P2. If "there is gold in those hills" is true then "there is gold in those hills" exists. — Michael

So you are objecting to existential generalisation over a truth statement? Ok.

3. "there is gold in those hills" is true is semantically equivalent to there is gold in those hills — Michael

I'm not at all sure how to approach this. Is it saying that ( "there is gold in those hills" is true) is extensionally equivalent to (there is gold in those hills)? And if not, than what?

If they are truth functional equivalent, what more do you need? What's your point?

Presumably they are the same in at least this way: whatever truth value you assign to one, you must also assign to the other two.

'Empiricism is the philosophical view that all knowledge is based on experience, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.' — Wayfarer

Sure, and as presented, it is wrong. There are things we know that are not based on experience alone. So don't attribute "empiricism" to me.

Or put another way, reality is not something we're outside of, or apart from. The reason that is significant, is because the realist view neglects to consider this fact (hence 'subject forgetting himself'). — Wayfarer

We went for a walk once...

I pointed out at length that you and I agree that we are embedded in the world, that it's not something to neglect, but that we can achieve greater agreement as to how things are arranged in the world if we set out our explanations so that broader perspectives are taken into account.

For the rest, There's little here with which I find cause to disagree. Self is as much a construct as language. your generalisations about Analytic philosophy are a bit trite - Nagel is, after all, more analytic than not. OL philosophy could hardly be described as "individualistic", given its emphasis on shared language. Even if the criticism of Kant in Bounds of sense mischaracterises Kant's position, the view it does critique is not unpopular.

We've been here before, where we find between us a place, if not of agreement, at least of stability. You don't think Idealism is quite sufficient, any more than I think realism complete. But given a few months we will probably repeat the exercise again.

...my whole experience of the world is different, in the two scenarios — bizso09

Sure, your experience of the world has changed. But the world hasn't. The set of facts concerning the world remains unchanged, ex hypothesis, despite a change in the facts concerning your experience.

Or if you prefer, the facts that change are those that are subjective, while the facts that do not change are those that are objective.

No contradiction.

You will agree, though, that 'gold at Boorara' is shorthand for 'any empirical fact', right? — Wayfarer

What we can do is apply existential generalisation... If there is gold at Boorara, then it follows that there is gold; and if there is gold, it follows that there is stuff. But the word"empirical" has unnecessary baggage.

All of your arguments contra idealism are question-begging, because they're pitched at the wrong level of meaning. — Wayfarer

Actual I'd flip this and say that you are reading the argument at the wrong level. I am not saying that the idealist argument denies the reality of empirical fact; I would not happily use "empirical". So I think you are misreading me by introducing notions of the "empirical".

Which you are referring to, and relating to me, who understand what you mean by it, as I already acknowledged. — Wayfarer

And yet you have previously said that there would be no gold, or at least no fact of the matter; and here you agree that "there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.". Can you see why you seem to me (and others) to be hedging?

I've tried to be clear that ultimately neither realism nor idealism will do. The part of what you say that I agree with is that we construct our understanding of how things are; I've set this out in some detail in posts about both "counts as..." and direction of fit. The part on which it seems we disagree is that since not just any understanding will do, there is something else that places restrictions on the understanding we construct.

If you were to restrict your assertion to "the mind is essential to our understanding of the word" we would be in agreement. But you instead say that the mind is essential to the existence of the world. That's an unwarranted extension.

Even with Quantum.

The Philpapers survey is there just to keep some perspective on the discussion. It is the degree to which philosophers are here in agreement that is extraordinary. There are good arguments in the SEP article, but they are not the orthodoxy.

If I may...

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible — Wayfarer

Again, who is it who disagrees? Without language, nothing can be said.

But there is no reason to suppose that language makes a difference to the gold at Boorara.

But I still maintain that asserting those fact absent any perceiving mind still relies on an implicit perspective. — Wayfarer

Does this say anything more than that a language requires a community? Sure, Asserting those facts requires a community that understands assertions. But that is a very different point to those facts being true, asserted or not.

But to really know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework is impossible, as it would mean abandoning or standing outside of conscious thought and language altogether. — Wayfarer

And here again is the little man who wasn't there: "...to know the world as it would be without that conceptual framework", as if that "conceptual framework" were something apart from what it is we understand. When we say that there is gold at Boorara, we are talking about gold and Boorara, not concept-of-gold and concept-of-Boorara. The very idea of a conceptual schema is problematic...

