• Mongrel
    3k
    Maybe we're talking about two different things... although I'm not sure how. How does your version handle unknown truths?
  • Michael
    14.2k
    Maybe we're talking about two different things... although I'm not sure how. How does your version handle unknown truths?Mongrel

    It doesn't talk about unknown truths. It talks about unknown things happening or existing.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Oh. What does it say about those unknown things and happenings?
  • Michael
    14.2k
    What does it say about those unknown things and happenings?Mongrel

    That they exist and happen even though we don't know about them.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Now that's redundant.

    Again: if you aren't a truth nihilist, you don't believe truth is agreement. Redundancy says it is.
  • Michael
    14.2k
    if you aren't a truth nihilist, you don't believe truth is agreement. Redundancy says it is.Mongrel

    Redundancy doesn't say that truth is agreement.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Social signification of agreement to p?
  • Mongrel
    3k
    So when you, as a redundacist, say p is true, you're just signaling that you agree with p. That hardly captures the meaning of true
  • Michael
    14.2k
    So when you, as a redundacist, say p is true, you're just signaling that you agree with p.Mongrel

    No, when I say that it is true that it is raining I'm just saying that it is raining. The "it is true that" part is superfluous. That's the reductionist account.

    You seem to be suggesting that the reductionist argues that "it is true that it is raining" means "I agree that it is raining". That's not correct.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    If you say it's raining, one supposes your utterance signifies that you agree to P where P is that it is raining.

    What else could your utterance show?
  • Michael
    14.2k
    If you say it's raining, one supposes your utterance signifies that you agree to P where P is that it is raining.

    What else could your utterance show?
    Mongrel

    If you just mean that saying "it is raining" indicates that the speaker believes that it is raining, then sure. But if you mean that the expression "it is raining" means "I believe that it is raining", then that's wrong.
  • Mongrel
    3k

    P is that it is raining.

    "It is raining" indicates speaker believes P
    "It is true that it is raining" says no more than "P"
    "It is true that P" indicates the speaker believes P

    What part do you disagree with? This is redundancy dude. What did you think it was?
  • Michael
    14.2k
    P is that it is raining.

    "It is raining" indicates speaker believes P
    "It is true that it is raining" says no more than "P"
    "It is true that P" indicates the speaker believes P

    What part do you disagree with? This is redundancy dude. What did you think it was?
    Mongrel

    I don't disagree with any of that. I disagree with your earlier claim that the redundancy theory says that truth is agreement.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    The claim that "truth is agreement" would be meaningless under the redundancy view anyhow.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Yes. You're right. That was my shorthand for: redundancy says true signifies agreement. Do you disagree with that?
  • Michael
    14.2k
    That was my shorthand for: redundancy says true signifies agreement. Do you disagree with that?Mongrel

    Yes. The redundancy theorist just says that "it is true that it is raining" means "it is raining". If you then want to say that "it is raining" signifies that the speaker believes that it is raining then that's a separate issue, and presumably also the case for the correspondence theorist.

    Again, you seem to be suggesting that the redundancy theorist is saying that "it is true that it is raining" means "I agree that it is raining". That's just not the case.

    Compare with "9/11 was orchestrated by the US government" indicating that the speaker is a conspiracy theorist. It doesn't then follow that "9/11 was orchestrated by the US government" means "I am a conspiracy theorist".
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Per Scott Soames, you're wrong, quote already provided. Perhaps two different perspectives both called Redundancy? Eh..maybe. I doubt it.
  • Michael
    14.2k
    Per Scott Soames, you're wrong, quote already provided. Perhaps two different perspectives both called Redundancy? Eh..maybe. I doubt it.Mongrel

    The quote only says about agreement that "the word true in these sentences may have the practical function of signaling to one's audience that one is agreeing with something", which can also be said of the correspondence theorist.

    There's a difference between the practical function of a phrase and the meaning of that phrase. The phrase "all Mexicans are criminals" has the practical function of signalling to one's audience that one is a racist, but that's not to say that the phrase means "I am a racist".

    About the meaning of truth-claims, the redundancy theory only says (to quote Soames), that "[truth] does not play any logical role, has no descriptive content of its own, and so does not contribute to the content of what is said", and so "it is true that it is raining" means the same thing as "it is raining". But as "it is raining" does not mean the same thing as "I agree that it is raining", "it is true that it is raining" does not mean the same thing as "I agree that it is raining".
  • Mongrel
    3k
    Correspondence doesn't give a flip about agreement. Redundancy says truth is about agreement...social signs.
  • Michael
    14.2k
    Correspondence doesn't give a flip about agreement.Mongrel

    That doesn't matter. If the correspondence theorist were to say "it is true that it is raining" then their statement has the practical function of signalling to me that they believe that it is raining, which is why we find Moore's paradox problematic.

    Redundancy says truth is about agreement...social signs.

