And as soon as one asks what a fact is, or what it is to point, the equivocation resumes. — Banno

Only for the mystic, addicted to systematic equivocation.

Snow is white. That's a fact. — Banno

"Snow is white" is a sentence, and we point the word "true" at it iff we point the word "white" at snow.

"Fact" is ambiguous between true sentence and more occult alleged entities.

Could we all just drop "state of affairs" and "proposition"? Serious suggestion. Because even the former ends up standing for "sentence". At least with those perhaps disavowing correspondence but prone to having it both ways.

Oh, and "fact", as well. — bongo fury

Note that we don't want a string of words to correspond to cat-on-the-mat-ness. — Pie

Who don't? I think they do. I think they're wrong. But not obviously wrong. And they obviously do.

For me, the words on the right of "iff" in '"Snow is white" is true iff snow is white' point to the grounding fact of snow being white (or not). — Janus

See, @Pie and @Banno? It's not hard not to equivocate, if you don't want to:



If you don't want to. But mysticism is a hard drug.

The thing on the right is a fact. — Banno

No, the thing on the right of the T-schema is a string of words.

The meaning of 'P' is P. — Pie

Yes, the denotation of a sentence adjoined to quotation marks is the string of words itself.

If 'P' is true, then P is the case, — Pie

But if P is the case, then P.

and P is a piece of the world. — Pie

What is, exactly? A state of affairs corresponding to the string of words? Why not say so, like @Janus? Why the desperate urge to confuse it with the string of words? Do you feel clever when people can't follow your drift?

The issue is what to make of arguments that go like this:

1. P.
2. (1) might be wrong. — Srap Tasmaner

Such as

(p ∧ ¬□p) → ◇¬p

To be fair.

Or even

1. p
2. ¬□(p)

Or

1. p
2. ¬□(1)

2. It is unacceptable to say that we can have knowledge that is not certain
3. It is unacceptable to say that we can have knowledge that is not necessarily true — Michael

So K becomes a modal operator?

(Or might as well.)

E.g. Kp (or □p) meaning not even secretly not p (or ¬◇¬p).

By analogy with necessarily p meaning not even possibly not p.

Then omniscience is cool, because there are no secret errors. Green zone gone when all p are Kp (□p):



Just as you are observing that omniscience will be cool if there are no possible errors.

Either way, no error problem.

You might object: but my green zone doesn't really contain any errors. It isn't inside the not p circle. So my 'secret errors' (absent omniscience) are no such thing.

But that was my point about your 'possible' errors being unintuitive enough, already. Their being both p and possibly not p is sufficient grounds for worrying at length about relevant angles on "might be wrong". We don't need to assume that modal logic will solve the problem, though. Modality is the problem.

3. Kp (premise)
4. ¬□p (premise)
5. Kp ∧ ◇¬p (from 3 and 4) — Michael

What about

3. p (premise)
4. ¬□p (premise)
5. p ∧ ◇¬p (from 3 and 4)

Isn't that unintuitive enough?

I mean, do you want it to be true, even if you're not wrong that p?

And what I say is true even if I am not wrong. — Michael

Green zone is p ∧ ◇¬p. Imagine the complement-donuts on the left are un-wound to make their own circles on the right.

5. Kp ∧ ◇¬p (from 3 and 4) — Michael

We then conclude that I could be wrong even if I know everything (and assuming that some p is not necessarily true): — Michael

Is it relevant that your K is an ordinary predicate not a modal operator? Sending the modal operator (or rather a corresponding extension) on the same adventure of enlargement would push back the territory of ◇¬p

It seems that Searle is saying then that consciousness creates the independent fact — TheVeryIdea

Yep. Is that fact.

which I suppose ties in with the quantum mechanics observation effect — TheVeryIdea

I wouldn't know! But this is you not Searle?

firstly "is true" looks clearer than either "denotes" or "describes" — Banno

Which is clearer: "word and object" or "sentence and situation"?

You might say the second is more suggestive of 'fit'. Fair enough. That hardly makes it clearer though.

and secondly we can ask if it is true that this "describes" or "denotes" that, — Banno

Sure, and hence the relevance of

Some of the trouble traces back to Alfred Tarski's unfortunate suggestion that the formula " 'Snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white" commits us to a correspondence theory of truth. Actually it leaves us free to adopt any theory (correspondence, coherence, or other) that gives " 'Snow is white' is true" and "snow is white" the same truth-value. — Goodman, Of Mind and Other Matters

Whether a word fits an object is a matter of whether an individual use - say, Humpty's - fits or coheres with the general.

