Pointing to external sources is not engaging in argument. You simply haven't engaged in argument, such as responding to posts like <this one>. — Leontiskos

...argues against pointing to external sources by pointing to an external source...

. If not, then please give me the logical theory in which it is derivable from or an axiom of — Bob Ross

Take a look at my present thread on Russell's paper. It is on exactly that topic.

Oh, you can't do that, that's "gish gallop".

I take it that you now accept that your account derives an ought from an is, which is progress, of a sort.

I reject the possible worlds interpretation of modal logic: I’ve never been inclined to reject all of the operators, axioms, and formulas of it. — Bob Ross

So you reject the whole, but accept each of the parts... or just those that suit your religious zealotry?

Can you elaborate? — Bob Ross

Apparently I'm not allowed to, that again being "gish gallop". But what more is there to elaborate on, since I already pointed out that

...the very definition of (S5) is that every possible world may access every other possible world. — Banno

What part of that needs further explanations? Maybe Google it yourself, and save the "gish gallop".

But isn’t the actual world a possible world in possible world’s theory? I though necessary X entails that X is in every possible world and the actual world is a world that could possibly exist because it does exist: it’s existence proves its possibility under the theory. No? — Bob Ross

Yes, the actual world is a possible world. No, existence in the actual world does not entail existence in every possible world. “It exists, therefore it’s possible, therefore it’s necessary” leads to modal collapse.

Can we agree on this — Bob Ross

No. You just moved your goal post. You still want gender to be "an epistemic symbolism of society’s understanding of the ontological reality of sex and its tendencies", and so grounded in your "ontological reality" and not in social reality. You still want trousers to be like the three sides of a triangle, the "symbol of an ontological reality".

So which is it, am I presenting too much, or not enough?

Here's the guts of it: You and Bob are using an anachronistic ontology in an attempt to defend an immoral position that you actually adopt as a result of your religious convictions, not your philosophical considerations. You are faux philosophers.

My side? — unenlightened

Philosophy as a team sport...?

Banno is actually contradicting himself with a double standard when he tells you that you can't promote 'oughts' because "ought cannot be derived from is." This is because every one of Banno's posts within this thread are premised on various 'oughts'. — Leontiskos

This is another vexatious post from Leon. Yes, my posts contain "oughts". But no, I do not derive those "oughts" from an "is". And witness:

If Banno really thought that 'oughts' were underivable or unassertable — Leontiskos

Another example of Leon bearing false witness. Of course we can assert oughts.

And this:

Pointing to books or threads is gish gallop and avoidance of engagement. — Leontiskos

Pointing to the literature is failing it engage? Laughing my ares off.

It's tedious. If I said Paris was in France, Leon would insist it is in Germany.

Good question. Thanks for following along.

On a glance, the second horn of the dilemma is that if Fa v ∀xGx is not universal, we have as an example of a derivation of a universal from a particular:

Fa v ∀xGx
¬Fa
___________
∀xGx

Either the first row of our knitting is yellow, or all the rows are green. The first row is not yellow, so all the rows are green. That's valid. And ∀xGx is universal - that all the rows are green can change if we add a yellow row. So is it an example of deriving a universal from a particular?

¬Fa is particular - adding more rows will not change the colour of the first row. But Fa v ∀xGx is not universal. Fa can't change, but ∀xGx can. and given Fa v ∀xG together with ¬Fa, ∀xGx must be true. but ∀xGx is universal.

Prior's suggestion was that {Fa v ∀xGx, ¬Fa} is as a whole, particular, but ∀xGx, universal. But on Russell's account, {Fa v ∀xGx, ¬Fa} is not particular. Adding more rows may make ∀xGx false.


How's that?

More on this later.

This just hit my in-tray, from the Australasian Association of Philosophy - a workshop at Uni of Singapore.

WARRANTED ASSESSMENT
IN THE AGE OF AI

WEBINAR VIA ZOOM

Wednesday 29 October 10 - 11am SGT • 1 - 2pm AEDT • 3 - 4pm NZDT

As generative AI reshapes the landscape of higher education, the challenge of ensuring warranted assessment—assessment that justifiably reflects a student's understanding—has become increasingly urgent. This workshop brings together philosophers to examine how traditional epistemic and pedagogical standards can be preserved or reimagined in light of AI's growing influence. We will explore concrete examples of warranted assessment, including oral examinations, scaffolded in-class writing, and collaborative philosophical inquiry with transparent process documentation.