    No, it doesn't. The redundancy theory only says "it is true that it is raining" means "it is raining". You just have to look at what redundancy theorists say:

    It is worthy of notice that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets" has the same content as the sentence "it is true that I smell the scent of violets". — Frege

    It is evident that 'It is true that Caesar was murdered' means no more than that Caesar was murdered, and 'It is false that Caesar was murdered' means that Caesar was not murdered. — Ramsey
  • Mongrel
    3k
    By your lights Redundancy is trivially true.
  • ernestm
    1k
    In talking with others, it appears I need to make a real clarification

    While it may be your opinion that the assumptions of the formal school of logic are invalid, that's nothing to do with whether my opinion is correct. In fact, nowhere did I even state my opinion. I just observed, from the perspective of formal logic schools, the 'post-truth' method of defining truth as used by Trump is meaningful, but of little merit. That was my observation, for which purpose, I summarized the thought of the school, hoping that it would be understandable. Certainly a summary cannot capture all the finer details of the views, and I welcome any suggestions how to change what it says to make it more understandable and more accurate.

    But its not actually anything to do with my opinion. I don't actually believe my opinion is of any real significance. I was just describing what other people think and made a new observation. That's all. The same was truth for what I wrote about natural rights. For this I was called things like 'pompous' and a 'fraud' for which I really do not have anything further to say. Thank you for reading.
  • dclements
    498
    "In talking with others, it appears I need to make a real clarification

    While it may be your opinion that the assumptions of the formal school of logic are invalid, that's nothing to do with whether my opinion is correct. In fact, nowhere did I even state my opinion. I just observed, from the perspective of formal logic schools, the 'post-truth' method of defining truth as used by Trump is meaningful, but of little merit. That was my observation, for which purpose, I summarized the thought of the school, hoping that it would be understandable. Certainly a summary cannot capture all the finer details of the views, and I welcome any suggestions how to change what it says to make it more understandable and more accurate.

    But its not actually anything to do with my opinion. I don't actually believe my opinion is of any real significance. I was just describing what other people think and made a new observation. That's all. The same was truth for what I wrote about natural rights. For this I was called things like 'pompous' and a 'fraud' for which I really do not have anything further to say. Thank you for reading."
    --ernestm

    I agree with your position, and your claims that human fallibility makes it difficult to know 'truth' when it comes to certain subjects or when we are making certain moral claims (or at least that is how I interpret some of your statements), but I think myself and others have somehow failed in certain other things to really explain the issue properly

    In Modern/Post-Modern philosophy there is something called a narrative or context that explains many of the things around us and can be thought of as a mixture of ideology/ culture/ religion/ and other types of system of beliefs. They are built on something that is sometimes called axioms (ie self evident truths), but many of these (or perhaps most of) of these self evident truth are merely fabrications created to maintain the status quo and/or social order of society. To be honest I can not say that there ISN'T an axiom that is actually true, but every one I have encountered to me seems to based on human opinion and/or desire and seems to be a means to justify our own ends; even if they are really not justified.

    I guess as a skeptic I'm so opposed to axioms that I'm almost as militant when it comes to arguing against them as the people that are militant in supporting the axioms they choose to believe. I may be a jerk in saying this, but ALMOST all ideology/religions/system of beliefs seem to be a kind of hedonism in one form or another and the 'morality' we create around it is used as a facade to hide the true nature as to why we do things. I'm not saying that there isn't any way for human beings to be 'noble','good', 'empathetic' one way or another, I just think that the people are that way do it because they are that kind of person and not necessarily because of proper moral beliefs.

    "We do what we do, because that is the way we do it" and because we don't really know any better.

    Focusing on proper 'ought's (which are created due to axioms in the narrative we chose to follow) regardless of their consequences is merely tautology and leads to various fallacies. I wish I could verbalize this better, but I'm unsure how to.

    Anyways, as I said I still agree with you but hoped to kind of clarify things a little better.
  • ernestm
    1k
    They are built on something that is sometimes called axioms (ie self evident truths),dclements

    I suggest you start by looking up the definition of axiom on the Wikipedia.
  • Banno
    23.4k
    The redundancy view is simply the observation that "P" and "it is true that:P" have the same truth value. That is, one will be true if, and only if, the other is true.

    There are other, non-truth-functional uses for "it is true that:..."; making assertions of belief and so on. These are irrelevant to the redundancy theory of truth.

    In so far as it has any place in this observation, the only correspondence here is between "P" (that statement) and P (that fact); the correspondence of use and mention.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    The redundancy view is simply the observation that "P" and "it is true that:P" have the same truth value. That is, one will be true if, and only if, the other is true.Banno

    There are people who take it further. By redundancy, they mean to say that true only has a social function. As I said, leave that thesis out and you have something very easy to defend because it's trivially true.
  • Banno
    23.4k
    By redundancy, they mean to say that true only has a social function.Mongrel

    Indeed; as if there were no difference between P and ~P except thinking makes it so.

    Such folk do not live in the real world, and are pretty much not worthy of rational discourse.
  • Mongrel
    3k
    If you say so. Alfred Tarski understood redundancy in the way I just described.
  • Banno
    23.4k
    For all the pretence of adhering to formal logic hereabouts, there has been little mention of the common definition of truth in formal logic in terms of satisfaction. Tarski deserves better.
  • Banno
    23.4k
    I wrote my last before reading your post about Tarski. We may be thinking along the same lines.

    But What did Tarski say about redundancy?
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