Morality, as it is conventionally defined, is the rules for acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. These rules are subject to individual particulars(familial, cultural, social, historical, etc.). History and knowledge of all the world's different communities bears witness to this.

That is a feature of morality, not a flaw. It is true of all morality.

What's good/moral is discovered through trial and error, and changes in rules reflect changes in moral belief(belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought. belief, and behaviour).

Hm maybe something's off with the subjective versus objective thing. — jorndoe

Indeed.

The promise is what makes it a moral state of affairs.
— creativesoul

But that means that you have a rule that says "promises turn the act that is promised into a moral state of affairs". I think it's a sensible rule, I just don't understand your approach. — Echarmion

The act that is promised is part of making a promise. Promising is the moral state of affairs. Promises(to do something) are unlike other sincere claims in that they're the only ones where one voluntarily enters into an obligation to make the world match their words. That's precisely what they mean.

My approach is that true claims correspond to actual events(what has happened or is happening).

"There is a cat on the mat" is true if there is a cat on the mat. When one tells another that there is a cat on the mat, if they're speaking sincerely and truthfully, then there ought be a cat on the mat.

Meaning is important here.

But only the promise is part of the state of affairs. — Echarmion

The promise is what makes it a moral state of affairs.

The expression, assuming sincerity in speech, reflects one's moral belief.
— creativesoul

Shouldn't it also reflect the truth? Else, why bother? — Banno

Belief presupposes truth.

Prefixing the term truth with "the" is very problematic here.

Can you elaborate on this notion of promises as moral fact? In itself, a promise is communication about my intent. How does it turn into a sort of fact? — Echarmion

On my view, facts are 'states' of affairs, events, what has happened and/or is happening, the case at hand, the world, etc.

Making a promise is the moral fact of the matter.

creativesoul wallows towards "One ought keep one's promises". — Banno

Not at all actually.

Although, I do hold that one ought keep one's promises, that does not ground what I'm getting to here, nor can it be reduced to such. I'm leading to something a bit different.

"...is good" is simple and unanalysable, according to Moore. — Banno

The expression, assuming sincerity in speech, reflects one's moral belief. That would be belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour(belief about morality).

That's about as far as that analysis allows us to go.

"Is good", however, is not equivalent to goodness. The latter is a product of metacognition. The former is an expression of one's thought/belief about morality. It's a moral judgment.

"There ought be a rose garden" is true if one promised to plant a rose garden.

"There is a cat on the mat" is true if there is a cat on the mat.

True moral statements correspond to moral facts.

True statements correspond to facts.

Overtly expressed truth conditions report what must happen in order for the positive assertion in question to be true.

:blush:

I don't see why not Banno. It's been done for centuries.

It seems that Moore might say that a moral statement can be both true and an expression of what one thinks we ought do. — Banno

Contrast that with those who might consider moral statements only to express a preference - that is, what one ought do. — Banno

it's both. — frank

Moral statements can and do express a preference. Not always, as evidenced by conflicting personal wants and moral duties.

Some moral statements are truth-apt. Statements of ought regarding previously made promises, in particular, are such statements.

A position arguing against the claim that moral propositions are truth-apt would base the denial upon their own moral belief(thought/belief about the rules of acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour).

Typically, the conversation hinges upon the notion of moral fact being used, which turns upon the notion of fact being used. This involves one's notions regarding what sorts of things can be true/false and what makes them so.

It only becomes a principle after having been written down?
— Mww

Well... yup. Exactly. It becomes a principle when we name it such. — creativesoul

Not all things we call "principles" are on equal footing. We cannot parse them solely as a result of the namesake, however. Some principles have been found wanting and/or lacking. Others, it seems to me, have yet to have been 'found' by the reasoning processes in common use.

Different perspectives are always good, so.....thanks.

“...preoccupation with questions about methods tends to distract us from prosecuting the methods themselves. We run as a rule, worse, not better, if we think a lot about our feet....”
(Ryle, 1929, in Hutchinson 1971) — Mww

Perspective, if it amounts to bald assertion, isn't always good in my book.