This is why argumentum ad lapidum is important: the rock puts limits on the motion of the foot, just as the world puts restrictions on what is true. What we can do is limited, and especially what we can do with words is limited. Not just any sentence is true.

In short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all... — Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

...and yet that is exactly what we do. Schop fixated on the "subject" and so could not notice that understanding is a group activity, not a solipsistic one.

While the SEP article provides some interesting insights, it is important to note that it is not representing a consensus view. It might be worth reminding folk of one of the very few results in the Philpapers survey that shows broad agreement.

Idealism and scepticism are very much minority views amongst those who pay consideration to such things.

But the claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense. — Michael

Yep.

The accusation of Platonism is another fabrication from .

The claim that the true proposition "gold exists" will continue to exist even after all life dies is Platonic nonsense, but there will still be gold.

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind. — Michael

Yes. There's an ambiguity in "truth" such that "a truth" is also used to talk about a state of affairs that is the case - It is true that there is gold in those hills. It is true that there would still be gold even if there were no propositions. That is unproblematic. For most folk.

I think 'rejection' would be more like it. — Wayfarer

Come on. Strawson's Bounds of Sense.

...the world as we experience and understand it is always mediated by the structures of the mind. — Wayfarer

You say such things to me, yes, but in other posts you tend towards a much more stringent - even strident - idealism. You invoke the thing-in-itself, which is a nonsense. Even worse, a little while ago, your posited that the world might be constructed by mind out of nothing... so not even the unintelligible thing-in-itself.

That's one of the issues here - that what you are espousing is subject to fluctuation. While that makes critique difficult, it does show that you are still wrestling with the issues.

I think 'ignore' would be more appropriate, but I'll let it go. — Wayfarer

You know that analytic philosophy has its roots in critique of Hegel and Kant, so your saying it ignores idealism is no more than a rhetorical gesture.

I've addressed those objections. — Wayfarer

Sure. Not to my satisfaction, obviously. OLP doesn't reject idealism so much as bypass it.

I take Banno to be advocating metaphysical realism as defined in SEP — Wayfarer

No.

Going back to the main point I'd like to make here, one can be a realist in one area and an anti-realistin another. So for my part, I've argued against typical examples of anti-realism such as pragmatic theory, logical positivism, transcendental idealism and Berkeley's form of idealism. I have however also defended a constructivist view of mathematics, an anti-realist position; and off-handedly rejected realism in ethics and aesthetics. — Banno

Leon seems not to have made it past the middle ages, seeing everyone in terms of Plato or Aristotle. That wouldn't be an issue, if he engaged with what is actually being said.

It is interesting that Banno looks like a Platonist, with self-subsistent truths floating independently of any minds. — Leontiskos

Again, fabricating stuff. Try reading.

But you can't split them. — Wayfarer

Knowledge and truth? Well, perhaps you can't. That's one of the odd consequences of treating truth as a propositional attitude. So much the worse for your ideas. For the rest of us, there is a difference between what is true and what is known. You know, everything we know is true, some stuff we think we know is actually false, in which case we are mistaken about knowing it, there are truths we don't know, the usual stuff.

That idea that objectivity is taking the view from above or outside is passé. There was that walk we had in the mountains...

So you are saying that a world without any minds still has truths, just not affirmations? — Leontiskos

This is the bit where you fabricate rather than read.

For "A world without any minds", isn't it true at the very least that there are no minds?

So we have at least one truth.

It strikes me as uncontroversial that existence cannot "be meaningfully affirmed or denied without the involvement of mind."
— Leontiskos

That I take as the point at issue. — Wayfarer

You guys seem not to understand the difference between affirming that something is true and it's being true.

But your knowledge of that... — Wayfarer

Yes, our knowledge of that.

But not the truth of that.

A basic difference.

The bit about truth not being a propositional attitude.

There is no meaningful way to discuss the reality of the unseen object without that framework. — Wayfarer

So you say. But in the example you gave -

Yes, way back at you gave the unattributed quote...

Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.

