I think so. Imagine that "x" is true iff P and "y" is true iff P, then "x" and "y" are truth functionally equivalent but not necessarily identical. — fdrake

This describes is the relationship between the left- and right-hand sides of a T sentence, not the relationship between the right-hand side and the world.

Quibbling on it, is it identical to a fact or is it equivalent to one? — fdrake

Is there a difference between a proposition being identical to a fact and being equivalent to a fact?

And what sort of thing is p? Since the T-sentence is true, it is a state of affairs, a fact. — Banno

Could you explain how this is not correspondence?

Very little of that chimes with what I understand of deflation. — Banno

Deflation implies that truth is relative, right?

I think that’s how most people think of it, yes. A lie is especially indicative of this - it’s not really what happened.

And the connection between meaning and use is not just taking a popular vote for meanings. — Banno

What else is the connection? Surely it has a lot to do with how most speakers of a language use the words of that language.

I tend to think of the different theories of truth in philosophy as being the different reasons for why a community considers a truth bearer to be true; the different reasons about how the word “true” is typically used; the different reasons for what “makes” a proposition true. For Correspondence it is the relationship between a proposition and reality - whether a proposition corresponds to reality. For Coherence it is a relationship between a proposition and other propositions - whether a proposition coheres with other propositions. For Deflationism it is the relationship between a proposition and a person - no more than demonstrating one’s assent to a proposition.

I guess I was thinking about Deflationism at the level of community rather than at a personal level; more in terms of what most people believe, much like how most speakers of a language use the word “true”, or how most Correspondence advocates consider what is true to be a correspondence between a proposition and the world. Deflationism at a societal level is the relationship between a proposition and what most people (or most relevant experts) believe.

But I'm not following what you mean by "deflationism is only consensus". — Banno

According to deflationism, truth is no more than an endorsement of what is commonly believed to be true. If meaning is use, as per deflationism, then what is true is whatever most people consider to be true at a particular time. But what most people consider to be true changes over time, and I don’t think this can be accounted for by deflationism. The fact that we test new theories and observe the results of those tests and try and gain a better understanding is not a matter of endorsing what is commonly believed to be true. The inconsistency of some of those results with our current understanding indicates a correspondence and/or coherence element of truth.

Luke also sees this incompleteness, seeing correspondence as explaining only empirical truths, but thinks we might remedy this by treating all truths as empirical. He sees deflation as too conservative, for reasons I was unable to follow.

So a few folk continue to rely on correspondence to explain truth, while a few have come to see it as inadequate. A few folk point to the social nature of language, all good, but not helping with the specific issue of the nature of truth. It's apparent that all language is conventional, except when it isn't, that all language is public, that all language involves interactions with the world as part of a community. None of this helps to isolate what it that is true of truth...

I'll note that the minimal logical structure of truth displayed in a T-sentence is compatible with almost all the views expressed here, and suggest it as a consensus.

Also, we might agree that there is a close relation between meaning and truth. — Banno

I was trying to point out that deflationism is also incomplete. If deflationism is only consensus then what is the point of science and testing new theories? What prompts the consensus to change if not some lack of correspondence that we discover between that consensus and the world?

What I mean is, if asked how much context we need to pull in before a statement is truth-apt, the answer is something like "enough for it to be truth-apt." — Srap Tasmaner

Enough for the proposition to be understood, I would think. It would be difficult to understand a proposition without any context.

Why doesn't everyone just sum up their views of truth in roughly two to three paragraphs. No responses to the summation, just your particular point of view. At least no responses until the summaries are complete. — Sam26

My view is probably a mix mainly of deflationism and the correspondence theory (but I also see some value in the coherence theory, too).

Correspondence is restricted only to the empirical, but there might be a way of viewing all propositions as "worldly" and contingent if their meaning depends on use. Even the truth of propositions concerning fictions find their origin in the books of the world or in the way our stories are taught and told. We can verify whether or not Peter Pan wears a green hat by checking the source work or checking what authoritative sources have to say about it.

With the meaning of a proposition being found in its use, this might signify that mine is a strongly deflationary view of truth. However, I have concerns that such a view is too self-contained and stagnant; an unchanging form of "community idealism", where truth is no more than what most experts would believe and say is true. If this were the case, then there would be little room for science to make any discoveries about the world, or for our worldviews to change. At the edges of our society's best understanding of the world must be some sort of contact or correspondence with the world. We must be able to propose and test theories and find results that conflict with our expectations; with our best theories.

