Prospective parents. And yes, it is a thought experiment at the moment simply because it is by thinking that we gain insight into these matters.

Assume they could as a thought experiment. Now, wouldn't it be better if they didn't procreate? Any child they have will be an idiot. Idiocy isn't good for the idiot who has it, and it isn't good for others either as idiots do a lot of damage. So surely a responsible person would no more procreate if they knew their offspring would be idiots than if, say, they knew their offspring would suffer from some wasting disease.

Apologies in advance for not having read the whole thread. — jorndoe

Why not start simpler? — jorndoe

How do you know I didn't? You admit you have not read the whole thread, but then you talk as if you have. Confusing.

This thread is about what truth is - and in the OP I explain what I think it is and why.

It is uncontroversial that truth is a property of propositions. But that is not, however, an answer to the question "what is truth", as I have explained to others. It leaves the question of what the property is, entirely open.

This thread is not about propositions, but about what truth is.

Now, I have argued that truth is constituted by the assertions of Reason. That is, for a proposition to be true, is for Reason to be asserting its contents.

Why? Because that's the ultimate test for whether a proposition possesses the property of truth. And thus, as a working hypothesis, it is reasonable to assume that truth itself is that property.

Looks like conflating ontology and epistemics, truth and justification/beliefs, which has a few odd implications.
Ordinary logic is common to reasoning. — jorndoe

Looks like you've strung some big words together in the hope that the resulting sentence expresses something coherent. It doesn't.

I don’t regard ‘intelligence’ or ‘money’ as indicative of ‘good parenting’. — I like sushi

No, but it would be hard to be a good parent if you're starving and have no resources, and those with IQs below a certain level are pretty much fated to a hard life of exploitation. A responsible prospective parent does not procreate if they know they're not in a financial position to be able to look after any offspring; and I think a couple who know that any child they have would have a very low IQ would also, if responsible, not procreate.

We may disagree about that, but in each case my defence of caring about those kinds of thing is fundamentally the same: protecting the welfare of others.

Nope. Eugenics is about selecting for breeding whilst my position is simply about preventing severe abuse of children by vicious people. — I like sushi

By preventing those ones from breeding, yes?

So you're in favour of eugenics, you're just arbitrarily opposed to some kinds and not others. Prospective children have a right to be protected from severe abuse, but not from poverty or idiocy?

I do not follow you.

To be justified in holding a belief there needs to be a reason for you to hold it. But there can be a reason for you to hold a belief even if you are unaware of that reason.

You have said this is inconsistent with knowledge being made of an attitude that Reason is adopting towards a true belief someone is holding.

I do not see any inconsistency.

Denying someone the joy of children because you happen to think IQ matters or some other daft criteria is utterly facile. — I like sushi

That's just silly. So a parent who, for instance, refuses to educate their child in any way (because it is soo facile to think intelligence matters!) or a parent who thinks, say, poverty doesn't matter and so doesn't bother trying to earn any money at all, is a responsible parent? You'd leave a child in their hands?

I assume the answer to that is 'no'.

Now, is prevention better than cure?

Answer: yes.

So, why - why - would you allow someone who has no money and low IQ to procreate?

Your position makes no sense to me at all.

Maybe you assume I meant sexual abuse only? Being brought up ‘badly’ means what, and exactly what is it social services do that doesn’t cover this already? — I like sushi

No, I assumed you meant 'severe abuse' (which would include sexual abuse, but not be limited to it). You're not addressing the point though. The point is that you are in favour of eugenics, you just draw the line differently to me - but I think you draw it arbitrarily.

Ok but this

Sometimes someone can know something - that is, can have a justified true belief - without knowing that their belief is justified. — Bartricks
and this

having a true belief that Reason is adopting a certain attitude towards (the knowledge attitude). — Bartricks
seem to be in disagreement? — Pantagruel

I don't see that. To be justified in a belief is for there to be reason for you to hold it. 'A reason' here denotes a bidding or approval of Reason (we have reason to believe something when Reason wants us to believe it). But it is entirely consistent with this that one might be unaware that Reason wants you to believe what you are believing, or unaware that Reason approves of you believing what you are believing. She still does - so your belief is justified - but you are unaware that the belief is justified.