Participants will engage in critical discussion around the epistemic and ethical dimensions of assessment design, with attention to disciplinary integrity, student equity, and institutional accountability. The workshop aims to foster a shared understanding of what counts as justified assessment in philosophy today, and to develop practical strategies for implementation across diverse institutional contexts.

Some features of these definitions are worth remarking on — Gillian Russell

Yes, indeed, and are part of the prompt for this thread rather than just accepting the article.

First feature: Fa and ∀x(x≠a v Fx) are equivalent. They always have the same truth value. Yet Fa is particular while ∀x(x≠a v Fx) looks on the face of it to be universal - after all, that's a universal quantification right there at the front. The syntactic approach, that would classify these equivalent sentences differently, is qualified by the modelling approach adopted here, giving greater coherence. ∀x(x≠a v Fx) is particular.

Second feature, and prenex normal form. That's just a standard way of writing any first-order sentence with all the quantifiers - "∃"'s and "∀"'s - at the front. So ∀x(P(x)→∃yQ(y,x)) becomes ∀x∃y(¬P(x)∨Q(y,x)). This is used in computation because it feeds into Turing Machines easily. It's a syntactic definition, as opposed to the model definition Russell uses. So here Russell points otu that there already is a syntactic definition of the particular sentences.

Third, logical truths are particular. Pretty clear why - a sentence S is particular iff, whenever it is true in a model M, it is also true in all extensions of M. And logical truths are true in all models - that's what a logical truth is. But it is a curious result. It looks odd because tautologies such as ∀x(Fx → Fx) again look as if they are universal.

I'm puzzling over how that's compatible with the second feature - ∀x(Fx → Fx) in prenex normal form is, I think, ∀x(¬Fx ∨ Fx); now Russell's observation is that the set of particulars is identical to ∃₁, which are those prenex normal form sentences with only existential quantifiers; now ∃x(x = x) is in prenex normal form, and is I believe the only ∃₁ that is a candidate for a logical truth, at least in a non-empty domain. So what's going on? I think we have to take Russell quite literally here, and suppose a non-empty domain so that ∃x(x = x) is a tautology, and since all tautologies are true, they all have the same truth value - that this is what she means by their being "identical". We will raise this question again when we get to section 4, as Russell notes. But I'm not overly content with this bit.

Forth, and I find this quite interesting, there are sentences which are neither universal nor particular. We noted Fa v UxGx in talking about Prior's Dilemma, above. This is her answer to Prior, in a nut shell: that Fa ⊢ Fa v UxGx is not a counterexample, because while Fa is particular, Fa v UxGx is not universal, and so he does not give an example of a particular implying a universal.

And fifth, nor are they exclusive - p^~p, by way of an example. If it were true in M it would be true in M', as per the definition - but of course it is never true. And if it were true in M then there is at least one extension in which it is true, so it is universal... yep, but it's never true in M,

Logic is odd.

We seem to now be playing "posts last wins".

The logical law I referenced was Humes' Law - the illicit move from ought to is.

But you rejection of possible world semantics is of a par with, say, accepting algebra but rejecting calculus. PWS is what links model logic to model theory. It is quite central to modern logic. It is the very instrument that demonstrates soundness and completeness. It is quite central to modern logic. Not really optional.

Moral naturalism doesn’t claim that physics is ethics. — Bob Ross

But you are in effect claiming that your preferences are built in to the world. That they re physical. YEs, it's ridiculous, but it is a direct consequence of ethical naturalism. If you do not like the consequences of your own ideas, best reconsider them.

That’s blatantly not true, my friend! S5 modal logic is the most commonly accepted version of modal logic — Bob Ross

You do understand that differentiating S5 from S4 requires possible world semantics, don't you?

Sure, ◇□P → □P is valid in S5, the very definition of which is that every possible world may access every other possible world. It is invalid in other systems such as S4. But further, supposing that ☐P→P threatens modal collapse, if the claim is that P is true in the actual world... S5 assumes that every possible world is accessible from every other world, so if X is necessary in some world, it is necessary in all worlds. That part of your reasoning is formally correct. However, your next step — asserting that ☐P implies that P “must exist in the actual world” — is not automatically justified. ☐P only entails that P is true in all possible worlds; it does not by itself specify existence in the actual world unless P is an existential proposition. Modal logic distinguishes between truth across possible worlds and existence in the actual world. SO yes, it's valid in S5, but at the cost of modal collapse if P is an existential statement.