Of course, we will remain within our self-contained bubble of endorsing best guesses even when we do make new discoveries; even when we find that the world conflicts with our best theories; and even when we come up with better theories to replace the old ones. But a reflection on human history indicates that we do have a better understanding of the world now than we did before; that our technology is better; that we can make better and more sophisticated use of the resources of the world than we did previously. Perhaps we understand ourselves a little better. We can recognise that some propositions that were once considered true no longer are, and that this will likely be the fate of at least some propositions that we call 'true' today. Of course, some who consider propositions to be timelessly true may find this comical. But that's simply not how we normally use the word.

I think the best way to define the "mention operator" as I called it, and had yet to be able to answer your question, is to say what it does is it converts a natural-language string into a name for that said string using the same alphanumeric characters, but changing its function from a proposition to a name. — Moliere

Where does mention or use come into it?

One thing I'm noticing here, in your examples, is you like to treat existence like a predicate. So the existence of things gives propositions used their truth-value. — Moliere

Hopefully we can avoid that rigmarole. According to the correspondence theory, the truth of a proposition is determined by whether or not a proposition corresponds to the empirical facts of the world. On the other hand, the deflationary claim made by @Pie and @Banno(?) is that true propositions are identical with the empirical facts of the world. Opposing this deflationary claim, I argued that language and the empirical facts of the world are distinct. It is difficult to try and draw this distinction without attempting to use language to gesture at the existence or instantiation of things in the world other than language.

"This river contains many fish" is true iff there exists a river, and the river contains, and the object contained by the river are fish, and the relationship of said fish to the numerical predicates in the context its within is such that speakers would say "many". — Moliere

Sounds okay to me. I was thinking more along the lines that "this river" has to refer to something outside the sentence and that, in order for the sentence to be true, it should be in principle verifiable that there are indeed many fish in the river.

You agree with this:

So non-existent rivers are not facts? I might agree with you there.
— Luke

On your account of correspondence, how is it that "There is no river on this dusty plane" true? The fact is the dusty plane, rather than the no-river. — Moliere

I said I might agree that "the no-river" is not a fact; not that it is a fact. On my account of correspondence, the proposition is true because no fact (of a river) corresponds to the proposition.

Or, the classic "The present king of France is bald". There is nothing to which this proposition refers as we speak it today. So you'd likely say something like the proposition is either obviously false, given there is no fact to the matter, or does not have a truth-value, or something like that. — Moliere

There is no present king of France, so I'd agree with what you say here. The proposition proposes nothing (presently) verifiable and so it cannot be verified as either true or false.

But that's something I liked about the plums example -- here was something that would matter, and is a lot more natural to our way of thinking. When you open up the fridge and see nothing in it, the no-plums have an effect on your state, at least. The nothing has an effect on us. And especially the no-plums, if we wanted plums. The no-plums have a relationship to the believed proposition. The fact is the empty fridge, and yet the sentence is "There aren't any plums in the ice box", and it's true. — Moliere

Right, but this example is the same as "the no-river". We can verify whether or not it's true by seeing for ourselves; that's what "empirical" means, and that's the strength of the correspondence theory.

The arguments for the deflationary theory given here seem to illicitly assume the approach (or "truth") of the correspondence theory without admitting it. If deflationism is no more than endorsing a sentence that one believes to be true, then there is no place for correspondence, verification, "finding out" whether or not a proposition is true, truthmakers, or facts. There is nothing more to truth than endorsement and, therefore, no way of determining or discovering the truth of a given proposition. According to deflationism, looking for plums in the freezer has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the proposition about plums in the freezer. There is then nothing "outside" the proposition that counts for or against the truth of a given proposition. A T- sentence is then no more than an abstract equation with absolutely no relation or reference to reality, as several here have noted already.

No, you are not. The correspondence theory is not the theory that facts are individuals, nor that facts can be individuals, or anything of the sort. — Banno

Once again, the correspondence view is that facts are what account for the truth of propositions. Do you deny that the factual existence of snow accounts for the truth of the proposition “snow is white” according to this view?

And you still haven’t told me what you mean by an “individual”.

I’m giving the view of the Correspondence theory, as the IEP article demonstrates. Many posters here have expressed their advocacy of the Correspondence theory. Furthermore, the SEP article states that the views it expresses on representation and truthmaking are not “what most people have in mind”, and not the “usual notion “ or “usual concept”. I would hardly call mine the eccentric view.