You've expressed scepticism about the value of definitions, and then you've offered a load? Why aren't you taking your own medicine? We can't solve philosophical problems with dictionaries.

The topic here is "what is knowledge?" There is already broad agreement that whatever else knowledge involves, it involves having a true belief and a justification for it. But there are cases where these elements are present yet the person does not possess knowledge.

Philosophers have spilt a lot of ink trying to come up with a list of ingredients for knowledge. Again, they agree that true beliefs and justifications are in the mix. They just disagree over what additional ingredient or ingredients are required.

What I am saying is that their project is misguided. They are thinking of knowledge as being akin to a cake and then trying to figure out what ingredients are in this cake. But then they wonder why the cake doesn't always come out right.

What I am saying is that knowledge is more closely akin to a 'delicious cake' as opposed to just 'a cake'. Some cakes are delicious, but 'being delicious' involves the cake standing in some relation to a taster. That is, a 'delicious' cake is a cake that is causing certain sensations in someone who is eating it.

I am saying that knowledge is like that - knowledge is a true belief whose possession by a person is causing a certain attitude in Reason. Just as a cake is delicious when it is responsible for causing certain taste sensations in you, likewise a true belief is 'knowledge' when it is responsible for causing a certain attitude in Reason.

You haven't argued anything or addressed the arguments being made here. You've just expressed your "love and peace' opinion, an opinion that has no merit whatsoever.

Okay, let's apply it to pilots. Let's just let anyone who wants to fly the plane. If you want to fly it - have a go. Whose to say that some good may not come from it? Yes, probably a lot of people will die a fiery death and others will suffer life changing injuries - all easily preventable - but their suffering and the suffering of their bereaved relatives might help toughen them up in the future.

‘Survival is unnecessary’ - is this statement true or false according to Reason? — Possibility

Obviously that would depend.

Do you think it is true? If you think it is true, does that entail that it is true? If not, why not?

It makes no sense to say that reason makes assertions — Janus

I see absolutely no justification for this claim.

What's this: "if an argument is valid and has true premises, then the conclusion is true"?

Well, it is an assertion I have made, certainly. I just made it. But that's not all. It is also asserted by Reason.

What do you think it is if not an assertion?

Reason directs, prescribes, asserts, values. Deal with it. Pick up any book on philosophy and see how far you get before you encounter talk of Reason's directives, biddings, demands, requirements, and so on.

Reason does those kinds of thing. Logic is the attempt by us to describe some of those assertions. Reasoning is our best attempts to listen and follow them.

Only a mind can assert, describe, prescribe, demand, bid, value.

Hence, Reason is a mind.

Don't just cough up an inchoate view about Reason and declare it to be true and my view nonsense.

Nonsense doesn't make sense. My view, even if false, makes sense. SO it isn't nonsense if you're using that word correctly.

My view also answers to the facts. If you think not, then answer my question - what is this: "if an argument is valid and has true premises, then the conclusion is true" if not an assertion?

Both with this and with truth in the other thread, you seem willing to accept problematic and probabilistic "definitions." — tim wood

Where? I didn't define truth. Others did, and I took issue with their definitions. Also it is not I, but Plato, who offered the 'justified true belief' definition.

I am taking issue with it.

But they're in no way understandings of the thing itself. — tim wood

I am not offering definitions. I know full well that definitions do not provide understanding. I am proposing that knowledge consists of an attitude. That's a thesis for exploration, not something I am certain about. And it is not a definition.

Tell us, then, are you being practical or a philosopher? — tim wood

I'm trying to figure out what knowledge is. Using reasoned reflection to do that is practical, for what else would one use?

A distinction is sometimes drawn between 'knowing how' and 'knowing that'. I am talking about 'knowing that'.

