Consider that question for a moment, and then tell me again how it's the bare sentence and not the use made of it that matters. — Srap Tasmaner

You can have a Davidsonian theory of meaning where the meaning of a sentence is it's truth conditions. That takes care of use. The truth bearer is still just the sentence.

True or false?

I'll do worse next time.

Once again what looks like metaphysics is a choice of language. — Banno

Right. I mentioned earlier that worldview (or hinge propositions) are in play regarding dinosaur truths. It's not something that gets worked out logically.

But also the language we use about time can use some influence from physics.

The wouldn't you need an interpretation of the interpretation? — Banno

Usually we can pick out the meaning of an utterance from context. If we can't, we can ask. For instance if Bill is looking at a global weather Doppler and says, "It's raining.". We can ask him: where?

Yep. Take it as a warning not to try to answer that question via your homegrown intuitions.

Seeing as he doesn't provide an answer, that's pretty sad. But also probably accurate. — Banno

He's not an evangelizer, he walks you through what physicists know about the topic, sort of like a flow chart. Toward the end of the video he addresses what path you have to go down in order to avoid solipsism and maintain a materialist stance. Yes, there's some philosophy in there, but that's just the nature of the topic.

I'll not watch the video. — Banno

That's fine. He's one of the best sources for questions about physics. You're missing out.

What leads you to believe I didn't watch the video? — Janus

Sorry, the point was that there are a number of options for answering the question about propositions regarding the future.

But where and how does it say that? — Banno

Watch the video. He's an American, but he sounds Australian, so it should be easy in your ears. He's a physics professor in NY.

What is it that you think the video shows? It doesn't appear to provide an answer to the titular question... — Banno

The question about whether there are unknown true propositions about the future. The answer is: probably.

I understand the idea that there is no universal now. No obsevers see time in reverse though do they? — Janus

No. If you don't want to watch the video, you can read the transcript by clicking on the title and scrolling down to where it says "transcript."

Einstein says the order of events depends on the observer's frame of reference.

I :heart: S. Korea

So you take him literally, but not seriously. As opposed to taking him seriously, but not literally. — Banno

I take the voters seriously. This is no longer a country where belief in democracy prevails.

Trump as Pompey, not Caesar. Maybe. — Banno

More like Moe from the Three Stooges.

Well, it's not looking good, at the hands of "the patriot of the year".

A shame for the US, but democracy may thrive elsewhere. — Banno

Trump is just there to avoid prison. It's his VP who's worth watching. He's younger, smarter, and opposed to Enlightenment values. For real.

Sentences are true and cardboard boxes have 8 corners. Your claim that sentences merely express (abstract) propositions and that it is these (abstract) propositions that are true is like the claim that cardboard boxes merely exemplify cubes and that it is these abstract cubes that have 8 corners. — Michael

Sentences are also abstract objects. But you can adopt behaviorism and truth anti-realism, which says the truth predicate just serves a social function. Why are you opposed to those options?

it will be interesting to learn, over the next few years, if the institutions that underpin democracy are as strong in the USA as in South Korea. — Banno

I can already tell you the answer to that: nope.

am assuming you mean Mark Twain didn't study metaethics, normative ethics, nor applied ethics: in fact, I don't believe they existed as defined areas of ethics back then (given that it came along with Analytic Philosophy). More importantly, I am noting what is necessary to provide a treaties, an analytic proper, in ethics and not what is best for works of (american) literature. What is most convincing to people (politically), is certainly not a robust and rigid analysis of ethics. — Bob Ross

Thanks for taking care of that. You're doing a great job. :up:

I don't know, Huckleberry Finn never studied meta-ethics.

If we uploaded your consciousness to a self repairing robot and checked back in 10,000 years from now and asked you about the sentence thing, we'd find your view had not changed at all. Gotta respect that.

How is it not putting the cart before the horse to talk about this being good, or thinking about if this would be good and how it would be, before the metaphysics of goodness? — Bob Ross

Because morality is a road you walk. You fall, you get up, you learn, you try again. You learn what it feels like to be forgiven, how it's like being 10 feet tall. You come to see how bitterness twists your soul, but you don't know how to stop. And so on, and on.

