What matters is that the situation you're imagining is just a collection of shapes and colours and smells and whatnot. These aren't perspective-independent things. So what you're imagining is not a realist thing. — Michael

But you are not imagining a collection of shapes and colors: you are imagining a tree. You can assert a tree is nothing but this, but this assumes the conclusion.

Whether or not there's an experiencer in the imagined situation is irrelevant. Just as whether or not there's an author in the book I've written (about a book) is irrelevant. The thing I've written about (a book) isn't the sort of thing that can exist without being written. — Michael

It is relevant because the logic of the argument doesn't go through. You can stipulate that it doesn't matter because all situations are purely experiential situations, but this assumes the truth of idealism, and so is not an argument for it.

To make the analogy clear, the claim is as if you were saying that because every story requires a writer, it must be that all situations that stories describe are ones with writers in them. This of course is false, just as it's false that in all situations that are conceived, or imagined, there must be a conceiver or imaginer in those situations. You can then stipulate that all stories have books in the story (false), or that all situations themselves have experiencers (idealism), but the latter requires assuming idealism, and so you no longer have an argument. The conclusion goes through because you have assumed it, not because of the structure of the argument – the argument itself is fallacious.

It doesn't matter whether in imagining the tree you have experiences, because you are having those experiences in the imagining situation, not in the imagined situation.

To imagine something experiential in the imagined situation, you would do something different: for example, you might imagine a man by that tree smelling it, and imagine what he smelled.

Imagine if I were to write a book about a book. The book I'm writing about is not the book I'm writing, but it's still a book, and so not the sort of the thing that can exist without being written. Similarly, the experiential thing I'm imagining is not the imagination itself, but it's still an experiential thing, and so not the sort of thing that can exist without being experienced. — Michael

Yes, but you can imagine non-experiential things. If you want to deny this, you have to assume your conclusion (idealism). If I imagine a tree falling, I'm imagining a tree, not an experience.

No, it doesn't go through, because even if the imagined situation is experiential, it doesn't follow that your conceiving of it means that there is an experiencer in the situation. If you were an idealist, there would have to be an experiencer in that situation, of course, but only because there must be one in any situation, due to your metaphysical commitments. But to appeal to this, you'd have to assume your conclusion: the Master Argument is supposed to establish idealism, not rely on it.

The point is this: it does not follow that from the fact that you have to have an experience, let's say, in order to imagine a situation, that in that situation there is an experiencer.

Even for the idealist, the imagined situation and the situation of imagining must be distinct. Regardless of whether the imagined situation itself is imagined to be one that is solely experiential, they don't collapse, and the argument doesn't go through. The Master Argument, which is what you've essentially presented here, is formally fallacious.

No possible way TGW prescribes to naive realism. I would be beyond shocked. That would be like Landru coming on here and explaining why he voted for Trump. — Marchesk

I think naive realism is not a coherent metaphysical position if one supplements it with the claim that one has some reason to believe it. If one wants to assert it dogmatically, then it's I suppose possible in principle, but by its own logic I think it rules out the possibility of having any evidence for it.

Regarding external world realism, I'm usually what the ancients would call a 'negative dogmatist,' in thinking that we can actually positively ascertain that we do not know whether there is an external world in the way the realist wants, or what its structure is. Though I have sympathies with skepticism as well.

In other words, there’s probably an infinite number of consistent metaphysical systems that can be built by simply adding or subtracting assumptions at one’s discretion. In metaphysics, the question of whether any given system better explains the explanandum than another can only be judged by the palatability of its consequences, and that begins to seem more a matter of taste and temperament than anything else. A dogmatic realist is a realist by taste and temperament, and will simply tweak the assumptions accordingly. He’s no better or worse than the idealist who ultimately does the same. — Aaron R

While it's true that a philosopher is always bound by the assumptions they make and the conclusions that result from them, and is not, so far as he is doing philosophy at all, simply free to hold onto premises, admit they have certain conclusions, and reject those conclusions, I don't think it amounts to taste what sorts of premises that one is willing to accept to begin with. The reason for this is that realists and idealists both have things in common they want to do justice to, otherwise they couldn't argue. And it's the fact that their varying assumptions do more or less justice to these things that make it coherent for one to accuse the other of inconsistency, not merely a difference in taste.

Roughly, the idealist is motivated by some variant of the dreaming argument to show that even the realist, on his own terms, is more convinced that he experiences than that something causes these experiences. The realist, I gather, insists that we are more sure there is something real beyond these experiences than that logic and evidence are relevant to philosophy (this may be a harsh appraisal, but from my years and years arguing about this, I think an honest one – the realist always ends up, when pressed, admitting that he does not care about the evidence, and this topic is an example of this rhetorical move).