Why does one have to have an awareness that something is knowledge for it to be knowledge? — Pantagruel

You don't, I think, and I haven't said that you do. Sometimes someone can know something - that is, can have a justified true belief - without knowing that their belief is justified.

Being justified and being aware that your belief is justified are not necessarily the same.

Well, apples & oranges ... for starters. — 180 Proof

Explain please - they seem relevantly identical.

But, anyway, I think it would be more practical (i.e. enforceable) simply to register parents - birth & adopted, citizens & foreign residents - as 'child raisers' and hold them criminally liable - same offense & conviction record, — 180 Proof

Would you think that justified in adoption cases - that is, anyone can adopt a child (just turn up and get given one from the pen), we just register who got what child and hold them criminally liable for anything bad they do to it?

Presumably not. Presumably you agree such a policy would be criminally reckless?

What do you mean by eugenics?

The only version of this I could get onboard with would be to sterilize people who partake in severe child abuse. — I like sushi

Is that eugenics? Surely it is. It is just that it seems entirely justified.

So, what you are opposed to is 'unjustified' eugenics.

Well, all reasonable people are opposed to 'unjustified' eugenics (for it is unjustified, after all). So now the debate is not over whether or not eugenics programmes are justified, but when they are.

Take your view that it is justified to sterilize those who have abused children.

Okay, well presumably you don't think that for arbitrary reasons? Presumably it is to protect the rights of the children they would otherwise have created, yes?

So, it seems that by your lights (and mine too, of course) procreation can be controlled when needed to protect the rights of children (children who do not yet exist, but would exist if we allowed the procreation to go ahead).

Well, that's exactly the basis upon which I am arguing for licensing procreation. I just don't see why you stop at child abuse. Surely children do not just have a right to be free from 'severe' child abuse, but all manner of other abuses, including being brought up very badly?

Yeah... whatever dude. — creativesoul

I take it you mean by that, "yes, I see that to construct an argument that has the negation of one of your premises as a conclusion I need to incorporate a premise that has nothing to be said for it" or "I no understandy - something went wrong but I no clear what".

You keep assuming that I don’t listen to reason at all. I’m not sure you realise that it’s possible to listen to reason AND to have a broader perspective of reality. — Possibility

No, I'm sure you listen to Reason when it is convenient for you to do so - that is, you listen to Reason on your terms (if you didn't listen to Reason at all you wouldn't survive long in the world). But when confronted by reasoning that leads to a conclusion you dislike, or that would be inconvenience for you to acknowledge, you're going suddenly to decide that Reason lacks authority in this area and listen to yourself instead.

That's an unusual usage. As defined here, "mind" ordinarily refers to a faculty or ability of a person, not that it is a person. Anyway since they're interchangeable for you, I can just read your use of "mind" as "person". — Andrew M

No, not unusual - for time immemorial 'the mind' has been used to refer to the thing, whatever it may be, that is the seat of our consciousness. Mental states, for instance, are 'states of mind'. 'I' - this thinking thing - and 'my mind' are, and always have been, used interchangeably. Using the term 'mind' - a word that denotes an object - to refer to a 'faculty' is confused. Philosophy of mind is that area of philosophy that dedicates itself to figuring what kind of an object the mind might be.

My argument is that you're reifying an abstract term (reason) as something substantial. — Andrew M

That's not an 'argument', it is a question begging assertion. Note, to 'reify' something is to 'mistakenly' think of it as an object. Now, I have argued that Reason is a person - a mind, a thing - not just stated it. So, you need to defeat this argument before you're entitled to use the term 'reify'.

1. Reason makes assertions
2. Minds and only minds can make assertions
3. Therefore Reason is a mind

Otherwise all you're doing is describing my view and using a term to describe it that implies it is mistaken. But you're not showing it to be mistaken at all. So, do you dispute 1 or 2?