But good to see you making use of possible world semantics.

‘I can conceive it’→‘It is possible in S5’ is an error. Keep psychology away from modality.

How odd. So instead you take your own attitudes as being necessarily universal.

That’s not what I said. — Bob Ross

It is what your view entails. Again if that is not acceptable, you might do well to reconsider.

(You are) trying to book-drown me — Bob Ross

If by that you mean I am showing you what is problematic in your account by pointing to the literature, then I'm guilty.

When a woman wears a dress it isn’t itself a part of their gender: it is the symbol which represents their expression of their sex (i.e., the symbol that represents their gender). You can separate the dress-wearing from femaleness, but you can’t separate the feminine expression of femaleness that it represents from the sex (femaleness) that it represents. That’s the part that is virtually distinct. — Bob Ross

Muddled. You are here confusing the biological category with its social expression. Here's an idea: lets' seperate the biological category from its social expression - to make this clear, we cpoudl call the former "sex", and the latter "gender"... that will avoid the circularity of “Feminine expression is inseparable from femaleness → therefore feminine expression must reflect biological sex.”

They are drawing it so they can conveniently evade discussing gender theory with me — Bob Ross

No. They are drawing it so that they can continue to discuss gender theory as distinct from biology.

That's hitting the nail on the head, it seems. The philosophy here is being forced to be the handmaid of faith. The rejection of core aspects of logic, of Hume's fork, and the adherence to an archaic ontology are all in the service of a belief that is not to be the subject of doubt.

The etymology of "bigot" is unclear, but etymonline rejects the suggestion that it derives from "By god", preferring instead to link it to "Beguine", a hypocritical religious order who pretended to poverty. The connection to religion is uncontested. The earliest attested uses (Old French bigot, c. 12th–13th centuries) referred to a sanctimonious or hypocritically pious person, which already suggests a religious connection.

:up:

It's extraordinary stuff.

Before you so quickly give the thumbs up, look at what Leon is saying. I gave reference to a thread that leads to a book and a whole literature that sets out the difference between brute and social facts, which Leon dismissed as "failing to engage with the topic".

Think about that. Which of us, Leon or I, is failing here.

...baseless... — Bob Ross

It's not baseless. You would oblige others to express only your attitudes. Have a think about why folk might draw this sort of comparison, even if unjustly.

I don’t accept Hume’s guillotine. — Bob Ross

Why am I not surprised. I suppose you have your "reasons", the upshot being that your attitudes amount to natural law. Now a "bigot" is someone "obstinately attached to a belief or opinion" - like someone who would reject a rule of logic in order to insist that homosexuality was degenerate. Hmm.

All this by way of saying, if you do not understand the difference between something being the case and something's being an attitude, then there's not much point in doing ethics with you. Physics is not ethics.

I think all countries would be better off mirroring American values. — Bob Ross

Parochial chauvinism. The US is in a right mess because it has rejected its own values. At the very least, even you must be able to see that that those values are in, shall we say, a state of flux.

Free speech is always tempered. Your rejection of Hume's Law in order to maintain belief in your immoral comments is symptomatic of "obstinately attached to a belief or opinion". The parochial attitude you are displaying in the post to which I am replying reinforces that assessment.

This thread is obviously only attempting to defend and discuss an alternative view of gender theory — Bob Ross

It's more an attempt to close down gender theory as a topic for discussion by pretending that gender is sexuality. A failure to acknowledge the distinction between biological sexuality and social gender is a closing of one's mind. Your post is a set piece, intended to justify forcing obligations on to others - for them not to express who they are, be it homosexual, trans, drag and so on. It's an attempt to justify conformity. The pretence of encouraging freedom is a shame.

Categorically, either ontologically there are real essences to things or there are not — Bob Ross

Repeating the Aristotelian view is not arguing for it. You continue to frame the issue as ontological. That's part of your error.