But am I not interpreting marks on the paper or in my brain when I do the calculation without using a machine? — TheVeryIdea

Sure. With or without.

So no "transition".

E.g. if I add 2 + 2 and get 4 then that is just a fact, a property of the universe — TheVeryIdea

You and your brain interpreting the symbols is the independent fact, not the maths itself. I think. From memory. Quote specifically if I'm wrong on this point, and Searle espouses mathematical Platonism.

that a conscious entity had to construct the calculator — TheVeryIdea

No.

someone had to read the result from the electronic calculator — TheVeryIdea

And interpret the marks as symbols with meaning, yes.

Your drawing gives me some insight, but it'd help to hear more about how you conceive or deal with truthmakers. — Pie

Picture 1 is meant to explain ordinary usage of "truth-maker/truth-bearer".

Not that we have to acknowledge truth-makers corresponding to truth-bearers. — bongo fury

Hence picture 2. Nonetheless, picture 1 is (or so I thought) the usual shared assumption when people use those terms (competently), or when they invoke the use-mention distinction for whole sentences. And in cases like this:

If we jettison apparent nonsense like the world-in-itself...the world is just that which is the case. To me this is not correspondence. There's just use/mention. 'P' is a string of letters. P is piece of a world, a truth (or an attempted truthery.) — Pie

I'm hoping the picture will help us agree whether your P is truth bearer or truth maker or both or neither? What are the odds, I wonder... :grin:

Yes, she sees fine, but her memory and imagination do not include visual images. — T Clark

Also, ask her to describe a route, say out of the house to the nearest post box?

And what happens if she were to draw (the post box, say) from memory?

P is true is just fancy talk for P. — Pie

"true" denotes "snow is white" iff "white" denotes snow. — bongo fury

Went with describes, but denotes may less jarring for the naming by quotation.

I may be asking for trouble with the dotted arrows anyway.

Trouble welcome.

So you want to link nouns to objects maybe ? — Pie

Of course. And variables to their values (which are things out there, not more language).

And so on.

extensional — Banno

Yes, or even nominalist ("hyper-extensionalist" in Goodman's rhetoric).

I feel a diagram coming on, tomorrow.

I'm offering denotation (of sentence-parts) as a better way (to examine how language relates or corresponds with bits of reality) than truth of whole sentences.

Bug.

I'd just say that "snow is white" is true if snow is white. — Pie

Yes, which is deflationary, and what could possibly be wrong with that! Well, it's a bit smug, if there's stuff to say about how a sentence refers to other stuff. And mystical, if we end up equivocating between truth-bearing sentence and truth-making state. Which I'm quite sure none of us ever would...

My intuition would be that 'true' would merely describe and not denote in that case. — Pie

Same difference. In Quine (see above), Goodman, Elgin.

Denotes, describes, applies to, refers to, points to, ...

Me neither, but I gather he invented sense vs reference, with the latter pointing to true or false as you describe. So?

Is this a Fregean idea ? — Pie

Not that I recall.

I'm not sure it's unobjectionable.

I remember thinking something like it when trying to grasp Tarski's expositions. So if it's not badly wrong it'll be from there.

If it seems alien, I can get supporting sentiments from Goodman and Quine, I think.

Woodger's term, p.17, is 'shared name'. Martin, in Truth and Denotation, Ch. IV, speaks of divided reference as multiple denotation. I applaud that use of 'denote', having so used the word myself until deflected to 'true of' by readers' misunderstanding; and Martin's 'multiple' obviates the misunderstanding. — Quine: Word and Object, p 90n.

