there's just true claims ? — Pie

I think N is the wrong way to go. I think we agree ? — Pie

Could we all just drop "state of affairs" and "proposition"? Serious suggestion. Because even the former ends up standing for "sentence". — bongo fury

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

and N to be the set of non-linguistic reality bits. — Pie

Is this just an issue with use versus mention ? — Pie

Alternatively propositions are expressions, — Michael

in which case the T-schema only applies when something is expressed, — Michael

one of my concerns, truth-makers, which seem like unnecessary entities. — Pie

"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

I made it clear I’m not a solipsist (if I was why would I be talking to you?) but I need a logical way to dismiss it. — GLEN willows

Philosophy once aspired to set all knowledge on a firm foundation. Genuine knowledge claims were to be derived from indubitable truths by means of infallible rules. The terms that make up such truths were held to denote the individuals and kinds that constitute reality, and the rules for combining them into sentences and for deriving some sentences from others were thought to reflect the real order of things.

This philosophical enterprise has foundered. Indubitable truths and infallible rules are not to be had. Philosophy cannot expect to underwrite the assertions of other disciplines, for its own assertions are no more secure than the rest. Nor can it reasonably aspire to certainty. For without indubitable starting points, certainty is beyond our reach. — Catherine Z Elgin

Let me just start by saying I don't deny private experiences. — Pie

I long for death, — Darkneos

I have a friend who has no minds eye. She does not see visual mental images. — T Clark

Sorry but can you dumb that down just a tiny bit? — GLEN willows

REFERENCES. Since the choice of an autopsychological basis amounts merely to an application of the form and method of solipsism, but not to an acknowledgment of its central thesis, we may describe our position as methodological solipsism. This viewpoint has been maintained and expounded in detail, especially by Driesch, as the necessary starting point of epistemology ([Ordnungsl.] esp. 23). I mention here some further adherents of this theory, some of whom apply the solipsistic method only in the initial stages of their systems and eventually make an abrupt jump to the heteropsychological. Since they do not, for the most part, employ any precise forms of construction, it is not always clear whether this transition amounts to a construction on the solipsistic basis, as is the case in our constructional system, or whether it is a desertion of that basis — Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World, p102

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses — Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 2 a. 3 arg. 19.

Why can't this happen in the dark
— bert1

But as I pointed out, the modelling relation approach to neural information processing says the brain’s aim is to turn the lights out. It targets a level of reality prediction where it’s forward model can cancel the arriving sensory input. — apokrisis

How is idealism different from solipsism? — GLEN willows

Dictionary: Phenomenalism, the doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses. — Art48

Then you completely side step the epistemological problem of perception — Michael

and ignore the actual, substantive disagreement between direct and indirect realists. — Michael

Arguing over the grammatically correct way to talk about perception is meaningless. — Michael

Is there a Cartesian theatre [implied] when we say that we feel pain... — Michael

...and that pain is a sensation? — Michael

There's no philosophical difference between feeling a sensation and hearing a sensation or seeing a sensation. The nouns simply signify a different modality of perception. — Michael

It might not be the ordinary way of speaking — Michael

but that's just an arbitrary fact about the English language — Michael

The "language trap" is arguing over which of "I hear the drill" and "I hear the sounds made by the drill" — Michael

The "language trap" is arguing over which of [the above] and "I hear auditory sensations" is correct, — Michael

whereas we should be arguing over whether or not drills have the auditory features that we hear them to have. — Michael

Whether sights or sounds, smells or tastes, it's all just sense data brought about by sensory stimulation and brain activity. — Michael

Words are organic things, and have fuzzy boundaries, and our minds are well constituted to deal with them as such. We happily use the word sandwich, — hypericin

never mistakenly using the word with hotdogs. — hypericin

There is no trans-linguistic reality, no platonic essence of sandwiches which you can consult. — hypericin

Our tables, steam yachts, and potatoes are events of comparatively small spatial and large temporal dimensions. The eye of a potato is an event temporally coextensive with the whole, but spatially smaller. The steam-yacht-during-an-hour is an event spatially as large as the yacht but temporally smaller. But the steam-yacht-during-an-hour is an element in a larger whole as is the eye of the potato. — Goodman, Structure of Appearance, 1951

See red things. — Michael

We can do that — Michael

The point is they don't need language. — Michael

And that's how seeing colours is seeing an external material world. It's recognising classes of objects. (Or classes of illumination events.) — bongo fury

A dog can recognise his owner. — Michael

I have no idea what you're talking about. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pain. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pleasure. A hermit with no language can recognise the difference between feeling pain and feeling pleasure. — Michael

Nothing about this depends on there being some observer who can make, and justify, these claims. — Michael

Without that wider association you couldn't say they discriminated (or equated) according to colour. Only that they discriminated.
— bongo fury

You confuse me being able to know that that he recognises colours with him being able to recognise colours. He either can or he can't, irrespective of what I think. — Michael

It's everything to do with comparing and classifying, whether or not using word-pointing so to do.
— bongo fury

No it doesn't. I don't need to have words for pleasure and pain to recognise the difference between me feeling pleasure and me feeling pain. Qualitative experiences differ, and that they do has nothing to do with being able to make and make sense of my own and another person's vocalisations or ink impressions. — Michael

It's nothing to do with language. — Michael

A hermit with no language could look at two objects and see them to be the same colour (or different colours). — Michael

Plato is not only warning us about misusing language in the sense of bad grammar or syntax. Speaking badly also includes saying untruths, telling lies, creating a conflict between speech and reality - between what is said and what is. — Harry Hindu

Which will you choose then? Let us see... Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your self-respect? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that we live again. If you gain, you gain nothing, an eternity of smug self-satisfaction, in the company of equally repellent souls; if you lose, you lose everything, as you wasted your chance to live authentically and perceive reality. Wager, then, without hesitation, that we don't. — Pascal's Other Wager

If I had been mentioning "aRb" I would have put it in quotes. I am surprised that was not apparent from the context. — Banno

Insofar as some true relation aRb pictures the world... — Banno

Insofar as some relation aRb, which is itself the fact pictured by the proposition "aRb", is true in virtue of itself picturing a fact in the world... — Banno

Insofar as some true proposition "aRb" (and/or some spatial relation within its sign) pictures a fact, — bongo fury

As far as I can see, 3.14 and what follows concerns the structure of propositions rather than how they might picture the world. — Banno

You asked how a relation pictures the world, — Banno

Insofar as some true relation aRb pictures the world, — Banno

So you want to put into words how a relation pictures the world. — Banno

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 wil express the sense of the proposition.

3.1432 Instead of, ‘The complex sign “aRb” says that a stands to b in the relation R’, we ought to put, ‘That “a” stands to “b” in a certain relation says that aRb.’

How to parse it? — Banno

Is "aRb" being used or mentioned (in your sentence)? — bongo fury

No. — Banno

Insofar as some true relation aRb pictures the world, — Banno

Nor are "proposition" and "relation" interchangeable. — Banno

A proposition, for W, is any such [relation] which... — bongo fury

Further, propositional signs are distinct from propositions (3.12) — Banno

3.12 — And a proposition is a propositional
sign in its projective relation to the world.

And what does it mean to "see something differently"? — Michael

It means to classify the same thing differently. — bongo fury

It means that we experience different sense-data. — Michael

I experience white and gold, you experience black and blue. — Michael

and is it a fact that the relation shows the state of affairs, and as such is part of the world and not distinct from it? — Harry Hindu