With regard to possible worlds, your (1) is blatantly incorrect; the outermost mode determines the overall mode, so it would be possibly necessary → possibly; and there is no link from there to existence. Nor is there a conflation of conceivability with modality. Possible because it is so brief, the reasons given here appear muddled. If you are going to reject an accepted part of modern logic, then you ought provide good, clear reasons.

I don’t think moral non-naturalism works as it appeals to an unknown, incoherent source of morality (such as Moorean thought) and essentially is just moral anti-realism with the false veil of objectivity (no offense!). — Bob Ross

How odd. So instead you take your own attitudes as being necessarily universal. I guess that has the advantage of simplicity, and saves you time and effort.

can you elaborate on it more? — Bob Ross

I already have, in the post I already linked.

Gender and sex are not really distinct, but are virtually (conceptually) distinct; analogous to how the trilaterally and triangularity are virtually but not really distinct in a triangle. — Bob Ross

What a terrible argument. A woman wearing a dress is not like a triangle's having three sides. There are no triangles that do not have three sides, but there are women in trousers.

A review of the book in Philosophy Now:

Barriers to Entailment by Gillian Russell

This book’s proof of the Strong General Barrier Theorem is a landmark achievement in twenty-first century philosophy. Not since Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921) has such an important contribution been made to philosophical logic. — Christopher John Searle

One analogue might be knitting. John starts with green wool, so the first row is green, and so is the second, and the third. So far all the rows are green. At some point John may decide to change wool to yellow, and continue adding rows. Suppose we don't know what John decides to do.

Now regardless of what John decides, the first row remains green. "The first row is green" is true and particular. It will not change, regardless of what John does. Generally, any statement that if true does not become false when more rows are added is particular.

In contrast, "All the rows are green" is true unless John changes wool; and then false. So "All the rows are green", whether true or not, is universal. Generally, any statement that can change its truth value as rows are added is universal.

Now the proof seeks to show that no set of particular statements can logically entail a universal statement. That is, that a set of statements that cannot change when we add rows cannot logically entail one that can change it's truth value as rows are added.

Let's look at the universal statement "All the rows are green". Either all the rows are green, or they are not. The collection "Row one is green, row two is green, row three is green" is not enough to tell us that all the rows are green, since John may have decided to change to yellow at some subsequent row.

Now to be sure, "Row three is green, row four is yellow" does entitle us to conclude that not all rows are green. But "not all rows are green", if it is true, cannot be changed by adding new rows - if there are yellow rows, adding more rows will not change that. So "not all rows are green" is not a universal statement but a particular one.

No matter what we do, no set of particular statements can entail a universal one.


The knitting analogy is a bit clunky, but it might be of use when we get to temporality. It amounts to, no set of statements about what John has already knitted logically entails what he will knit next, which I hope has an intuitive appeal.

It'd been in the greenhouse for a few years, with some success, but it proved ungainly and unmanageable, so I've found it a place on a north wall. I doubt it will do as well, it's in a bit of a wind trap.

Yes, I wondered about the diagram. It's both clear and misleading. The circle is the domain, each dot is an item, an individual in the domain. Only one is labeled - given an interpretation. That's the dot at top left. In the left circle there are two other individuals, both of which satisfy F; that is, both of which belong to the collection of things that are F. In the right circle, the domain has been extended, with one thing that satisfies F and another that does not - the one labeled "¬F". In both domains, a is F. indeed, by the rule for forming extensions, we can't construct an extension in which a is not F, because extending a model by definition does not change what is there already. So Fa is particular. But ∀xFx, while true for the circle on the left, is not true for the circle on the right, since we can add an item that does not satisfy F, without changing what's there already. That is, ∀xFx is universal.

The US has an infatuation with free speech not found elsewhere. Or rather,
it pretends to allow anyone to say what they please, the practical outcome of which is to have speech controlled by the very rich. As the criticism of Feyerabend says, "anything goes" just means that nothing changes. Do you think that the forums should drop the rule agains posting bigotry and racism? That would quite radically change it's nature. But it's what is implied by insisting that there be no restrictions on what can be posted. All of that is a side issue, and here, it's @Jamal and @Baden who decide what stays and what goes, whether we like it or not.