My responses:

So the gold at the new Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia was there before it was discovered. It did not come into existence at the discovery. — Banno

and

Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed.

Then there would still be gold in Boorara. It would be true that there was gold in Boorara. — Banno

That the gold is still there is explicitly set out in the words "but everything else is undisturbed".

And here, we are discussing the reality of unseen objects, against the claim you made above.

I can't see how you could intelligibly disagree.

My bolding.

This is basically the original error coming up again: conflating the presence of perceptions or beliefs with the existence of minds. One need not say that truth exists where there are no minds in order to say that a ball continues to roll when you look away from it. — Leontiskos

In all honesty, I don't see what it is you are attempting to say here. It just looks confused.

There may be gold in the hills, even if no one knows.

This was of course pointed out to Banno. — Leontiskos

...the mysterious, indeed inexplicable disappearance of the foxes. Hmm.

Fair. Though many try.

(Edit: I suppose you think I should abbreviate your name to "Wayf" instead of "Waif", too? )

Fair. In Buddhist philosophy, it is not constructed from an underlying something. — Wayfarer

You are not in freefall... that's were the argumentum ad lapidem fits. You can believe anything, but there are restrictions on what works.

And waiving the word "quantum" doesn't help your case...

To shut up and calculate, then, recognises that there are limits to our pathways for understanding. Our only option as scientists is to look, predict and test. This might not be as glamorous an offering as the interpretations we can construct in our minds, but it is the royal road to real knowledge. — Timothy Andersen

OK.

...the ability to have done otherwise... — Bob Ross

Well, there's the problem. This is understood by some as causal, in a Newtonian, wind-up universe way. Hence my first post here. What we need for assigning responsibility is intent, and intentionality, not physics.

I'm just pointing out that you're expressing your bias. — frank

Would you prefer it if I expressed yours?

Tough.

"Tegmark's MUH is the hypothesis that our external physical reality is a mathematical structure — frank

Fine. I'd say instead that it's a way of talking consistently about the stuff around us. That strikes me as less mystical. That is, maths fits the world becasue we built ( or chose, if you prefer) it to do so. Simple.

Yeah. We can bring it back to truth not being a propositional attitude. Some folk can't grasp that. But treating it as a propositional attitude leads pretty directly to relativism - "true-for-me", and also serves to break down the common background against which we can make progress. A recent Philosopher's Zone dealt with that in an interesting way...

Authenticity. Vulnerability. Humility. Transparency. These are some of the 21st-century virtues proselytised by mindset gurus, paraded (if not practised) by big corporations, and lauded by professionals on LinkedIn. The quest for authenticity, for example, is central to progressive campaigns for greater diversity and inclusion, while our political and business leaders are highest praised if they appear to be humble. But are Australia’s newest virtues fit for purpose?

In this provocative book, Lucinda Holdforth questions the new orthodoxy. She suggests that these virtues are not only unhelpfully subjective and self-referential but also, in the absence of broader civic values, fail to serve our democracy. This matters when experience around the world, especially in the United States, shows us that no democracy is guaranteed.

Holdforth reminds us that arguments for transparency and authenticity are routinely used by totalitarian regimes to justify ultra-nationalism, artistic censorship and population surveillance. Vulnerability may be a facet of the human condition but that is surely no reason to make it an aspiration. Well-meaning people may talk about the power of ‘my’ truth, but if pushed too far this risks a dissolution of agreed facts and shared reality, breaking down the decision-making processes essential to effective democracy. — Lucinda Holdforth

So arithmetic also involves more than just word play. — frank

More that it can be used for more than just wordplay - you can count things, share them, bring them together and such.

Do you think Arithmetic a dead topic? There are advances in topics such as the distribution of primes, thin groups and so on. Arguably the whole of mathematics is a development from arithmetic - perhaps in combination with geometry.

With your statement about the gold in Boorara you have with our condition "if everything else is undisturbed" guaranteed that it is true that there will be gold. — Janus

Glad you understood this. Seems obvious, making the argument watertight, but there's nought stranger than folk.

The contention of your opponents seems to be that if truth is a property of propositions and there can be no propositions absent us, then there will then be nothing to be either true or false. — Janus

It's something like that. As if ("there is gold in Boorara" is true IFF there is gold in Boorara) were for them exactly the same as ("there is gold in Boorara" is true IFF "there is gold in Boorara" is true). Is the difference "a weird and tricky business"?