See the bit in bold? Are you claiming it is wrong? — Banno

No, but I don’t agree with everything that “philosophers like to say”. And, as I have already pointed out, the article gives a passing mention to some opposing views. Your claim that existing things are not facts - on any view - remains wrong.

Ok, a river is not a fact. That a river exists might be. — Banno

So non-existent rivers are not facts? I might agree with you there.

If the existence of a river accounts for the truth of a proposition (e.g. “this river contains many fish”), then it is a fact.

Just as the existence of snow accounts for the truth of “snow is white”.

But your contention, the one with which I disagreed, was that an individual can be a fact. The Queen is not a fact. — Banno

Actually, I asked you why an individual cannot be a fact. You didn’t answer this question and instead responded by stipulating that names are not facts. My initial contention with which you disagreed was that a river is a fact. I’m not sure what you mean by “an individual” or why you say the Queen cannot be a fact. Is a river an individual? If the existence of a river makes a proposition true or accounts for the truth of a proposition, then it is a fact - at least, according to one view of facts.

Well, no. Rather according to the SEP article, one view is that facts are what make a proposition true. — Banno

Your original contention was that a river cannot be a fact. You did not qualify that this is only according to your own view. If you now acknowledge that the existence of a river can make a proposition true according to one view, then you were wrong to say that a river cannot be a fact.

I’ll try once again. According to the SEP article on Facts:

Facts are what make a proposition true or account for the truth of a proposition.

The existence of a thing can account for the truth of a proposition.

Therefore, the existence of a thing can be a fact.

What is it for snow to be a constituent of the fact that snow is white? Facts have parts? — Banno

As I already pointed out in the SEP article:

On another, incompatible view, facts are what make true propositions true, or more generally, account for their truth.

[and]

If something makes a given proposition true, it is usually assumed, then the existence of that thing explains the truth of the proposition. — Luke

In case you missed it again, facts are what make propositions true, and - it is usually assumed - the existence of a thing is what makes a proposition true. Therefore, the existence of a thing is, or can be, a fact.

I am not alone in rejecting the notion that a fact is what makes a true proposition true — Banno

I never said that you were; I said that I wasn’t alone in my view either.

And what are facts? The notion of a fact as some sort of ontological entity was first stated explicitly in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Correspondence Theory does permit facts to be mind-dependent entities. McTaggart, and perhaps Kant, held such Correspondence Theories. The Correspondence theories of Russell, Wittgenstein and Austin all consider facts to be mind-independent. But regardless of their mind-dependence or mind-independence, the theory must provide answers to questions of the following sort. “Canada is north of the U.S.” can’t be a fact. A true proposition can’t be a fact if it also states a fact…

These questions illustrate the difficulty in counting facts and distinguishing them. The difficulty is well recognized by advocates of the Correspondence Theory, but critics complain that characterizations of facts too often circle back ultimately to saying facts are whatever true propositions must correspond to in order to be true. Davidson has criticized the notion of fact, arguing that “if true statements correspond to anything, they all correspond to the same thing” (in “True to the Facts”, Davidson [1984]). Davidson also has argued that facts really are the true statements themselves; facts are not named by them, as the Correspondence Theory mistakenly supposes.

Defenders of the Correspondence Theory have responded to these criticisms in a variety of ways. Sense can be made of the term “correspondence”, some say, because speaking of propositions corresponding to facts is merely making the general claim that summarizes the remark that

(i) The sentence, “Snow is white”, means that snow is white, and (ii) snow actually is white,

and so on for all the other propositions. Therefore, the Correspondence theory must contain a theory of “means that” but otherwise is not at fault. Other defenders of the Correspondence Theory attack Davidson’s identification of facts with true propositions. Snow is a constituent of the fact that snow is white, but snow is not a constituent of a linguistic entity, so facts and true statements are different kinds of entities — IEP article on Truth

.

Therefore, I am not alone in rejecting your “stipulation”.

Well, I'm going to just stipulate that names are not facts. The person Luke is not a fact, but that Luke posts on the forum is.

And I don't think I will be alone in doing this. — Banno

Your link is not entirely supportive of your claims:

As we pointed out above, one view about facts is that to be a fact is to be a true proposition. On another, incompatible view, facts are what make true propositions true, or more generally, account for their truth. The search for what accounts for the truth of propositions is, as we have seen, actually one main rationale for the introduction of facts...