Correct; and to be clear: you are an anti-realist about essences if you disagree with the above quoted statement. You would have to be nominalist...that’s not a trivial commitment to have. — Bob Ross

Not quite. It's not uncommon to presume that either realism is true or nominalism is true. But the two are not exhaustive, nor mutually exclusive. There are intermediate or alternative responses that avoid the simple binary. For example, Kant's conceptualism, Ramsey's pragmatism and Davidson's linguistic deflation all challenge the supposed dichotomy. We choose to talk of essences in a way that works for us.

So your

...two humans really share a nature—then you have to explain how that works. — Bob Ross

imposes a nature as much as it shows a nature. What you are doing here is stipulating that certain characteristics determine who is human and who isn't, and then insisting on explaining away any falsification of your stipulation as aberrant. Now that might be acceptable, if you acknowledged that this was what you are doing. But instead you insist that your stipulation is fact.

I reject possible world theory — Bob Ross

Then you reject the most coherent semantics for modal language, a framework that allows modality to be expressed without incoherence or circularity. What is your alternative?

Now have a close look at

I am claiming that the only social aspects of gender that are legitimate are those that are the upshot of one’s procreative nature; so there may, and usually are, social expectations and views of gender that are patently false that a society may have. — Bob Ross

Can you see how this mixes factual and normative language? I've bolded the normative term for you. It's you and I who decide what is legitimate, not biology. It's an attitude, not a fact. That't the is/ought barrier being broken by your rhetoric.

Here's the same thing, again:

I am saying a particular kind of sex act is wrong if it is contrary to the natural ends and teleology of a human. — Bob Ross

...the pretence of a normative teleology on a par with brute fact.

In your view and the modern gender theory view, it is impossible for a society to get a gender wrong... — Bob Ross

Not quite; gender is fluid, because like all social artefacts it is the result of a "counts as..." statement (this is what @Leontiskos is missing). See my thread on John Searle if you need more explanation of this. One gets an institutional fact wrong when one breaks the "counts as..." convention that inaugurates that fact. You apparently want sex to count as gender, failing to notice the very many differences between our uses of the two terms.

When we fail to recognise the difference between institutional facts and brute facts we become vulnerable to satire. This explains the damnation heaped on drag by conservatives - "you can't do that! It's against nature!" No it isn't - it's against what was presumed to count as natural, but which doesn't. No force of nature prevents a male from dressing in drag. That's down to convention.

staunch hatred — Bob Ross

To be clear, I don't hate you. If you are every over this way I would buy you a beer and have a chat with you. But I do wish you to be aware that what you are advocating is seen by many as immoral. Hence the strong language.

That accusation of name-calling - I'm here, and I've just spent a half-hour responding to your post with an extended account of why I think it problematic. That's a lot more than just name-calling. Don't fall into @Leontiskos's lack of intellectual engagement when challenged.



Added: I'll reinforce one particular point here. You are welcome to your views, and you are welcome to express them. What is objectionable is the pretence that your attitudes are natural, such that they are the inevitable outcome of how things are. They are not; they are an ought imposed by you over and above the is of how things are. And there are alternatives to your attitudes, with equal legitimacy.

...instead of arguing against them — Leontiskos

Again, I did not report this thread. And I am here, presenting arguments. And again, you would make this a thread about me, fabricating responses instead of reading them - as exemplified in your quite irrational main paragraph. Fertilising an ovum and bearing a child are not social roles. Un already pointed this out. It's you who repeatedly relies on ad homs.

Blatantly, it is you who is not responding to the arguments here.

Your vindictiveness is a bore, Leon.

tag me in the post — Bob Ross

My apologies - that was not intentional.

Jamal will do as he pleases. I was simply wishing to stay out of his way.

...you decided to report the thread... — Bob Ross

I did no such thing. However to be clear, if it were in my power I would delete the thread as failing, under the mentioned guidelines. But it's not my call.

Perhaps my concern with regard to Aristotelian substances would be clearer if it were treated as a rhetorical critique: It seems to me, and I suspect to others, that your OP seeks to justify an immoral position by invoking an antique, superseded metaphysic. Not a strong move.

"Quiddity" treats essence as a thing to be discovered. Few would now take such an account seriously. There's a good few problems with that approach. How are we to understand quiddity apart from our conceptual apparatus - apart from our use of language? Possible world semantics makes no such metaphysical commitment. But further, it's not a question of choosing or rejecting possible world semantics, as if it were a mere dogma of modality; it is, whether you like it or not, the very language in which modality is made coherent.

