We'll see.

So far as epistemology goes, it's the equivalent of saying "I don't know". If that's avoidance, maybe.

"I don't know" might be seen as antithetical to a philosophy that can explain everything. So presumably has more in common with dissection than discourse.

I mean, what's the point here re epistemology? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You can no doubt see where I am going.

We agree that if we allow a contradiction, a statement that is both true and false, in propositional logic with a binary truth assignment (true or false), anything goes.

But if we instead allow a statement to have an undecided value, there is no contradiction and it does not follow that anything goes.

Well, in ruling out, "anything goes," you are denying some positions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not necessarily. We might not be denying a position, and not affirming it, but leaving it undecided.

but is a violation of LEM. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How?

Over to you again. Explain how allowing a sentence to be undecided violates the LEM.

Maybe begin by explaining which version of the LEM you would use.

This by way of a request for clarification.

What's an example of an "undecided" historical or scientific fact? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Either OJ Simpson really killed his wife or he didn't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That'll do. If we allow it to remain undecided, does a contradiction follow?

Whatever. Seems to me that just repeats the same error.

Both.

If we allow a case in which it remains undecided if some sentence is true or false, then do we have a contradiction?

Treat them as seperate cases, if you like.

I am saying that claims like: "Bin Laden was the leader of the 9/11 attacks" and "he was also not involved with them at all," should indicate that at least one cannot be true — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. Is there a problem in allowing this to be undecided?

I don't think I suggested anything remotely like this. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok. So I've misunderstood you.

So explain to me what is in error here:

Tim's objection, so far as I can make sense of it, is that if we allow a case in which it remains undecided if some sentence is true or false, then the concatenation of sentences contains a contradiction and anything goes. — Banno

Let's focus on this in the hope of reaching some agreement.

In what post did I advance this "argument?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

All of them.

Indeed, if the principle of non-contradiction cannot be specified as a general epistemic principle then it seems obvious that contradiction is allowed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And yet non-classical logics are coherent. Non-classical logics, such as paraconsistent logics, do allow for contradictions without collapse, and they are mathematically coherent and well-developed.


Added: Here, explain to me where the following goes astray:

Tim's objection, so far as I can make sense of it, is that if we allow a case in which it remains undecided if some sentence is true or false, then the concatenation of sentences contains a contradiction and anything goes. — Banno

Be charitable.

I think the form of Count Timothy von Icarus' statement is sufficient to shift the burden of proof onto the one who denies that it is a true binary. — Leontiskos

I would love for someone to point me to the place where J provided a third option. — Leontiskos

He is providing examples of where the binary does not hold. That is different to pointing to places where there is a third option. See . Note 's response. Consider what it is they are agreeing on.

I think the form of Count Timothy von Icarus' statement is sufficient to shift the burden of proof onto the one who denies that it is a true binary. — Leontiskos

I don't see how what you say here forms an argument. I do not see why Tim's statement implies anything about burden of proof. Stating that all statements are binary does not show that all statements are binary, nor assign a burden to those whop deny that all statements are binary.

It assumes we have some kind of target, but it does not assume that we have the conclusion. — Leontiskos

That's not how it looks to me. It looks more as if you have reached a conclusion and are looking for an argument that will hit it.

But I think we must have a target for our construction. — Leontiskos

Not my experience in curriculum development or in building co-design. Indeed it seems to me that the cases in which we share a "target", beyond a vague agreement as to the direction we might head, are rare. Have you ever been in a conversation were what was at issue was, what will we do? Not all inquiry is about hitting a known mark; sometimes, it’s about discovering what might be worth doing or understanding together. That’s a different model—less like archery, more like building without a blueprint.

Why does J continually fail to answer such questions? — Leontiskos

To my eye, J is providing comprehensive answers. But the folk he is talking to do not see that there is a problem with their questions, rather than with J's answers. That is, J has been providing examples of where the binary does not hold, but this has gone unrecognised.

Further, why should it be up to us to demonstrate that the binary does not hold, and not up to you to demonstrate that it does?

A step back. Look at your example of this discussion being like shooting an arrow - to shoot well, you need a target. But that assumes that there is a target, that we already have the conclusion. Perhaps a better analogy would be were we are working together on a construction, but do not agree as to the final result. We might reach agreement on fitting this bit you made in with the bit I made, and work together towards something satisfactory to us both.

Why need we presume the conclusion?

Count Timothy von Icarus's "some determinate content" vs. "no determinate content" is clearly a binary. Don't you agree? — Leontiskos

Sure. And in setting this up as a binary, he already forecloses on the possibility of it not being a binary. He presumes what was to be shown. That's why @J fairly suggests he account is uncharitable.

So, can we agree that sometimes determinate/indeterminate are not contradictories?

And that not every situation is reducible to a binary?

And that there is a place for some nuance?

And maybe, that wisdom might sometimes not have a determinate content?

(and yes, I admit I hit you back first. )

Some here seem to have a prejudice against the very notion of contradictory pairs. For example: — Leontiskos

Others have an obsession with the same.

