some of this.

Reason (inference or a proof) has its limits. Not every premise in a chain of reason can be proven. At some point you just choose an ending, if not, then you would never conclude anything. Moreover, some premises can be known by other means, such as testimony, experience, or linguistic training. Dr. Bitar (a former friend) says, "Inference or proof is parasitic; it requires knowledge by other means which it can then use to extend what is known."

I would agree with you. Most are just trying to understand what he said, but few are working out the implications of what he said, especially the nuanced implications of this very abstract linguistic subject.

I seem to see other people, but I can't be sure, because what I mean by person is roughly what I mean by 'I,' this existence I know 'directly.' My states of mind, my thoughts and sensations, are phosphorescently present for me, infinitely intimate. — Pie

I think a good understanding of the Philosophical Investigations and especially On Certainty should dispel one of the notion that our internal “states of mind, [our] thoughts and sensations” are things which we “know directly.” We simply have these experiences. In other words, we don’t learn that we have these experiences, as if we discover them through some investigation.

To know means to have an understanding of what it means to know, and what it means to not know in a given context. Otherwise, we could infer that someone knows based on their claim that they know. So, how would a doubt arise in this context? The very act of doubting shows a particular state of mind (shows that it exists). If you can’t doubt someone’s claim to knowledge, then you can’t know that it is knowledge. It’s not a matter of knowing at all, no more than I know I’m having a pain in my foot, as I scream out holding my foot, which is bleeding profusely.

The act of knowing is not a private matter, which is what this quote implies. I know based on my direct experience with my inner self. As if knowing is directly connected with some inner thing. This is an easy mistake to make. It’s a confusion between my subjective certainty and objective certainty (knowledge). It’s as if we equate feeling certain with being objectively certain, or knowing. They are not the same, but they are often confused.

What might be added, to comfort those who find this troubling, is that these social constructs aren't rigid and eternal. Meanings can drift. Wittgenstein himself kicked a few around. — Pie

True.

The problem with all of the testimonials is the brain wasn't fully dead. Just because you are not conscious or responsive, does not mean you are not collecting smells, sounds, and even visuals if your eyes are opened by a doctor or your lids fail. — Philosophim

First, there are plenty of NDEs where there is no sign of brain activity, where the blood has been completely drained from the brain; or, that the brain is so compromised one wonders how their having any experience, let alone hyper-experiences (more real than real). Second, your speculating about what the brain is capable of in these conditions, you don't know. It seems rather obvious that the brain is definitely in a degraded state based on monitoring procedures.

All you're doing is giving your opinions on the subject, which isn't much of a counter-argument.

That would be your argument, not mine. I do believe that there is evidence for past lives based on NDEs and DMT experiences, but this would entail a different argument.

The argument, if you read it, doesn't conclude anything about past lives, it concludes that consciousness survives the death of the body. Past lives is a side issue that has some evidence (based on what has happened in many NDEs), but it's has nothing to do with the thrust of my main argument. So, again, you're not following the argument, or you haven't read it closely enough.