Prosecuting fallacious reasoning like false analogies isn't good either, and will continue to happen if we neglect to consider method. That is not something to aspire towards.

We don’t operate by deducing our primary principles then see if our observations conform to them, which is blatantly circular and potentially self-contradictory; we reason from observation, then deduce the principles under which our reasoning should conform in order to be trusted as observation demands. — Mww

So, we don't deduce and observe. Rather, we observe, then deduce and observe with the former being blatantly circular and potentially self-contradictory, but the latter is not?

:roll:

Clear as mud.

It only becomes a principle after having been written down? — Mww

Well... yup. Exactly. It becomes a principle when we name it such.

Premisses could be rightfully called "propositions" but not "conclusions". If I wrote "conclusion" I was talking about conclusions, not premisses. I've no idea what you're getting at?

The point was that just because an argument has a false major premiss it does not follow that the conclusion isn't worth considering... differently of course. Mama's advice neglected to take that into proper consideration. Following such advice could lead one to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Inadequate context...

We deduce what is true of each and every particular example solely by virtue of taking proper account of the universally extant common denominators.

We then "test" our 'models' by virtue of observational applicability and explanatory power. Done right, prediction is improved automatically.

All of that "truth testing" is existentially dependent upon language. Being existentially dependent upon language is exactly what being called "linguistic" means here.

All logical principles and all truth-testing are linguistic. Not all thought/belief are. Some pre-linguistic thought/belief are true by virtue of correctly presupposing their own correspondence to fact/reality. Correspondence is prior to language or true belief does not need truth. Take your pick.

Correspondence isn't.

Coherence is.

The notion that all truth is existentially dependent upon propositions(language) is a logical fiction.

We 'operate' solely by virtue of drawing meaningful correlations between different things.

We don’t operate by deducing our primary principles then see if our observations conform to them, which is blatantly circular and potentially self-contradictory — Mww

:yikes:

The principle of inductive reasoning is linguistic, as are each and every "test of truth"...
— creativesoul

How is that not a logical fiction? — Mww

Because it's true, that's how. Fictions aren't true.

If you think principles are linguistic...

how do you do arithmetic in your head? — Mww

Solely by virtue of knowing the rules of the language. Before that, it cannot be done 'in one's head'.

How can logical absolutes be possible? Just because we don’t consciously invoke a principle in order to arrive at a logical, consistent truth, we aren’t using one? It only becomes a principle after having been written down? We don’t operate by deducing our primary principles then see if our observations conform to them, which is blatantly circular and potentially self-contradictory; we reason from observation, then deduce the principles under which our reasoning should conform in order to be trusted as observation demands. — Mww

There's a saying about forests and trees...

All of the things you're talking about here are metacognitive. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon fairly complex written language replete with naming practices that begin taking account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to our account of it. Thought/belief is one such thing, amongst many others as well. Those are the things that we can get wrong on and/or at a basic elementary level. Seeing how our thought life grows in complexity over time with sufficient effort, if we take account of the basic stuff wrongly there's no hope of getting the more complex stuff right.

The notion that all belief is propositional in content is a logical fiction based upon conflating what our report of thought/belief is existentially dependent upon with what thought/belief is existentially dependent upon. It stems from a crevasse in academic epistemology; neglecting to draw and maintain the actual distinction between our thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. I think it was an honest oversight.

We operate, in the beginning of our thought life, by virtue of much simpler means. We do not begin thinking in propositional terms nor structure. Knowledge of pre-lingual thought/belief trumps logical rules when it comes to being forced to accept one or the other. You're opting for higher value and/or greater importance being placed upon the rules we determined, and I'm opting for what we've discovered to be true about those rules and what underwrites them all.

Logic takes account of pre-existing thought/belief. It presupposes truth as correspondence solely by virtue of our assuming it in premisses. Logic is the rules of correct inference, with "correct" meaning something alone the lines of being 'mistake-free'. They are metacognitive 'rules'. They are the rules deemed worthy of use for arriving at true conclusions. The rules of logic are not without flaw. It would behoove us all to remember that they are meant to preserve truth.

Ahem...