And your motivation, it seems, is that you want to model assertions as a kind of performative utterance — Andrew M

No, why analyse my motives? They're irrelevant. And no, wrong way around. I want to know what truth is, I have concluded that truth is the assertions of Reason, and from that - from the fact Reason makes assertions, I have concluded that Reason is a mind and thus truth is constituted by the assertions of that mind. These are 'conclusions' validly derived from premises that appear to be true. I haven't started out with a bunch of claims and then gone hunting for arguments to support them - someone who does that is a crook, not a philosopher.

The evidence that it is not is that we can recall assertions that were later shown to be mistaken. Or point to two people making contrary assertions, only one of which can be correct. — Andrew M

Well, first that's wrong because we can know that our assertions do not make things true just by reflection. But anyway, even if your process is the correct description, it too involves appeals to Reason. First, to recognise that an assertion is mistaken you have to note that it does not match some representation of Reason. And second, to then 'infer' that from the fact they are sometimes mistaken that truth therefore cannot be constituted by one's own assertions is, once more, to appeal to Reason. It is Reason who tells us - asserts - that if one thing is constituted by another thing, then if you have the first you have the other, yes?

There's no way of arguing for anything - including no way of recognising one thing on the basis of another - without having to make recourse to assertions or prescriptions of Reason.

Truth is simply a function of a meaningful assertion in some context. — Andrew M

Question begging. And confused. I don't know what you mean by 'a function of a meaningful assertion'. Either you're using 'meaningful' as a synonym for 'true' - in which case you're not giving an analysis, just repeating yourself - or being meaningful and being true are not synonymous, in which case your analysis is false because by hypothesis a statement could be meaningful and not true. Perhaps by 'in some context' you mean 'a context in which the statement would be true'. Okay, but now once more you've gone in a circle and told us nothing.

Once more, then, I have provided a substantial analysis of truth - I have argued that truth is constituted by the assertive activity of Reason, for we can never have any better evidence that a proposition is true than that it is asserted by Reason. That thesis refutes any other view, and so rather than stating a rival view - which is instantly to beg the question - one must overturn my case first.

I have stated that we can never have better evidence that a thesis is true than that it is asserted by Reason, for the entire enterprise of philosophical investigation is precisely the search for what Reason asserts. Anyone who thinks a proposition is true despite it not appearing to be asserted by Reason is a dogmatist, for they are defying the evidence (evidence itself being that which indicates what Reason asserts).

I have then argued that given that 'being asserted by Reason' is the most we can ever conceive of having in terms of evidence that a proposition is true, it is reasonable to assume that truth itself is that property.

That's the point. — Wittgenstein

But that point - the point in question - shows that that answer is no answer to the question.

And again, nobody disputes the correspondence theory of truth - it is just that it is not a theory of truth.

It's as if I've said 'morality is subjective' and you've said 'if an act is right, we ought to do it'. The latter is true, but does not contradict the first.

Likewise, my theory - one I've argued for, not just stated - is that the property of truth is one and the same as the property of being asserted by Reason. You haven't said anything to challenge that.

No good talking about correspondence to facts, or reality, or what is the case - for again a) not a theory of truth and b) facts, reality and what is the case are just other ways of talking about the same property, namely being true, or else are less basic than the truth in that any analysis of what they are will have to appeal to our analysis of what truth is.

This statement is true if and only if it is true

Based on this definition, we can tell the truth conditions for all statements that involve existential quantifier, universal quantifier and all other logical operators including negation. We can extend this system to natural languages too.

The controversial matter is whether the definition involves truth correspondence theory or not. — Wittgenstein

How are you addressing the argument of the OP?

This - This statement is true if and only if it is true - is not a theory about what truth is. It is a theory - a vacuous theory - about when a statement is true.

There's when a proposition is true, and then there's what the truth of it consists in. It is the latter - not the former - that is at issue here.

I guess some people can’t be helped... — Possibility

The arrogance of thinking I need your help. I don't need your help matey. You need mine - you need to understand that you can't reason without attempting to listen to Reason, just as you can't be a bachelor and have a wife. Reasoning is attempting to listen to Reason.