As we have emphasized, one of the main rationale for introducing facts has been to account for the truth of true propositions. The idea is that whenever a proposition is true, its truth is to be explained in terms of the existence and / or non-existence of some facts...

Our definition of truthmaking fails to capture the explanatory character of the notion people have usually in mind when they talk about truthmaking. If something makes a given proposition true, it is usually assumed, then the existence of that thing explains the truth of the proposition. Now it should be clear that truthmaking as we have defined it is not explanatory in this sense...

Representation, as we have defined it, is also quite remote from what people usually have in mind when they speak of propositions representing facts: propositions which cannot be true represent (in our sense) any fact whatsoever, and if the proposition that Socrates exists represents (in our sense) the fact that Socrates exists, then it also represents (in our sense) the fact that [Socrates] exists (granted that these two facts exist at the same worlds).

Despite the fact that truthmaking as defined above does not to capture the usual concept of making true, we shall not deal with the latter concept here. And we shall not deal either with the usual notion of representation. — SEP article on Facts

I have appealed to dictionary definitions and ordinary language use. This article mentions my use, but it also states that they are using terms which are contrary to the "usual concept" of truthmaking and the "usual notion" of representation. Wittgenstein teaches us to look to common usage for meaning, so I don't think I'm alone in my use of the term "fact" either.

Why can't an individual be a fact? Isn't snow a thing in the world and, therefore, a fact of the world?

As I mentioned earlier, one definition of "fact" given in many dictionaries is "something that really exists".

Facts are things in the world - as you said. We use names to refer to things in the world; to distinguish them from other things.

I didn't say names are true. I said things in the world have names and they are facts.

"The cat is on the mat" is true ≡ The cat is on the mat

The thing represented by the sentence on the right is a fact. — bongo fury


I dunno, Bong. You seem to me to just be repeating an argument I've already addressed a couple of times.

And it seems that others (@Michael) have tried to make the same point to you.

The thing represented by the sentence on the right is a fact. — bongo fury


It's clear that the thing on the right is not the name of a fact. Names do not have truth values.

AND again,

I. "Snow is white" is not a fact, because facts are things in the world, and so while "snow is white" represents a fact, it is not a fact. — Banno

Bongo can defend himself, but he did not say that the thing on the right is the name of a fact.

Anyhow, you appear to be saying that names are not facts because facts have truth values whereas names do not. But it is propositions, not facts, that have truth values. I don't see why facts must be propositional, other than you stipulating they must.

Also, you contradicted this when you said:

facts are things in the world — Banno

Things in the world have names and they are facts.

:up:

Just using "is true" as we normally do.

Yup.

The reason why the Liar is not truth apt is because it has no truth conditions. — creativesoul

"This sentence" is true iff this sentence.

As I mentioned before, we need a more substantive account of meaning (and perhaps truth) to actually get anywhere important. — Michael

That's why I said we should consider why we say that a statement is false. I suggested it could be due to being in conflict with our current conceptual frame:

For almost every case I can imagine, p is always a fact of our world, our conventions and/or our myths and stories. These might all amount to the same thing.

Per Wittgenstein:

241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” — What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.
— Philosophical Investigations — Luke

Is there some singular term we can use to describe the sort of thing p is? Maybe "narrative"? — Michael

Sure, I'm happy to call it "narrative". Or maybe our current conceptual frame.

Sometimes that narrative is a fact and sometimes it is a fiction. Which is really just another way of saying that sometimes the narrative is true and sometimes it is false... — Michael

I don't agree that the distinction between fact and fiction corresponds to the distinction between true and false. It is true that Mickey Mouse wears red shorts and that vampires have no reflection.

...making the T-schema just the redundancy theory that the sentences "'p' is true" and "p" mean the same thing. — Michael

It is redundant if "p" means nothing more than "'p' is true". But this tells us nothing about why "p" might be false.

I'll mention it again as it bears repeating.

a) "snow is white" is true iff snow is white
b) "snow is green" is true iff snow is green

However we make sense of the consequent of the T-schema I think it should apply to both (a) and (b). It is not a fact that snow is green. Although there may be times, like with (a), where the consequent is a fact, there are times, like with (b), where it isn't. A rigorous account of the T-schema should cover both cases. — Michael

The T schema does cover both of these cases. If snow is not green, then the antecedent is not true. You could ask: why is it not a fact that snow is green? And: what would make it a fact?