Gettier and 'logical' entailment show that one can follow the rules of logic and arrive at different truth conditions. Case A is a prima facie example of this mistake when Gettier moves to "the man" after beginning with "I". Some may not understand that brief summary, for it is not a commonly taken approach to Gettier. Nonetheless, The point being that we are well advised to take extreme caution in overvaluing a product of our own imagination - the rules of correct inference are one such thing.

At conception, there is no such thing as the thought/belief of the creature.

Thought/belief begins simply and grows in it's complexity. Human knowledge shows this nicely. All knowledge is thought/belief. All. It is only after we've named our own mental ongoings with terms like "reason", "understanding", "thought", "belief", and all of the others used daily that we begin to think about our own thought and belief(that we begin metacognitive endeavors).

You're offering products thereof, and neglecting the fact that that's not how it begins. Knowing how it begins provides the standard by which to 'measure' metacognitive assertions about human thought/belief. That includes, but is not limited to, all notions meant to take account of our reasoning processes.

The principles you speak of were arrived at - via written language - as a means to reduce the likelihood of error in thought/belief. Thought/belief had long since been being formed. You've opted to place great importance upon the rules of correct inference, and other products of metacognition. I've opted to use knowledge of what all metacognition is existentially dependent upon. Seems that the justificatory power is not at all equal here. One makes a much stronger basis than the other.

2+2 always equals 4 quite simply because we won't let it be(mean) anything else. Numbers are names of quantities. Those have the most rigid meaning by virtue of our not allowing the name(number) to pick out any other referent(to pick out any other quantity;to have any other accepted meaning/use).

You never answered the question I asked about your invocation of "necessary truths"...

This presupposes that there are such things as "necessary truths" that evidently exist independently of language. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say that a statement can 'represent' such a thing.

:yikes:

I'm a bit puzzled here...

What exactly do these necessary truths consist in/of if not statements/propositions? — creativesoul

That question deserves an answer.

I gave examples of necessary truths, the certainty of which I know without ever saying a word, or even thinking any. — Mww

This seems patently false on it's face.

It presupposes that one can be certain that some statement or other is true without ever having been involved in linguistic practices...

Nah. That cannot be right.

If I see a syllogism manufactured with a false major premise, I have a tendency to disregard the conclusion. Sorry.....just the way Mama tol’ me. — Mww

Mama's advice, if taken to heart, may cause one to disregard true conclusions... lucky, invalid, but true none-the-less...

However, in this particular instance, the conclusion is a logical fiction, but that premiss holds good by my lights...

Hand-waving won't do here. A true proposition is called "a truth" in some circles. The content of those truths is propositional. Are you objecting to that? If so, upon what grounds exactly?

Saying "this proposition is true" is saying that it has the right relation to whatever one takes to be the "truthmaker" ( facts/states of affairs if correspondence theory, other propositions if coherence, etc.) — Terrapin Station

For some folk. That all depends upon one's framework, but that side-stepped the point. Some call true propositions/statements "truths". Such a framework must admit that the content of those truths is propositional.

Perhaps...

Let's suppose that "the cat is on the mat" corresponds to fact/reality/states of affairs. Is that proposition a truth? Many call true propositions "truths". The content of those truths is propositional.

Just because there are other ways of communicating meaning in language does not negate this view of propositions. — MindForged

Well, it places the claim that propositions and/or the meaning they 'contain' exist independently of language in direct question... along with the reasoning and/or argumentative support you've supplied here.

It does not follow from the fact that "The sun is red" can be expressed in two different languages that the proposition and/or it's meaning is not existentially dependent upon language.

Two languages are not no language. In order for a proposition or propositional meaning to exist independently of language, neither can be existentially dependent upon language.

All of them are.

Are you taking the position that...

The content of a proposition is it's meaning. Different languages communicate the same meaning. That would be to communicate the same proposition in two different languages?



What's the difference between a proposition and it's meaning? Propositions consist of meaning, I suppose, according to the view you're putting forth. What does meaning consist of?

Are the two existentially independent? Is one dependent upon the other, or co-dependent, or something else???

I can effectively argue for meaning(rudimentary) that exists prior to language. Propositions not so much...

What is a proposition if not proposed? How does one propose without language?