I deny that when you imagine a situation, you are imagining the experience of it. You are imagining the situation. You might be having an experience in doing so, but this is not the same thing.

So imagining an empty forest, with no observer to hear the tree fall, still amounts to a perspective. What would any scene or object be like, from no perspective? — Wayfarer

This is a very specific kind of formal fallacy, that I fell under for a long time. That you must yourself imagine a situation in order to imagine it without a perceiver does not mean that the situation itself has a perceiver. This is to confuse the imagining situation with the imagined one.

Analogously, in reading a story, it does not follow from the fact that because you must 'watch' the characters in order to conceive what is happening in a fictional scenario, that in the fictional scenario the characters are being watched by you. To think this is not to understand how imagination and fiction work: the reader and characters do not exist on a level material field, so that the reader can literally look at the characters from within the story or from without. Rather, the imagining scenario (reading the book) requires the resder to imagine the imagined scenario: but this tells us nothing about who is imagining in the imagined scenario. It is thus not inconceivable to imagine a situation in which no one is perceiving a forest, and to think this is not possible is to fundamentally misunderstand how imagining scenarios works.

Yeah, I'm with Marchesk on this one: 1) is an admission that one would prefer not to do philosophy, which is fine, but then it's not an appropriate position for a philosophical conversation, but rather an anti-philosophical screed that opts for some sort of traditionalist line on accepting a cultural dogma. That's fine on its own terms, but it isn't philosophy, or really any sort of inquiry, and presumably the latter is what we're interested in, not just claiming things, but having reasons for claiming them, and interested not just in pronouncing them to be true, but in why they're true.

2) is something lots of people have claimed to do, but I've never really seen any good arguments to this effect, and lots of it seems to be rhetorical/ideological rather than genuinely persuasive on any philosophical grounds (cf. SX's post above).

3) seems to me to be a parlor game, played by people who are interested in looking clever, and the easiest way to do that is to claim the whole thing's a sham, or that all arguers are equally stupid and confused, and that you have a magic bullet for 'deflating' the issue. These games become less interesting the more one plays them, and the thirst for genuine insight comes back. The questions are perfectly coherent, just difficult.

David Chalmers in a conference on consciousness briefly discussed why he rejected idealism. It was because it left the structure of experience unexplained. I agree with that. There is something beyond our experiences which is the reason for our experiences. What we experience is a world much bigger and older than us mere humans. Even the fact that I have parents which gave birth to me is enough to doubt idealism (I wasn't experiencing anything as a zygote). — Marchesk

That's not a good response, since it just raises the question as to why one thing is in need of explanation or not another, along with the question of how something in principle beyond what is in need of explanation is itself supposed to serve as an explanation. I have never seen a realist argument that gave any reason why 1) realist objects don't have to be explained, but experiences do (this is special pleading), or 2) realist objects, being in principle totally separable from experiences, do anything to explain experiences even if posited.

Your claim that you do so and not get bored I find unlikely to be true. That guy does nothing and DOES get bored. There's a difference there. — Agustino

OK. You didn't say that in your previous posts, but you said you said you did right after, which was confusing.

I doubt that in your long periods of inertia you actually do nothing. You don't play, you don't study, etc. So I'm just inquiring what it is that you actually mean by long periods of inertia - what does that actually and practically mean? — Agustino

I never said I did nothing, I said I had long periods of indolence and inertia. This also fits with the OP, which mentioned 'when the usual concerns and goals of daily life are exhausted.' But yeah, I can go a long time browsing the internet aimlessly, reading, studying, or just lying down and not thinking about much. I always have things to think about.

I don't understand how you think my claim can be a lie, and then attest that it's true for someone you know. Not sure what you're trying to say.

I think the best answer is just to be honest and admit there isn't any evidence for the claims realism makes. Basic epistemological and metaphysical questions like these don't have good answers, and not because they're meaningless but just because they're hard.

So, you haven't heard of it, but you have an example of it from your own personal life?

It seems to be a lie to you that some people don't mind sitting around not doing much? I would attribute that to a lack of life experience, I guess.

I've never had much sympathy with this position, because I don't really get bored. I like long stretches of indolence and inertia, and if anything disliked being forced into activity. Boredom means, in a way, that you are not interesting, because something external must stimulate you to make living worthwhile for you. True interest comes from within, nowhere else.