Frankly I think they misuse language.

If arithmetic is wordplay, why doesn't it evolve as languages evolve? — frank

I din't say arithmetic was just wordplay. And it does evolve.

Meh. We constructed the sentence, just now. It is set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong.

But "There is gold in those hills" is not set up so that if it is understood, it can't be wrong. For it to be wrong, something else is needed... Something more than just word play.

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then there would still be gold in Boorara. — Janus

"There is gold in Boorara" is true iff there is gold in Boorara.

So it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara if and only if there were still gold in Boorara. Same truth value.

Are things that occur in the future already true? To some extent you can take your pick as to how you choose to treat future events. Much will depend on the cosmology chosen - loaf of bread or otherwise. The discussion tends quickly to idealist sophistry.

That "2+2=4" is true becasue we make it so - we constructed that sentence so that it is true.

But "There's gold in them there hills" is not true only in virtue of the words used. It is instead true if and only if there is gold in those hills. And that's not something that is decided by language alone.

For "There's gold in them there hills" to be true, we need the language in which it is expressed, and which we speakers of English construct. But in addition, there needs to be gold in those hills. And that is not dependent on English. Or on what we know or believe.

sometimes speaks as if all we need is the language. But then he takes it back.

,

Compare those two posts and we see how you give with one and take back with the other. The first hints that there are not things that are different to how we believe them to be, the second quickly takes that back.

True sentences are mind dependent. Some truths, no so much.

You want to say that all truth is constructed, but that we can't make claims about what it is constructed from. If you kick the rock, then by that very fact there are feet and rocks.

Take a careful look at what is being implied in the discussion here.

Do you think that, that there is gold in the ground at Boorara is dependent on there being someone around who knows or sees or believes that there is gold at Boorara? Or do you think that there will be gold in the ground at Boorara despite anyone knowing or seeing or believing it?

Are there things that are true, yet not believed, known, understood or standing in any relation to people or minds?

I think there are.

Others here are offering you ways to understand truth that make it only another version of belief or knowledge or understanding. But truth seems to me to be different to these, in that some things can be true or false regardless of our knowledge or understanding of them.

That's kinda why we sometimes have to check if our knowledge or understanding or beliefs are right.

But how can we define something inhumane or unethical if we do not have bad/evil establish? — Matias Isoo

This is a good question. We can take it a step further by asking how we would know that we have the correct definition of "good". supose that you are given an answer, say "What is good is what is natural". How would you go about checking to see if this definition is correct?

You might decide that you could go about collecting all the things that are natural, and seeing if they are good. Seems simple enough.

But how are you to decide if they are good or not? Well, if you take the definition to be true, then everything that is natural will by that very fact be good. And this only means that you have no way of checking if "What is good is what is natural" is right or wrong. Take a cup of tea, and if it is natural then it is good, and that's an end to the discussion.

And if you think that it makes sense to ask if "What is good is what is natural", then you must have a way of checking if something is good that is different to checking that it is natural. That is, there must be a difference between checking if something is good and checking if it is natural.

So given the definition "What is good is what is natural", you either must think that there is no way to check that this definition is true, or you must think that being good is something different to being natural.

And this same argument goes for any definition you might offer.

So from this we might conclude that we already know what is good and what is not, even though we may not be able to give an explicit definition.

This is in outline an argument presented by G. E. Moore, in his book Principia Ethica, the central locus of much of ethics. It's a good starting question.

...I decide to build my own set of rules and values... — Matias Isoo

You don't get to do otherwise, since in order to choose amongst the rules and values given by others, you must already have you some set of values. This applies even to those who think they have chosen to follow the will of god...

Hope this helps. Read widely and don't commit yourself to any particular view too readily.

Cheers.

Do you agree that it at least can be veiled theology?

I don't think it is just veiled theology — Bob Ross

Nor do I. I said it is often veiled theology.

Cheers.

...as it is...

Tell me, what does this simple, deceptive phrase do?

What sort of thing is the world as it is?

I won't be responding to you again. — Clearbury

Meh. You haven't yet.