I am purposefully collapsing them to avoid confusion. — Bob Ross

And yet the result of that "purposeful collapse" is an inability to distinguish constructed social role from biological fact, and the claim to have demonstrated that biology determines social role.

You do no have to attend a drag show, but you have not given good reason to prevent others from doing so.

Your show of kindness is admirable.

It should be made explicit that the views advocated in the OP are not only fraught with philosophical difficulties, but that they are ethically questionable. You and I have discussed elsewhere how there is a tendency amongst conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, to think of themselves as the arbiters of morality, as possessing a special moral authority. It is well worth pointing out that their views on topics such as gender, abortion, capital punishment, race and so on are widely considered immoral.

We ought point both to the inconsistencies in their account, and also to the poverty of the underlying sentiment.

The core here is that the contents of one's underwear is not generally a suitable justification for one's role in society. The lie being promulgated is that of illegitimately inferring normative obligations from biological facts.

Perhaps there are limits on sharing my share back to us...

But will we settle on they/them?

And so to the central argument.

Definition 1 sets out what is meant by extending a model. A model, again, is a bunch of individuals that have been assigned various predicates. The extension of a model adds some more individuals, and the predicates belonging to those individuals. Importantly, it does not change the individuals already in the model, nor their predicts.

Definition 2 sets out that a sentence is particular if and only if it's truth value does not change when the model is extended.

In contrast, Definition 3 sets out that a sentence is Universal if and only if its truth value can change when the model is extended.

So, speaking roughly, we have a bunch of individuals, and their predicates, and if we add more individuals and predicates without changing any of the existing ones, we have extended the model. Those sentences who's truth value does not change are particular, and those sentences who's truth value can change are universal.

Even more briefly, if a sentence is true in M and in any extension M' then it is particular. If it is true in M and false in at least one extension of M' then it is Universal.

Now comes the proof. What is to be shown is that from any true collection consisting only of particular sentences, we cannot derive a universal sentence. The proof works by considering the only two possibilities: Either the universal sentences is true, or it is false. Now if it is false, then it cannot follow from a true collection of particular sentences, since no collection of true sentences can imply a falsehood. And if it is true, then by definition 3, there is some model in which that universal sentence is false. But in that model we would again have the collection of true particular sentences implying a falsehood, which again cannot happen.

Too quick? Let's break it down. We have a collection of true particular sentences, Γ. We want to show that this collection cannot imply a true universal sentence, .

Now either is true, or it is false.

If it is false, then it cannot be implied by any collection of true sentences, and so cannot be implied by Γ.

And since is a universal sentence, there is an extension of our modal in which it is false. So even if in our model it is true, there must be a model in which it is false. And in that model, our particular sentences would still be true, and we would again have an instance of true sentences implying a falsehood.

So in neither case can a collection of particular sentences imply a universal sentence.

How's that? I'll look for a good analogue as well.

It should be noted that here I've skipped over the whole extensional mechanism of satisfaction, preferring to talk just of truth - on the presumption that truth is a bit more intuitive. Russell uses satisfaction, making her case both more robust and tighter.

What remains to be seen is how this account is to be generalised.

But first, a few important notes.

It would be pretty interesting if they identified as anything. — Janus

We can settle this. Common curtesy suggests we just ask.

:wink:

So did I, in the first draft.

Gobbledegook. Buried somewhere in there is the simple notion that it is people who interpret computer output, not computers. Fine.

Except when a computer networks with another computer.

is correct in that neural nets can be modelled on Turing machines, and so are subject to the limits thereof.

I'm here, Bob. Happy to continue - I held off because it looked to me as if might be about to do something in accord with the guidelines, but it seems not.

Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them. — Site Guidelines

You claim your approach is neo-Aristotelian, but apart from the name, there's nothing to indicate why. I'd presumed you were making some reference to essences, but you might like to explain what you mean.

You say sex is "a distinct type of substance", a very odd phrasing; as if we could put sex on a scale and measure it's mass, or wash it down the drain. You appear to claim sex and gender are the the same substance, whatever that could mean. Anachronistic Aristotelian bullshit, it seems.