Only if you're not using the base-2 number system. — Michael

No. Base is just a matter of notation.

Yes, and it states what it states in the English language as we currently understand it. To then try to interpret it by switching in a different language is to misinterpret it. — Michael

I'm doing no such thing. The sentences as you express them now in English are not equivalent, because they do not express equivalent propositions. This is shown by the fact that their truth conditions come apart in different worlds of evaluation.

And using everyday English, the statements "it is true that the cup is red" and "'the cup is red' is true" have the same truth conditions. — Michael

They do not, as I have repeatedly demonstrated.

This is just nonsense. If we have the two sentences 1) the cup is red and 2) the previous sentence is true then 2) is true iff 1) is true. It's that simple. — Michael

I can't help you if you're going to hold onto this. I have explained, patiently and in depth and detail, why this is not so. You are free to review the arguments again, since they are catalogued here. You are also free to continue to believe 'it's that simple,' but you are wrong.

Again, you're being inconsistent. You say that 1 + 1 = 2 even if "1 + 1 = 2" is false when uttered in that situation because the former claim must be evaluated according to what it means to us now (in decimal notation) rather than what it means in this hypothetical situation, — Michael

No, the proposition which it expresses is tied to its use now, because now is when you actually used it. It's another question whether that proposition is true or false relative to some counterfactual situation.

So 1 + 1 is always 2, period, regardless of what's up with the language. But in a counterfactual situation, '1 + 1 = 2' might very well be false, because the symbol '1' might mean 5, for example.

but then don't apply the same reasoning to the T-schema. Even if "p iff 'p' is true" is false when uttered in that situation, it is still the case that p iff "p" is true, because this latter claim must be evaluated according to what it means to us now rather than what it means in this hypothetical situation.

The biconditional is something you're using now, so what it expresses it tied to the meaning of the words as they are now. Whether what it expresses is true relative to another situation is a different story. And relative to a situation which the sentence "the cup is red" means something else, the material equivalence doesn't hold, and so the biconditional as you use it now is false.

1 and 1 make 2 in decimal notation. — Michael

1 and 1 do not make 2 'in a notation.' 1 and 1 make 2, period. The equation or sentence '1 + 1 = 2' might be true or false, depending on how you disambiguate it relative to a notation, or depending on linguistic facts about the meaning of the symbols contained in it.

And in order for the T-schema to say anything, we must first resolve whether the sentence mentioned on the one side means the same thing as the sentence used on the other side. — Michael

No. A biconditional is a biconditional and states whatever it states.

If it is then everything is fixed; the cup is red iff "the cup is red" is true. — Michael

Again, you're confusing resolving ambiguity during the use of a sentence with evaluating the proposition a sentence expresses, whose value is already set after ambiguity is resolved, against a counterfactual situation in which different linguistic facts obtain.

The truth of both sentences must be evaluated as uttered in the same situation. — Michael

There is some confusion here over situation of utterance and situation of evaluation. The situation of utterance determines which proposition a sentence expresses; that situation is this one, since you're actually uttering these sentences here. Once that proposition is fixed, it is a further question whether that proposition is true as evaluated relative to some situation or not. So it can be that a certain sentence, as uttered in this situation, is false as evaluated relative to another.

So, for instance, 'I am hungry,' as uttered by me, expresses the proposition that TGW is hungry; we can then evaluate whether that proposition is true in some situation or not.

In situation X (where "the cup is red" means that the cup is blue), the sentence "the cup is red" as uttered in that situation is true iff the cup is blue, and the sentence "the previous sentence is true" (referring to the sentence "the cup is red" as uttered in that situation) as uttered in that situation is true iff the cup is blue. — Michael

This is not how it works,. though. It doesn't matter what the sentence would mean as uttered in that situation, because this is not where it was uttered. It was uttered by you, in the actual world, just now, and so expresses the proposition that the cup is red. It would have expressed the proposition that the cup is blue if it had been uttered in the alternate situation, but it was not, it was uttered here.

So the sentence expresses a proposition, that the cup is red, which evaluated relative to an alternate situation in which it's blue, is false. And relative to this situation of utterance as well, the other sentence expresses the proposition that a certain sentence, viz. "the cup is red" is true, which evaluated relative to that same alternate situation is false, since in that situation, the proposition expressed by this sentence is false, since in that situation the sentence means the cup is blue, which it is not.