The metaphysics of morality doesn't enhance the journey too much, does it?

:up:

@Pierre-Normand

Hi! If you have a second, you could explain the difference between sentences and propositions for us?

Sometimes I use the word "sentence" rather than "proposition" — Michael

Even after reading the SEP article? I give up.

I didn't mention propositions. — Michael

You did formerly. I told you that you weren't using the word correctly, we debated that, you persisted in referring to sentence-propositions, which isn't a thing, now you realize you shouldn't use that particular word.

No need to even mention propositions. Using that word will only cause confusion.

I wasn't: I was advocating that everyone is giving the OP an incorrect starting position, which was whatever the responder thought is chiefly good (or good). — Bob Ross

I didn't do that.

Sentences are also abstract objects.

If you believe goodness is innate knowledge, then why did you campaign to have people explain what it is?

It is literally saying that the easy argument entails Platonism about propositions and that many philosophers reject propositions because of that. If it were just discussing whether or not rocks exist without us then it would only be the few idealists who take issue with it. — Michael

Where you're misunderstanding is that you think propositions exist at a certain time and place. Think of the number 4. Where is it? When did it come into existence? Is it a mental state? If so, it's mind dependent in the SEP sense.

Propositions do not exist at a certain time and place.

There are people who claim that mind-independent truth-apt propositions exist. — Michael

You're misunderstanding that. It's saying this:

P is the proposition that there are rocks.

P (that there are rocks) does not entail the existence of entities with mental states.

Compare this to this:

S is the taste of vanilla.

S entails the existence of entities with mental states.

The definition of propositions you're using is a misconception you picked up from somewhere.

I've told you a couple of times that nobody believes in mind-independent abstract objects that exist in the absence of humans.

There's certainly no need to bring up mind-independent abstract objects that exist even if language doesn't. — Michael

I agree with this.


So we need to know who uttered the sentence, we need to know when they uttered it, and in some cases what the intention was, right?

Then later, we can think about what the person meant and decide if we think it was true or false. It could also be that we're wrong about what they meant. We might have to ask for clarification. So we can add all these things on top of just gold and sentences.

Sentences mean different things in different contexts, so do you want to throw some context into your mix? It's not raining, btw.

It goes back to the way we think about the world. We could think of it as made up of a bunch of objects, or we could think of it as made of states. The world as states means it's not just that the world contains the sun and the earth, but it contains the earth orbiting the sun, and so forth.

There are advantages to the state angle, one being that it's closer to the way we think about the world. For a materialist, the ontological implications are a problem tho.

I like to keep things simple. Gold exists and we either truthfully say "gold exists" or falsely say "gold doesn't exist".

Anything more than this is unnecessary. — Michael

ok

I'm just talking about the adjective "true" (and the adjective "false"). I am saying that a) being true (or false) is a property of propositions, — Michael

Right.

b) the existence of propositions depends on the existence of language, — Michael

I would just say the idea of a proposition comes from analysis of the way we think. In particular, as demonstrated by Scott Soames, propositions are a necessary part of agreement. In other words, when we agree, it's not on an utterance or sentence. It's the content of an uttered sentence that we agree on. That content is called a proposition.

This doesn't require you to admit propositions, though. You can adopt a behaviorist view. It's just that if you adopt a behaviorist view and then appear to worry over whether you're actually agreeing with anyone, you end up looking kind of schizoid.

I'm not the one claiming that the existence of gold depends on the existence of something which has the property of being true. — Michael

I don't think anyone thinks that. I think it's more that we imagine an alien might divide the world up in such a way that there is no such thing as gold. So gold is part of our own form of life.

The existence of gold and the truth of the proposition "gold exists" are two different things. — Michael

You're denying that propositions and states of affairs are the same thing. Some philosophers would agree with you, some wouldn't.

That there is gold in hills in the absence of minds follows from your worldview. There is no logical or empirical proof for it. The status of propositions doesn't really have anything to do with this.