So, "p" is true iff p. What sort of thing is p? It is not always a fact. Maybe an answer to that will tell us what sort of thing a fact is. — Michael

For almost every case I can imagine, p is always a fact of our world, our conventions and/or our myths and stories. These might all amount to the same thing.

Per Wittgenstein:

241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” — What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life. — Philosophical Investigations

108. "But is there then no objective truth? Isn't it true, or false, that someone has been on the moon?" If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon... — On Certainty (my emphasis)

And, as @bongo fury has just pointed out, you seem to be agreeing with the correspondence theory.

Which is better? Because, again, you seem to be advocating (II). — Banno

No, I'm not advocating II. That snow is white does not represent a fact; it is a fact.

I think it is important when some people appear to be arguing against a distinction between facts and statements that represent facts.
— Luke

Who, me? — Banno

I wasn't sure. @Pie certainly appeared to be arguing against the distinction. I didn't know whether this was a common view among deflationists.

You mean that "snow is white" is not a fact, because facts are things in the world, like that snow is white, and so while "snow is white" represents a fact, it is not a fact?

Isn't that what I have been arguing? — Banno

Not according to @bongo fury's recent quote of yours, it seems:

"The cat is on the mat" is true ≡ The cat is on the mat
The thing on the right is a fact.
[...]
Now, where in any of this does a sentence correspond to a fact? — Banno

Are you saying "The cat is on the mat" is not a sentence?

I believe the way most of us have been using the word "fact" here is to mean a thing that exists in the world, a state of affairs in the world, or a way a part of the world is at some time.
— Luke

This is not quite the same as saying a fact is a true statement. "Most of us" would do well to look at a broader range of examples. — Banno

No, it's the same as saying that a river is a fact.

Well, P is not the way the world is. "The way the world is" is part of the metaphysical picture of truth that I posited. In the metaphysical picture you have representation on the left-hand-side, and represented on the right-hand side. — Moliere

Are there any truth conditions, or is it simply an algebraic biconditional?

But in the logic you have the mention-operator, variables, the copula, T, and the domain for P (I said sentences, but I should say statements) — Moliere

Isn't that just substituting "domain" for "the world"?

Note that in the logic there is no way the world is or isn't or anything. There are only variables that can be substituted for English sentences. (I would accept other natural languages as well, just using English since we're using English) -- that is, this is stripped of the metaphysical baggage. Instead we have a logic with a formula and defined operators and domains, and then we fill in what the predicate T means based on the meanings of English (that you and I already know). — Moliere

This still does not explain (or I still don't understand) the use-mention metaphor. Is it supposed to be the same as the use-mention distinction?

And replace all instances of P with English sentences, while recognizing that the quotations are an operator on all sentences that these are being mentioned, not used. — Moliere

I don’t understand the use-mention comparison. If P is the way the world is when “P” is true, this implies that “P” already has a use/meaning. And P’s being a way the world is is not a use of “P” (or a use of language).

The world is the totality of facts, not of things (Tractatus 1.1). Rivers are things. Things are not facts. — Banno

According to PI, the meaning of a word often depends on how it is used and/or "is what an explanation of its meaning explains" (560). I believe the way most of us have been using the word "fact" here is to mean a thing that exists in the world, a state of affairs in the world, or a way a part of the world is at some time. Many dictionaries give one of the uses/meanings of "fact" as "something that really exists" or similar. I'm not sure how you are using the word.

Is the word "fact" important? — Michael

I think it is important when some people appear to be arguing against a distinction between facts and statements that represent facts.

Is there a distinction between the fact that unicorns don’t exist and the sentence “unicorns don’t exist” being true? — Michael

There is no distinction between the way the world is and what the sentence represents if true, but there is a distinction between the way the world is and the sentence that represents the way the world is. If there were no distinction, then the sentence could be neither true nor false. The sentence would be the world.

A river isn't a fact. — Banno

Why not?

creativesoul Yep. — Banno

Is that a sentence in your pocket or are you conceding there's a categorical difference between a sentence and a fact?

And I thought you were arguing against this:

Unlike knife and piece of metal, there's a categorical difference between a sentence and a fact. It really can't be both. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was going to post this earlier to try and highlight the categorical difference:

A sentence (as a string of letters) may be a fact of the world, but there are many facts of the world that are not sentences (e.g. some facts are rivers).

The content/meaning of a sentence can correspond with a fact of the world, but not all sentences correspond with facts of the world (e.g. some sentences are false).