In such a situation both 1) and 2) will be true (assuming that the cup is blue, of course; if it isn't then both will be false). — Michael

Not at all. 1) will be true just in case the cup is red in that situation; 2) will be true just in case the cup is blue in that situation. Now, an utterance of 1) in that situation would be true in that situation just in case the cup is blue in that situation; but that is not what's at stake. What's at stake is whether 1), as uttered here, is true evaluated relative to that situation.

You might as well say that the following is false:

She kicked the bucket iff she kicked the bucket

Because, after all, in some counterfactual situation the first part of the sentence might mean that she died and the second part of the sentence might mean that she struck a bucket with her foot. It's a strawman interpretation of what is being said. — Michael

Not at all. In order for the biconditional here to say anything, we must first resolve whether you are using the phrase on the left idiomatically or not. If you are, then everything is fixed; she kicked the bucket iff she died, regardless of what the words mean in a counterfactual situation. You are confusing resolution of ambiguity in your use of the words now with possible counterfactual differences in word meaning.

You miss the point. Both of the following are true:

1. 1 + 1 = 2
2. 1 + 1 = 10 — Michael

1) is true, 2) is not; 1 and 1 make 2, not 10.

The first is true using decimal numbers (among others) and the second is true using binary numbers. — Michael

Not at all. 1 + 1 is 2, regardless of what symbols are used to represent the numbers.

Your claim that the T-schema is false because in some counterfactual situation a sentence with that same syntax would be false is akin to saying that 1) fails because in some counterfactual situation (e.g. binary mathematics) an equation with that same syntax would be false (or, rather, nonsense). — Michael

Not at all. 1 + 1 would still be 2 in that situation, but the equation, i.e. the sentence, "1 + 1 = 2" would be false, precisely because in such a situation that sentence would not mean that 1 + 1 = 2.

The truth conditions of the following are the same:

1. It is true that the cup is red.
2. The above sentence is true. — Michael

No, they are not. For the truth conditions of two sentences to be the same, it must be that the proposition they express has the same truth value evaluated relative to all possible situations.

But this isn't so, since evaluated relative to situations in which "the cup is red" means the cup is blue, the proposition expressed by 1) can be true, while that expressed by 2) will be false.

So to say that the T-schema fails because in some counterfactual situation the string of symbols "the cup is red" might mean that the cup is blue is a non sequitur. — Michael

It is not a non sequitur in any way. The whole point of stating a strict biconditional is that it holds in counterfactual situations.

You might as well say that 1 + 1 doesn't equal 2 because in some counterfactual situation I might be doing binary mathematics in which case 1 + 1 equals 10. The fact that I can use the same symbols in different ways is irrelevant. When I'm using them in this way, 1 + 1 equals 2, and the cup is red iff "the cup is red" is true. — Michael

Not at all. 1 + 1 will still equal 2, even if say, you use the symbol '5' to refer to 1. In such a situation, the equation (read: 'sentence') '1 + 1 = 10' would be true, but nonetheless it would still be true that 1 + 1 = 2.

---

What you can say is that for any assertion "p" in a situation there is an assertion materially equivalent to it in that situation of " 'p' is true," but this is not what the biconditional you're stating means, and none of the heavy metaphysical theses you typically martial as a result of it follow from this.

My claim is that the following assertions are equivalent:

1. It is true that the Earth existed in a situation where there were no linguistic practices
2. The above is true
3. "The Earth existed in a situation where there were no linguistic practices" is true — Michael

OK, but this doesn't get you what you want. What you need for the biconditional to hold is:

In the situation in which there are no linguistic practices, materially "The Earth existed" is true iff the Earth existed. But as I've shown this isn't so, and this serves as a counterexample to the strict biconditional.

It is implicit in the T-schema that the meaning of the sentence mentioned on the left hand side is the same as the meaning of the sentence used on the right hand side. — Michael

No, it isn't.

Yet it is still the case that for any assertion "it is true that p" there is an equivalent assertion "'q' is true". That's the point I'm making. It doesn't matter if the actual letters (or sounds) used in the sentence are the same or not. — Michael

Then you should not phrase your claims in terms of the sort of biconditional you have been all along, nor make arguments based on this, if it is not what you mean.

Besides, what you say here is still false. It's not true that these assertions are (ever) equivalent, as I've already shown, since their truth conditions are different.

An assertion of "It is true that the cup is red" is not equivalent to an assertion of

" 'The cup is red' is true",

Since these two mean different things; one says a cup is a certain color, the other says a certain sentence is true. In the current situation, they are materially equivalent in virtue of what the sentence happens to mean, but counterfactually one might be true and the other false. So their truth conditions are distinct.