Now, you think that Reason is not the ultimate guide to what's what. So, that makes you - not me - deluded, okay? You. Not me.

There's listening to Reason, and then there's what's called 'making stuff up'. If you can't show that your beliefs answer to Reason - and worse, if you don't even care - then you are living in a fantasy world. And you're locked in too - for only someone who listens to Reason is capable of recognising the problem they're in.

er no, you'll be leaving me for your delusions. Remember, I think we find out about the nature of things by listening to Reason, whereas you listen to yourself.

Don’t get me wrong - your argument appears to make sense from a logical perspective. — Possibility

That's the only one that matters. Everything else is ego and posturing.

You've reached incoherence my friend — creativesoul

Evidence?

You're equivocating the terms "Reason" and "truth" — creativesoul

er, evidence?

You've changed the terms between the premisses and the conclusion on multiple occasions. — creativesoul

Evidence?

Not much more I can do here. The astute reader will be served. — creativesoul

Oh, they've been served by you, don't you worry, but not for the reasons you think.

Mind isn't a person. Mind is an abstraction that refers to a person's ability to think and reason. Only a person can assert things. — Andrew M

An abstraction is an abstraction. Minds think. Abstractions don't think. So I don't know why you're confidently asserting such things, given they're neither self-evident truths of reason or follow from any.

Minds - or persons, or 'subjects of experiences' the terms can be used interchangeably (I certainly use them interchangeably) - are the only kinds of thing that can make assertions, or value anything, or command anything, or hope, or desire, or prescribe.

I am a mind, and I can do all of those things. You are a mind and you can. Some minds can't, but nothing that isn't a mind can. And we literally consider insane those who think otherwise and lock them in padded cells.

Reason too, does all of those things. And thus Reason is a mind - something she herself tells us, via asserting that minds and minds alone assert things.

You seem to be treating reason as a homunculus. — Andrew M

I have argued that Reason is a person, a mind, a subject of experiences and I am talking about her accordingly. You can't refute a view by simply describing it in disparaging terms.

But in this case, an analysis of truth has yet to be made. — Andrew M

Yes it has. All rational disputants will agree that a theory X is the true theory of truth if and only if they are agreed that Reason asserts it to be true. After all, what more could any rational searcher after truth want? Now, I have then argued that as that's what will satisfy everyone that they have the true theory of truth on their hands, our working hypothesis should be that truth itself is constituted by that property - that is, the property of being asserted by Reason.

That's an analysis. What is truth? Truth is the assertions of Reason. Water is H2o. That's an analysis of water. Truth is the assertions of Reason.

Positing Reason as a person who asserts truth just pushes that analysis back a step — Andrew M

How? First, we know what assertive activity is, for we ourselves assert things all the time. We also know - for it is self-evident to our reason that this is the case - that what we assert to be the case and what is true are not necessarily the same.

Now, if you assert something to be the case, you are claiming it is true. That is, you are representing it to be true. But no matter how sincerely one does that, it remains the case that what is actually true, and what we represent to be true, are not necessarily the same. There's a gap. So, truth is not plausibly constituted by my assertions - and my evidence that it is not, is that Reason asserts it not to be.

But now apply that to Reason herself. Is there a gap between what she asserts to be the case and what is true?

I do not think so, for we can never have better evidence that something is true than that Reason asserts it to be the case. Hence why truth itself can plausibly be identified with that property. I do not say that it has to be that property, only that it is the best working hypothesis given that we can never be more satisfied that we have truth on our hands than when Reason seems to be asserting that something is the case.

Perhaps your point is that to be asserting something is, in effect, to be saying that it is 'true'. And thus I am saying that a proposition is true when Reason asserts it to be true. And this, one might then say, leaves 'truth' itself unanalysed.

But that too is false, I think. I have said in various places above that truth can be considered a 'performative' of Reason.

Normally, saying something does not make it so. If I say "I am 9ft tall" that will not make it the case that I am 9ft tall. But there are well known exceptions.