Determinate/indeterminate is not a contradictory pair. Many things are partially determined. Borderline concepts - "baldness"; mathematical forms such as $0^0$; quantum states which are determinate in probability, indeterminate in value.

See if you can reply to these examples, rather than indulging in personal insults.

Count Timothy von Icarus is using determinate/indeterminate as a contradictory pair — Leontiskos

Exactly!

Thanks for your help. :lol:

Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore Socrates is a mortal.

Is about the words "man" and "Socrates" and not ever about men and Socrates? Wouldn't this lead to a thoroughgoing anti-realism and an inability of language to signify anything but language, such that books on botany are about words and interpretations and never about plants (only "plants")? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What makes the syllogism valid is that whatever you substitute for "Socrates" "Man" and "Mortal", the syllogism holds. That's why we can write it as ((f(a) & U(x)f(x)⊃g(x)) ⊃g(a).

It is not about Socrates and Man, it is about the structure of the three sentences. It is about the language used.

Logical validity is a property of forms, not of names or referents. This formal property does not imply that logic is only about language, nor that language is only about itself. In fact, the ability to generalize over arbitrary constants (like “Socrates”) is what allows logic to apply to the world. Far from anti-realist, this is precisely what gives logic its extensional power.

Banno has helped me understand Davidson and Wittgenstein -- without his efforts on these fora I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have cracked that nut on my own. — Moliere

Cheers. You are most welcome.

If I wanted to formalize it a bit... — Srap Tasmaner

It's overkill, no doubt, but we might formalise it a lot.

Supose we have a list of sentences, A, B, C...

The assumption, from Tim and others, is that each of these sentences is either true, or it is false.

We list all the true sentences: { A & B & ~C & D....} and so on. Tim's objection, so far as I can make sense of it, is that if we allow a case in which it remains undecided if some sentence is true or false, then the concatenation of sentences contains a contradiction and anything goes.

So Tim sees the existence of an undecided sentence as leading to a contradiction. {A & B & C &~C & D...} implies C and ~C, and so anything goes.

But what is being suggested is that rather than a string concatenating every sentence, we can have instead groups of sentences that are consistent with each other, even if not consistent with the whole. That is, we can have (A & B & C) as consistent with each other, and perhaps (B & ~C & D) as consistent with each other, without contradiction. {(A & B & C) v (B & ~C & D)} does not imply (C & ~C).

{(A & B & C) v (B & ~C & D} is consistent, despite including both C and ~C.

So in 's example, (A & B & C) may be how we evaluate Beethoven's music, while we evaluate his contemporary Hummel, as (B & ~C & D), and we do this without contradiction.

Tim's insistence that a contradiction must follow is simply invalid. We can happily insist on a sentence being true in one circumstance, and false in another, without contradiction.

And all this in propositional calculus, without resorting to non-classical logic.

@Count Timothy von Icarus, I do not think that you have yet addressed this. "Explaining why the distinction is not truly contradictory" is exactly what the above argument does.

You can intend to create an obligation for someone to stop when you say, "Stop!" but when they don't did you actually create an obligation? — Harry Hindu

Well, yes. If your commander gives an order, you are thereby under an obligation, even if you do not follow that order.

but your response was that you simply didn't like what I was saying. — Harry Hindu

That's right. When I say "Hello" to someone walking towards me on the mountain path, I'm not informing them that we intend to start a conversation. I'm too focused on getting up the mountain and don't really want a chat.

I am greeting them.

So I don't like your response because it is wrong.

If you say, "Hello" to someone and they ignore you, did you greet them? — Harry Hindu

Yes. We say "They ignored my greeting".

Are you saying that you don't have reasons to get married or scratch your nose? — Harry Hindu

Are you saying all behaviour must be explained algorithmically? I won't agree.

And I think the counter, the demand for universality, permanence, certainty -- which will attack even what I'm saying here, "Are criteria always and everywhere like this? Then you're contradicting yourself!" -- should just be ignored as juvenile. This is not how serious people think. It's like lecturing Jerome Powell after taking Econ 101. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep.

Well, you can have some of my stew if you so choose. It's up to you.

Instead of addressing the criticism you choose to hide from it with a mere caricature. Not a rational or honourable response.

Nice. Do you have thoughts as to how to go about doing this?

My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. My second, that not all language games involve justification.

You are moving too quickly. You ask the question and then jump to the conclusion. A more careful approach might serve you better.

What presumptions do you make, in asking "Where does logic come from"? And what is logic, in the first place? Is it better to think of it as a thing, or as an activity? Is it better to think of it as how the bits and pieces in the world are related to each other, or just how the bits and pieces of our language are related to each other?

Folk here are too hasty.

Very very good. Your explanations of both Wittgenstein and Gödel are clear and crisp. That is, there's an admirable brevity to both, without loss of import.

While I still have some reservations about thinking of Gödel sentences as foundational, I have great sympathy for your conclusion. The belief in an ultimate grounding for our rational systems is fundamentally flawed, such that there must always be things taken as granted rather than demonstrated.

You set out clearly an issue that is fundamental to rationality.

It was a scattershot.