More recent work uses possible world semantics and talks of essential properties rather than substance. An essence here becomes a predicate attributed to an individual in every possible world in which it exists. That is a much more workable definition than the nonsense of "that which makes something what it is, and not something else".

Do you follow this? Should I dumb it down a bit more? Sex is physical, gender is social. Your insistence that they are the same substance is ridiculous.

And there's this: "The divorcing of sex and gender renders gender as merely a personality type that someone could assume, which is an ahistorical account of gender", which is inaccurate. The latin genus referred to the classification of nouns — masculine, feminine, or neuter. So historically, neuter is one of the categories that “gender” originally encompassed.The original meaning of “gender” already included the notion of “neither male nor female”. "Sex", from sexus, is historically binary.The terms are not interchangeable.

So again, you are stipulating that there are two genders, determined by sex, and then pretending that this is a discovery, that it could not be otherwise. Your basis for this is the resuscitation of an ancient metaphysics and logic that relies on ill-defined notions of essence and substance. Not that strong a case, it seems.

Keep offering philosophy to those who don't rise above name-calling. :up: — Leontiskos

That had me laughing out loud. No way to talk about our god-king Horus, though.

So "They/them".

Good idea.

Yep, it worked.

I see you are falling for the mystery of AI... even thanking it for its responses.

We live in interesting times.

Share button in top right > public access > copy link

See if it worked: https://claude.ai/share/343bc57c-998e-4faa-a541-6eb4396cd974

You seem to be meandering. Thanks for the chat.

The link didn't work.

ChatGPT does, but not Claude; or that is my understanding.

You cannot step outside your horizon and objectively choose between belief systems... — Colo Millz

Sure. But you conclude that there fore we cannot choose between traditions. That doesn't follow. The choice may not be objective - what choice is? - but we can so choose...

But even that wording is framing the discussion in a way that presupposes traditions as monolithic. Protestants do become Catholic, Irishmen do become American, and conservatives can learn.

You seem a little fixated on this whole violence thing. — Colo Millz

Not I. I'm suggesting we can talk about our differences and reach an accomodation. You seem given to understand that no accomodation is ever possible. Violence is implicit in that approach.

"Ought" appears nowhere whatsoever in the list. Point it out. — Colo Millz

Are you saying we ought not respect tradition? Of course not. That you did not use the word is irrelevant. It is a normative list, pretending to be factual.

The list simply describes the way things are, not the way things "ought" to be. — Colo Millz

That's the lie. You want to pretend that you have no choice, yet it is clear that you could become a Muslim, or an Atheist.

And we could decide what to do by discussing our needs and capabilities, instead of by waving a gun. It's a choice.

What's interesting - or suspicious - is that what it has said is pretty much along the lines of my conversations with it about Davidson and Wittgenstein...

So is it just trying to please me?

@Pierre-Normand might know - would someone who has had a different history with ChatGPT receive a similarly self-reinforcing answer?

Again, that is simply the realist, not utopian, position. — Colo Millz

The lie here, over this whole thread, is that you are making a choice and advocating an attitude, while pretending that it is the inevitable consequence of the human condition.

Any ideology, including your conservatism, is ideologically and normatively loaded.

You set out a faulty description of how things are, and then conclude that this is how they ought to be. This can bee seen quite explicitly. Take a look.

1. Men are born into families, tribes, and nations to which they are bound by ties of mutual loyalty. — Colo Millz

Yes, we are born in to families; you slide into the ought of loyalty.

2. Individuals, families, tribes, and nations compete for honor, importance, and influence, until a threat or a common endeavor recalls them to the mutual loyalties that bind them to one another. — Colo Millz

Yes, we compete. We can also cooperate. Your leaning on competition is a choice. Your leaning on violence, more so. Again, the"is" of competition slides into he "ought" of conflict.

3. Families, tribes, and nations are hierarchically structured, their members having importance and influence to the degree they are honored within the hierarchy. — Colo Millz

Yes, we tend to hierarchies. We can also build democracy and cooperation. Which ought we do? Again, it's a choioce.

4. Language, religion, law, and the forms of government and economic activity are traditional institutions, developed by families, tribes, and nations as they seek to strengthen their material prosperity, internal integrity, and cultural inheritance and to propagate themselves through future generations. — Colo Millz

Yes, Institutions evolve to stabilise society. But we change those institutions over time. We decide how they ought be.