For example: "I promise to be there". Now, if I say that, then I have promised to be there. My saying it - so long as I have said it sincerely - makes it the case.

Sometimes, then, saying something can make it so.

Another example, that is perhaps better for my purposes: "meeting adjourned".

If I am the chair of a meeting and I say "meeting adjourned" then my saying it adjourns the meeting. My saying it makes it the case that the meeting has been adjourned. Meeting adjournments are created by meeting chairs saying "meeting adjourned".

That's a performative. Meeting adjournments are performatives of meeting chairs.

If you are not the chair of a meeting and you say "meeting adjourned" then although what you say could be true - the meeting might be adjourned - your saying it does not make it so.

But if I am the chair and I say it, then the meeting is adjourned.

My view is that 'truth' is to Reason what meeting adjournments are to meeting chairs. When I say "X is true" that does not make it true. But when Reason does, her saying it makes it so.

Now, that does not push anything back anymore than pointing out that meeting adjournments are created by meeting chairs saying "meeting adjourned" pushes anything back.

My counter argument (and I may not have made this clear enough for you) has been to point out that if my subjective experience of truth extends beyond appeals to Reason, and includes empirical evidence that other subjective experiences of truth do the same, then it is reasonable to at least consider the possibility that an appeal to Reason is insufficient for an inclusive and objective understanding of what truth is. — Possibility

Can you also explain to me what you mean by 'evidence'. For example, how can any sensation constitute evidence without an appeal being made to Reason?

It is by reason that I infer from the fact I am subject to certain sensations, that there are external objects responsible for those sensations.

So, explain to me on what grounds you think you know something, if it is not by appeal to reason. (Even 'justified basic beliefs' - beliefs that have not been acquired via some reasoning process - are still beliefs for which there are reasons, and thus are still beliefs that are endorsed by Reason)

It seems to me that you are not remotely reasonable. But of course, that's not a vice, is it, by your book?

You just know that some things are true, and furthermore if the reason of you and others seems to contradict you, that - for you - is not evidence that you are wrong.

There's a name for that: it is called 'dogmatism' and it is the precise opposite of philosophy.

“No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample — Possibility

And can you then point out where I have done this?

I mean, for starters, locate for me the putative counterexample - that is, provide me with the example of someone who reasons without appealing to reason. You haven't done that above.

It seems to me that you are committing a fallacy known as 'the idiot's veto'. I will let the philosopher Michael Huemer, who coined that term for it, explain:

"The Idiot's Veto is the principle that one can bar any (would be) fact from the realm of objectivity merely by failing to apprehend it. In effect, the premise grans individuals with limited cognitive abilities or stubbornly sceptical dispositions a veto power over any would-be objective truth. Thus, suppose a physics teacher encounters a student who refuses to accept the Second Law of Thermodynamics (such individuals are the source of the perennial efforts to design 'perpectual motion machines'). According to the Idiots Veto, this wold rule out the objectivity of the Second Law of Thermodynamics"

Now, it seems to me that you are thinking that if some people of limited cognitive abilities and/or a stubborn conviction that I am wrong about anything and everything, object to some argument I have made, then that shows that the argument is not sound, or not valid, or that I am not reasonable in rejecting or ignoring what they have said.

I made no assumption about your intelligence, only your capacity to see reasoning as more inclusive than simply appeals to Reason. — Possibility

Can you provide an example of this, for at the moment what you have just said seems conceptually confused.

How on earth can one reason without appealing to reason?

It is not a different argument, you're just not a native English speaker (yes?). Only persons can assert things does not mean that only pluralities of people can assert things - it means that only a person can assert something.

So, once more, it is the same argument.

It is valid.

A conclusion can't be valid or invalid. Arguments are valid or invalid.

the conclusion follows.

the premises are true.

The argument is sound.

Therefore the conclusion is 'true'.


Now let's go through the looking glass and take a peer at your bizzaro argument, shall we -

All assertions are made by language users.
Reason is not a language user.
Reason does not make assertions. — creativesoul

Your second premise is just an assertion rather than a self-evident truth of reason.