You've claimed that the content of terms is meaning, and that the content of a proposition is meaning. How do you avoid that propositions are terms?

Well yes, it's (probably) why many do not posit propositions as linguistic. Most don't, I suspect... — MindForged

I'm certain that there is a better way than that to avoid the absurdity... The notion of propositions existing independently of language is one of the banes of philosophy.

A logical fiction based upon gross misunderstandings of thought, belief, and meaning...

If by logical possibility you mean valid without respect of truth, then it's just a matter of opening up the forms of argument and stocking them with whatever propositions occur to you - and that is really a lot of possibilities. Is that what you meant? — tim wood

Roughly...

There's no need to count all the possible positions that would/could be based upon logical fiction. There are more than enough actual ones it seems to me to make quite an interesting discussion...

Truth isn't propositional in content. Truth is a relation between propositions and something else (the something else depends on the truth theory you subscribe to). And I'd say that the relation is a judgment that individuals make. — Terrapin Station

There are different acceptable uses of the term "truth". Typically in philosophy they boils down to one of two... Coherence and/or Correspondence. Some say it takes both.

I think we're better served here setting out the issues of logical fictions as it pertains to the notion one is working from.

Propositional truth is most certainly propositional in content. Denying that much is rather silly.

But the necessary truth the statement represents... — Mww

This presupposes that there are such things as "necessary truths" that evidently exist independently of language. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say that a statement can 'represent' such a thing.

:yikes:

I'm a bit puzzled here...

What exactly do these necessary truths consist in/of if not statements/propositions?

...the conclusion adheres to the principle of inductive reasoning, both of which stand the test of truth whether or not speech or any other kind of language is involved. — Mww

The principle of inductive reasoning is linguistic, as are each and every "test of truth"...

I grant your general thesis with respect to propositional truths, but the OP designates “logical fictions”, one of which is “a truth is propositional in content”. A simple example shows a truth not to be necessarily propositional in content. — Mww

Well... "A truth is propositional in content" is not the logical fiction for it serves as a premiss. The logical fiction is the conclusion.

Anyone care to discuss why and/or how these are logical fictions,
— creativesoul

For one, they all have false premises. — Terrapin Station

Indeed.

If different designators can pick out the same entity... — MindForged

Then the entity is not equivalent to the designator. Then more than one language have named the entity. Then different languages can share the same referent by virtue of using different designators to pick it out. Then clearly our world is not equivalent to our language.

When a plurality of creatures draw correlations between the same things, then meaning is shared. The name "sun" has a referent that is not existentially dependent upon language. "Red" does as well. Different languages can and do use different names to pick out the same things as well as draw correlations between those things. Different languages do not share the same meaning, because the correlations are not drawn between the same things. The referent is the same. The designator is not.

It does not follow that propositions are not existentially dependent upon language. They most certainly are. I've given the argument.

A true conclusion is not necessarily the result of a valid argument. A valid argument does not automatically yield a true result. — tim wood

Agreed.

The point of this thread is/was to tease out positions which are based upon logical possibility alone. That requires coherence in the sense of "logical possibility" I'm using as opposed to just any ole meaningful statement/proposition.

Moreover, perhaps there's some commonality between being based upon definition alone and logical possibility alone, particularly in cases where we're taking account of that which existed in its entirety prior to our account(that is - when definitions can be misleading and/or downright wrong).

I don't really understand what you mean here. Can you expand? — Wallows

The 'good' arguments against Kripke rest their laurels upon logical possibility and coherency alone. They work from (mis)conceptions.

Where there is no language there can be no truth.
— creativesoul

If I fall out of a tree, it is not true I will hit the ground, if I don’t tell anybody I just fell out of a tree? — Mww

That quote is a conclusion using the notion of propositional truth(true statements). I would agree that where there is no language there can be no true propositions/statements.

Your question doesn't quite make the parsing required to make sense of propositional truth.

If you fall out of a tree, then something has happened. If you hit the ground then something has happened. There need be no language for any of that to happen. However, the statement "I will hit the ground" is existentially dependent upon language. It cannot even be made, let alone be true/false where there is no language.

Do I get a gold star?? — Mww

Not yet.