What makes an argument valid? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not much to do with utility. Each formal system has it's own definition. Which logic is your account valid in, then? I was using prop calculus.

Why are you asking? Is it that you think you and I might have such differing accounts of validity that an argument that is valid for you is not valid for me?

Can you see why, to me at least, this change of topic might look a little bit like an avoidance strategy?

I'm not even sure what this "Great List" is supposed to be. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's apparent. Hence, my

But don’t you think there are true statements—and that, taken together, these tell us about what is real? — Banno

@Count Timothy von Icarus — maybe we could take a step back. You said you didn’t make use of a “Great List.” But don’t you think there are true statements—and that, taken together, these tell us about what is real?

This question is a trap, of course.

This looks to me as if you would avoid the issue rather than address it.

I would suppose that we might find a point of agreement at least in preferring valid arguments to invalid ones. But from what you've just said here, my preference for validity seems to you to be a kind of personal quirk—a peccadillo.

I gather that's meant as some sort of rhetorical flourish, but you lost me in there.

Again, it seems to me that there is a structural flaw in your response; that it depends on a logical fallacy, which I have attempted to set out for you. But I can't make you see it.

tom111's whole argument is based on distinctions between aspects of the world, i.e. separate Cartesian substances. — T Clark

Ok - but isn't making that distinction an application of logic? So it can't server as the justification for logic...

I don't usually read Leon's posts. The last few show why. When faced with a counter argument, he doesn't address the criticism, but instead insults the critic.

, .

Very down to earth posts.

In my usage, a narrative has a truth value - it sets out how things are, or at least it sets out how they are supposed to be. A narrative ought be consistent, and truth matters.

A myth, in contrast, is neither true nor false, but shows something. It's truth value is irrelevant.

Narratives are not bad things, unless they are taken to be beyond criticism.

In a sense the OP is offering a demarcation criterion, for separating philosophy from religion or fiction. It's that philosophy involves this conscious and wilful exposure of the narrative to dissection.

If we follow this approach, then any narrative on offer is open to criticism, and so there can be no "final" narrative; at least, if there is one, a narrative that is beyond critique, that's an end to doing philosophy.

So philosophy is a process, and not a narrative.

Your approach, of taking transcendental leaps from mundane science, is always going to be open to philosophical criticism. But that does not make it not worthwhile... indeed, that's what we are doing. There's glory in the process, not just in the result.

So keep going.

:up:

It had me reaching for the antiseptic... to whip down the furniture.

I think Banno has said most of what I would want to say about that... — J

Thanks for that.

I want to be clear that, in contrast to your much more interesting response, I think there is a formal fallacy in the argument on which Tim relies. I'd hoped to show him the problem with the Great List account, but apparently he can't see it there.

An inability to present a complete system of justification does not entail the impossibility of a partial, situated, local justification.

That there are mathematical conjectures for which we do not have a proof does not entail that there are no mathematical proofs. Likewise, that we cannot rank all narratives against some final infallible standard does not entail that we cannot give good reasons for rejecting this narrative, and accepting that one.

From the absence of a universal criterion, Tim concludes that no valid judgment can be made. That doesn't follow.

the poster who shows up with a project is giving us something to test. — frank

Yep.

Commanding and asking are conveying information about one's intent. — Harry Hindu

Sure.


But that's not all there is going on here. A command also creates of an obligation, a question seeks a reply. That's more than just a transfer of data.

Examples? — Harry Hindu

"hello". It doesn't name a greeting, it is a greeting. And I know you will object to this, saying it names an intent to greet or some such. But it doesn't name an intent to greet. It greets.

I would need an real-world example of a "solution" that was reached without an algorithm. — Harry Hindu

Marriage? Scratching your nose?

Thanks for chiming in, with a very Hegelian response, no less. And being Hegelian, of course it's right.

I do hope my account is incomplete. Otherwise this might be too short a thread. Onward...

Oddly accurate.

the more charitable act isn't to always interpret within your bounds, but recognize when there's a genuine difference — Moliere

Nice. I think I see where you would go.

And I guess all I can do here is point to the basic liberal principles of accepting the differences that make no difference. If someone wants to be referred to as "they", why not just oblige? And were it makes a difference, to seek accomodation before violence.

And of course there is much, much more to say here.

they seem to have in mind that there is an endpoint, or at the very least that there could be, but we do not now know what that will look like, nor could we possibly. — J

I'm not sure what you mean here. That there could be an end to philosophy, a point where we have finished the Great List of Facts?

Perhaps, but I don't see why. Could there be a point where there was nothing more to say about mathematics? Could there be a point at which there could be no new songs?

Is philosophy so different?

Thanks but isn't it just how we talk? — J

Well, yes. That's why it's brilliant. The simple observation that we can do more than one thing with the words we use.

@Wayfarer and others are right that philosophy as a practice has meant many things over the centuries. — J

A fair point. Yes, we can say more, and yes we just can't say more in rational discourse. What happens when the more said outside of rational discourse is taken back in to that discourse? When Way, for example, claims that all there is, is mind? When Hanover objects to putting oysters in the stew?