Compare it to:

"Reason makes assertions".

That's self-evidently true. If you think it isn't, then tell me what this is, if not an assertion of Reason:
"If an argument is sound, believe its conclusion".

Here's another: "if a proposition is true, do not believe it is also false"

Here's another: "be kind"

Here's another: "if an act is in your interests, do it - unless doing it would be unkind"

And so on.

there's plenty of disagreement about what, exactly, Reason asserts about this or that matter. But that we are dealing with assertions is beyond doubt. If you think otherwise, tell me what they are?

Just to reiterate: you are denying that Reason prescribes, asserts, values, commands (for my same argument can be run for all of those).

Your denial is not based on any evidence, it is just based on your desire to refute me.

No, persons refers to individual persons, not groups - so you're just being tedious. But to remove any ambiguity, here:

1. Reason makes assertions
2. A person and only a person can make an assertion
3. Therefore Reason is a person

Same argument, and it is valid and sound.

We are not getting anywhere. You are not challenging my argument, you are just failing to understand what the premises mean and failing to provide valid arguments that have the negations of any of my premises as their conclusions.

Again, provide a valid argument that has the negation of one of my premises as its conclusion so that I can inspect your premises and see if they have any probative force at all.

Also capitalized Reason is poetic, but what does it refer to? Our everyday reasoning? A God's-eye view? — Andrew M

No, Reason would have to be a person - a mind - because Reason asserts things (and values things, and prescribes things) and minds and only minds can assert things (and value things, and prescribe things). So Reason, capital R, is a person (and we learn this by reasoning - that is, by consulting our reason - the faculty that gives us insight into what Reason prescribes, asserts, values and so on).

Isn't that like saying that the solution to world peace is what Reason asserts it is? — Andrew M

What could the solution to world peace be if not whatever Reason asserts it to be? I mean, when we try and figure out what the solution to world violence is, what are we doing? Consulting our reason, surely? We are consulting our reason and trying to discern the answer, because at some level we recognise that we will only be satisfied we have the true answer to any question when we are sure that Reason asserts it to be true.

Note too that an analysis of truth is not going to give you the answer to substantial questions about what's true. For an analogy, figuring out what water is - that is, what it is made of - does not amount to knowing where there is water. If there are two people in a desert, one of whom is aware that water is made of tiny molecules whereas the other believes (incorrectly, of course) that water is a basic substance that is made of nothing more basic than itself, the one with the correct view is not necessarily in any better position to know where there is any. Likewise, someone who realizes that truth is made of Reason's assertions is not necessarily in any better position to know the solution to world violence than someone who believes (incorrectly) that truth and the property of 'being useful to believe' are one and the same.

Where is your refutation of premise 1?

Lay it out. A valid argument with the negation of premise 1 as its conclusion please.

No, relevant. It means the premise is true. Or do you think something other than a person can assert something? If so what?

'm now granting it and focusing upon the invalid inference. After you grant that mistake, I'll continue along the path of showing you how a valid inference results in being a problem with your analysis of truth. — creativesoul

The argument is valid, the problem is that English is not your first language and so you have not realized that "persons and only persons" refers not to groups, but individual persons.

I've already adequately refuted the primary premiss. — creativesoul

No, premise 2 is true, you just don't understand what it means. It doesn't mean that groups of persons can assert things, only that persons - minds - and minds alone can assert things.

Now, that's true, not false.

And it entails that Reason is a person. Not 'a persons' - that's just bad grammar.

If you think groups of persons can assert things, that's because you've committed the fallacy of composition.

A group of persons is not itself a person, anymore than a group of sharks is a shark.

No, premise 2 refers to individual persons, not groups of persons.

Groups of persons - not being persons themselves - cannot assert anything.

It is persons - individual persons - and those alone who can assert things.

The conclusion does follow. Reason has to be a person - not a group of persons.

Again, persons - not groups of persons, but persons - and persons alone assert things.

Reason, then, must be a person.