Ah and this is what reminded me:

Truth for singular sentences, consisting of a name and an arbitrarily complex predicate, is defined thus: A singular sentence is true iff the object denoted by the name satisfies the predicate. Logical machinery provided by Tarski (1935) can be used to turn this simplified sketch into a more general definition of truth—a definition that handles sentences containing relational predicates and quantifiers and covers molecular sentences as well. Whether Tarski’s own definition of truth can be regarded as a correspondence definition, even in this modified sense, is under debate (cf. Popper 1972; Field 1972, 1986; Kirkham 1992, chaps. 5-6; Soames 1999; Künne 2003, chap. 4; Patterson 2008.) — SEP

P is true is just fancy talk for P. — Pie

But P talks about truth, as well. Or denotation. It says, e.g., "white" denotes snow, i.e. "white" is true of snow, or snow satisfies "white".

Plausibly.

And, "true" denotes "snow is white" iff "white" denotes snow.

Thus defining true as a predicate, in terms of is-true-of or denotes.

OK, hold up. — Tate

So, no?

Ok. Will you be getting back to waxing analytical any time soon?

There's just use/mention. 'P' is a string of letters. P is piece of a world, a truth (or an attempted truthery.) — Pie

Is this my fault? Have I lowered the tone?

It doesn't seem to make any sense. Are you joking?

Ah, thanks for the indulgence but no, it was just, why should I answer yours if you won't answer mine.

I've only been arguing for avoiding the perennial equivocation re

1 truth-bearing sentence/proposition

2 truth-making event/state of affairs/proposition — bongo fury

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

I'd say the quoted part is [about] some specific act of assertion, and the disquoted part is [about] a state of affairs that corresponds to the assertion. — Tate

Is this what you meant?

:ok: haha I get it now

Which one, right ? — Pie

Might be the day before you came here that everyone was quoting

3.1431 The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs. Then the spatial arrangement of these things will express the sense of the proposition. — the big W

at each other.

I'd say the quoted part is some specific act of assertion, and the disquoted part is a state of affairs that corresponds to the assertion. — Tate

Still? You're still saying the disquoted part of a sentence is a disquoted part of the world, whatever that means?

My question is: how does (the meaning of ) a true statement depict reality ? What is this representational, optical metaphor doing or trying to do ? — Pie

I seem to recall, someone had a theory about that.

It would be some state of the world. — Tate

What would? What you're calling "the disquoted part"?

Some state of the world is a disquoted part? Part of what? Part of the world?

So "part" didn't mean "part of the T schema"?

You have to specify the context in which you're using the T-sentence rule. Is it Tarski? Redundancy? Are you try to make into correspondence theory? — Tate

Er,

If you're interpreting the t-sentence rule as a rendering of correspondence theory, then — Tate

Now then, in that context, your context, did

the disquoted part — Tate

refer to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3 (because it doesn't matter)?

I think we humans are pretty good at doing that too. — Pie

Let's see...

I wasn't trying to use it. I took Banno to be asking if we should interpret the quotes as signaling a specific act of assertion. My answer was that you can do that, you just need to explain that to the reader. — Tate

Ok so you were talking mainly about the first half of the biconditional. Even so, did

the disquoted part — Tate

refer to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3 (because it doesn't matter)?

I definitely need that explained.

I just meant that we can still drop "proposition".

My point was that you need to look for how an author is using the t-sentence rule. Use varies. — Tate

I was asking how you were trying to use it. Whether

the disquoted part — Tate

referred to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3.

Glad to hear it.

Then why say "both"?

Meh... Why would propositions be timeless? — Olivier5

You said

Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)?
— Pie

Both, because propositions are in fact a class of sentences. — Olivier5

propositions are in fact a class of sentences. — Olivier5

Sure. But a sentence is already a class: of tokens, or copies. So you don't need another name for the more inclusive class.

Allowing translations into the class won't matter at all if they are parsed and interpreted the same. It's no different to letting symbols stand for the sentence-parts.

If you want a proposition to be a class of differently parsed paraphrases, then, why? And what? Non-linguistic? Abstract? Timeless?

and the disquoted part is a truth maker. — Tate

Not so fast. The sentence in the second part is a truth maker? Or it picks out a truth maker?

Seems to me the problem stems from treating propositions as individuals.
— Banno

Why is that problematic? — Tate

How is it clear? Is such an individual: truth-bearing sentence, truth-making event or relation, or something in between, or (as so often carelessly implied) all at once.

Tarski offers this example:

The sentence "snow is white" is true if, and only if, snow is white. — Michael

Quite. "Sentence" is fine. Drop "proposition". (Everyone!) If not why not?