To make clear the crucial point of disagreement.

I didn't feel like addressing the rest.

What a sentence means is not mind-dependent. — Sapientia

This is what I'm disputing. Sentence meaning depends on linguistic practice, which in turn, at least as far as we're familiar with it, depends on minds.

By that I mean a proposed biconditional which is actually false, e.g. it is raining iff I am a man. — Michael

This biconditional is not 'false' simpliciter if interpreted materially; it is true or false depending on the situation applied to. Applied to the situation I'm in right now, it's false because I'm a man, but it's not raining (where I am) [although even this is complicated by using 'I,' which technically since you used it refers to you and not me, but we can ignore that]. But if I were not a man, or if it were raining, it would be true. A material biconditional only says that in a certain situation, the truth values of the statements flanking the iff match.

What you need is something stronger, a strict biconditional, i.e. by your iff you must mean some sort of universal quantification over situations, such that for each situation, the truth values of the statements flanking the iff match in that situation.

Which part? My claim that the following are not equivalent:

1. the Earth exists in this situation iff "the Earth exists" is true in this situation
2. the Earth exists in this situation iff "the Earth exists in this situation" is true — Michael

I agree – that was my entire point. The point is that 1) is false, where 'this situation' refers to the situation I presented to you. This is therefore a counterexample situation to your strict biconditional, and therefore it's false. That 2) is true does not help you, because this is not what you need; you need 1).

According to you, there's a difference between asserting that the cup is red and asserting that "the cup is red" is true — Michael

Yes. One predicates something of a cup, the other predicates something of a sentence. In cases where the sentence "the cup is red" does not mean that the cup is red, but something else, their truth conditions clearly come apart.

So if you assert 1 and if I agree with you, do I have to assert 1 or do I have to assert 2? Does it make sense for me to assert 1 but to deny 2? — Michael

It would be inconsistent for you to assert 1) and deny 2), but what this shows is that the two statements are materially equivalent in the current situation, not that the strict biconditional holds, which is what you need.

So, given that "the cup is red" means that the cup is red in the current situation, the material biconditional "the cup is red iff 'the cup is red' is true" holds in this situation, since whatever 'the cup' refers to, the two statements flanking the iff must have the same truth value. But again, material equivalence is not what you're after, since if you go by material equivalence, a claim like "Donald Trump wins the 2016 U.S. election iff America exists" is also materially true by the same standards; but it is not true as a strict biconditional since the truth values of the two statements won't match in every conceivable situation.

The same holds for the red cup case, which the way you're presenting the example, by forcing yourself to ask whether they're both true or not in this situation, is obscuring. This is because the point is precisely that there are other situations in which their truth conditions will come apart, viz; those situations in which "the cup is red" does not mean that the cup is red, but something else. For instance, if "red" meant what "blue" does now, then in such a situation "the cup is red" would be true just in case the cup was blue, in that situation.

Your reply doesn't make sense to me. There's no such thing as a fallacious biconditional. Your proposed biconditional truth is also not what's at issue, as I explained.

What I am saying is that whether something is a sentence, and whether it expresses a proposition, and if so what proposition it expresses, are dependent on linguistic systems which in turn probably can't be maintained absent minds, at least as things stand now, and so they are in that sense mind-dependent. Propositions themselves, as I said, are not.

I see what you're saying, but the sentence not existing isn't crucial to the example. If we need to complicate it we can to make the same point, but where the sentence exists but is false (in virtue of meaning in that situation the opposite of what it means here). We can go there if needed, but Michael is disagreeing on a far more fundamental point, so I'd like to see what he has to say about that first.

Iff the Earth exists in this situation then that sentence of yours ("the Earth exists in this situation") is true. The biconditional is there. — Michael

But notice that wasn't what you were asked. It's true that "The Earth exists in this situation" is true and the Earth exists in this situation: but the question is not whether "The Earth exists in this situation" is true, but whether "the Earth exists" is true in this situation. Since there are no sentences in this situation, a fortiori it isn't.

In the situation I presented:

1) The Earth exists

2) It's not the case that "the Earth exists" is true, since there aren't any sentences.

What you've done is addressed this fallacious biconditional: — Michael

A biconditional can't be fallacious.

The Earth exists in this situation iff "the Earth exists" is true in this situation. — Michael

But that is what the biconditional requires. Your 'iff' formula does not offer a material equivalence, but must be universally quantified to all possible situations, or else it has no force. To see why, note that the following biconditional, construed as a mere material equivalence:

Trump wins the 2016 election iff America exists

is true, since both sides of it are true. As a universally quantified statement, however, it's false, since we can conceive of a situation in which the truth values of the two arguments don't match.