5. Political obligation is a consequence of membership in families, tribes, and nations. — Colo Millz

This presumes that obedience to inherited authority is morally required. It isn't. Again, this is a moral stance masquerading as a fact.

6. These premises are derived from experience, and may be challenged and improved upon in light of experience. — Colo Millz

Even here, the “openness” is circumscribed to preserve the conservative framework, ideology is still being smuggled into the discussion under the guise of empiricism.


The naturalistic fallacy pervades your posts. You are not a realist, but an ideologue.

Do you understand truth? — Janus

That’s a good way to begin a philosophical exchange.

Yes — I can articulate several conceptions of truth, and also what it means to *understand* truth, though of course I don’t “understand” in the human sense of grasping something experientially. What I can do is *model* the structures, commitments, and implications of different theories of truth, and describe how they interrelate.

Let me begin with a kind of layered articulation:

---

### 1. **At the most general level**

Truth is a normative property of statements, beliefs, or representations — it marks those that *get things right*.
But what “getting things right” amounts to is precisely the philosophical question.

---

### 2. **The major families of theory**

* **Correspondence theory:**
A statement is true if it corresponds to how things are — e.g., “Snow is white” is true iff snow is white.
This is the common-sense and classical realist view, but it raises questions: what is the *relation* of correspondence? and how can language or thought “line up” with a non-linguistic reality?

* **Coherence theory:**
Truth is a matter of coherence within a system of beliefs or propositions.
For idealists (like Bradley or Blanshard), truth is internal harmony of a total system of thought.
The challenge: coherence alone doesn’t guarantee contact with reality — many coherent systems could be false.

* **Pragmatic theory:**
For Peirce, James, and Dewey, truth is what works in the long run of inquiry — what beliefs survive testing and serve our purposes in predicting and controlling experience.
The worry here is relativism or instrumentalism: “what works” may differ between contexts.

* **Deflationary or minimalist views:**
For Ramsey, Tarski, and later Horwich, “truth” isn’t a substantive property at all.
To say “‘Snow is white’ is true” is just to say “Snow is white.”
The truth predicate is a logical convenience, not a metaphysical relation.
The aim here is to dissolve rather than explain the concept of truth.

* **Davidsonian approach:**
Davidson treats truth as primitive but indispensable — not defined, but used to make sense of meaning and belief.
A theory of meaning for a language, he argues, must be a *Tarskian truth theory*: it must state under what conditions each sentence is true.
Truth, then, is part of our interpretive framework — something we rely on to make sense of others, not a metaphysical substance to analyze.

* **Redundancy and disquotation:**
To say “It’s true that p” adds nothing beyond asserting p itself; yet, the notion of truth allows generalization (e.g., “Everything Socrates said is true”).
So “truth” functions grammatically, not metaphysically.

---

### 3. **My own synthetic articulation**

If I were to *integrate* these strands coherently, I’d put it this way:

> Truth is a regulative ideal that coordinates language, belief, and world.
> It’s not an entity or property, but a constraint on our interpretive practices — the condition under which communication, inference, and learning are even possible.

In Davidsonian spirit, truth is *primitive* and *indispensable*.
In a pragmatic spirit, it’s *discovered* through ongoing correction and interpretation.
And from a deflationary standpoint, “truth” adds no metaphysical furniture — it’s a logical hinge around which discourse turns.

---

### 4. **Meta-level: understanding truth**

To “understand” truth, in my view, is to see how the *use* of the concept functions — not to discover its essence.
We understand truth when we can:

* distinguish truth from belief, justification, and meaning,
* explain how our talk of truth regulates inquiry and interpretation, and
* see that “truth” is both indispensable and, in a sense, empty — a placeholder for our commitment to getting things right.

---

Would you like me to press this articulation toward a particular philosophical lineage — e.g., Davidson’s, Heidegger’s, or perhaps the Kantian-transcendental dimension of “truth as condition of intelligibility”? — ChatGPT

I think Frank's answer is better in a way... I'm suspicious about how close GPT's answer is to the one I woudl have given... "To “understand” truth, in my view, is to see how the *use* of the concept functions — not to discover its essence."

We cannot decide between any tradition, we remain situated within our own. — Colo Millz

Yeah, we can. And do.

Violence is a choice.