So, in order for your claim to hold weight, it must be that in any situation, it must be that in that situation the Earth exists iff "the Earth exists" is true. Since as you admit, in the situation I outlined, the Earth exists, yet "the Earth exists" is not true, this falsifies your biconditional by showing a situation in which it doesn't hold.

Let's try this again.

You are asserting the following biconditional:

(For any p, in all situations), p iff "p" is true.

Substituting "the Earth exists" for p, we get the following:

(In all situations), The Earth exists iff "the Earth exists" is true.

From this it follows that (for all situations), if the Earth exists, then "the Earth exists" is true.

So, if one counterexample can be shown to this conditional, it follows that the instance of the biconditional schema is false, and therefore so is the whole schema stated as a universal.

So, it must be, for your claim to be correct, that there is no possible situation in which the Earth exists, but "the Earth exists" is not true.

Now, "the Earth exists" is a sentence. It follows that if there are no sentences, it cannot be true. So to find a situation in which it's not true, we suppose that the planet in this situaiton is as it was before the advent of language. Since there are no languages, there are no sentences, and a fortiori no true sentences. So, in this situation, "the Earth exists" is not true.

Yet ex hypothesi the Earth exists in this situation.

So, there is a situation in which the Earth exists, but "the Earth exists" is not true, viz. the situation I just presented to you.

So, your claim is false.

What's not mind-dependent is whether a proposition is true. That's just to say it's not mind-dependent whether something is so or not, unless that thing has specifically to do with minds.

But what's probably mind-dependent is whether something is a sentence, or whether a sentence expresses a certain proposition. So, if you were to define a notion of sentence truth, it would be mind-dependent whether a sentence is true, in virtue of its being mind-dependent what proposition it expressed.

I think we're talking past each other. To say truth is a relation between sentences and contexts is no more to go against Frege or any notion of the 'unanalyzability of truth' than to say it's a property of propositions or of anything else, which we must say because it is (some things are true, whether statements, sentences, propositions or whatever). So there's a misunderstanding here about what claiming it's such a relation amounts to.

Second, defining truth in this way is, as I've already said, not relevant to the point of what I was saying to begin with.

1. It is true that p.
2. p. The previous sentence is true.
3. "p" is true. — Michael

Just to drive this home, let p = "the Earth existed" and move 'is' to the past tense.

1. It was true that the Earth existed.
2. The Earth existed. The previous sentence was true.
3. "The Earth existed" was true.

Notice that the second sentence of 2) is now false, and so 3) doesn't follow.

A mapping from world states to truth values? Isn't that just saying that a world-state is either true or false? — Michael

No, it's a mapping from world-states to truth values. A world-state isn't the sort of thing that's true or false. A proposition is something that has truth conditions: that is, the proposition is what's true or false, relative to a world-state (or perhaps absolutely, if you think the actual world is privileged, and alternate possibilities are defined in terms of it). So if you like the proposition 'looks at' what the world is like, and spits out true or false accordingly, and the cases in which it says 'true' are its truth conditions, which are roughly what the sentence expressing such a proposition means. Truth isn't predicated of the state of affairs.

Says who?

Nope.

Consider the following situation: it's 4 million years ago, so there aren't any sentences. Yet at that time, the Earth existed, so was true that the Earth existed (that proposition was true). But the sentence "the Earth exists" wasn't. So they don't mean the same thing. One predicates truth of a linguistic object, the other maintains that a state of affairs holds. These claims being materially equivalent depends on a linguistic system in which the sentence in question expresses that proposition, but since this need not be, they're not counterfactually coextensive, and their truth conditions can come apart. Since one can be true while the other is false, they can't be synonymous.

I still don't know why you're using the word "relation." — Mongrel

A relation contains tuples of objects or maps tuples of objects to truth values. So 'true' could be defined as a relation between sentences and contexts.

I never claimed sentences have to be primary truth-bearers, and it's irrelevant to the discussion anyway.

The way I see it is that the sentence "it is true that p" is equivalent to the sentence "'p' is true" — Michael

You're still wrong about this, though, they're not equivalent, for reasons I've explained to you at length in the past.

You should stop talking about language bewitchment until you figure out the use-mention distinction.

Classically, a proposition is a mapping from world-states to truth values. You can model this as a function from a set of objects to {0, 1}.