• Apustimelogist
    674
    But if you can imagine a dog does not need to think to yelp and leap from being burnt, why can't we imagine the dog is behaving according to the exact same impulses in everything the dog does? Like a plant cell photosynthesizing - wherefore belief as a component of these motions?Fire Ologist

    Why does it have to be so black and white? If you look at brains of animals you will see a continuum of complexity from insects up to humans, and the core structure of the brain in these cases (at least down to fish) is largely preserved. Dogs will be somewhere in the middle - comparing it to photosynthesis given this then just seems hugely exaggerated.
  • Moliere
    5.1k
    I think part of the motivation for deflation arises from the position that truth applies only to sentences. Such a position seems to lead down that path. Perhaps the idea that knowledge is just belief that happens to be justified and true also leads down this way. Earlier eras distinguished between many types of knowledge. Continental philosophy also tends to be more likely to differentiate many types of knowledge. Plato had four, Aristotle five (and arguably more). "Knowing how to ride a bike," sense knowledge, noeisis, etc. However, if knowledge, the grasp of truth, is always propositional, then it makes more sense for sentences to be the primary bearers of truth, and also for what is "known" or "true" to vary by language game.

    Anyhow, an interesting consequence of sentences being true "of themselves" without relation to the intellect is that a random text generator "contains" all truths. There is some interesting stuff to unpack there. From an information theoretic perspective, a random text generator only provides information about its randomization process, the semantic meaning of any output being accidental (and highly unlikely).
    Count Timothy von Icarus

    I see attraction to deflationary theories because I don't like to decide metaphysical questions on the epistemic side -- there's going to be implications no matter what, but the epistemic side is attempting to minimize the number of implications a given theory of truth will have. A correspondence theory will require a mind, a world, objects in the world, and something the mind does that's related to the world such that "correspondence" is real. A pragmatic theory of truth will imply that truth is something that arises from human activity and so we came up with this word "true" in order to help us do things in the world.

    The deflationary account says there's nothing much to say about truth -- and can, in a way, accommodate both substantive theories by referring to a context -- this is the context of correspondence which is determined by the conversation we're participating in, and this is hte context of "I don't care what the real explanation is I just want to get the job done" so we adopt the pragmatic theory.

    It allows us to choose a substantive theory of truth for the context we're in -- but that suggests that there's nothing really to truth.


    I don't think that the LLM's we presently have contains truth in them because they're not people with desires and relationships but a toy. While I don't think there's much to the metaphysics of truth I do think that truth is a very human concern. Or, at least, something which we become concerned about because we're able to think about why I was wrong that one time and how can I make it better in the future.
  • Apustimelogist
    674
    I think part of the motivation for deflation arises from the position that truth applies only to sentencesCount Timothy von Icarus

    I think its more the fact that we cannot talk about truth without using sentences and words. The deflationary account then becomes a sufficient way of talking about truth. Sure , you can say organisms without words have an understanding of the world and 'what is the case' in some sense - which arguably is nothing more than our fallible ability to predict things and have those predictions fulfilled in our experience. But you obviously still cannot talk about that without words - the intellectual activity of truthing is then asserting 'what is the case' with words.
  • Fire Ologist
    766
    Why does it have to be so black and white?Apustimelogist

    It doesn't. I am saying I have no idea how I have ideas, and discussing this as the inscrutability of reference. Why would the actions of a dog, or anything else, inform this discussion?

    And I am asking this question of myself as much as anyone else. We all do it - personify and analogize in order to explain. But we are trying to explain the act of explanation, and so I am trying to point out that data observed from anything other than the behavior of explainers (ie, people), could be way off the mark and we wouldn't know it (because we are trying to explain "knowing" in the first place and instead talking about some other animals behavior as if it were "knowing").

    My point isn't so much that dogs don't think. It's that it can't help us understanding the objects of thought or thinking that we do, by inferring something from a dog that could have other explanations.
  • Fire Ologist
    766
    Mostly to help us make sense of the DogMoliere

    I'm just saying that, in a conversation where we are trying to make sense of a person's behavior, trying to make some sense of using language to explain reality in a communicable, logical way, as if reality needed explanation or was amenable to it, or oppositely as if explanation was a wrong turn, observations about a dog's behavior are not going to clarify anything. And we should admit our observations about a dog's behavior may be utterly irreflective of what the dog is doing in reality (which reality is the original question).
  • Moliere
    5.1k
    Makes sense.

    I think what animals are doing is offer a contrast to what we're doing in order to understand language. The way I'm thinking about language the dog doesn't have the capacity to refer, though I suspect they can individuate -- food is different from bowl.

    The animal is serving as a kind of "substitute" for our animal side in trying to separate out what makes human language different.

    Or, on the other hand, it's a counter-example if we believe that the dog can refer or have true beliefs.
  • Fire Ologist
    766
    The animal is serving as a kind of "substitute" for our animal side in trying to separate out what makes human language different.Moliere

    That inquiry would be instructive, because we are animals. Contrast our own impulsive responses with our own deliberated, reasoned, chosen responses.

    Or, on the other hand, it's a counter-example if we believe that the dog can refer or have true beliefs.Moliere

    I am just saying I can't tell how or why I refer or have true beliefs, so finding something instructive in a dog's behavior is unlikely, other than to highlight that thinking/knowing/believing may all be tied up in language (in all its complexity), and therefore, we are able to rule out that anything other than a person will help us figure out what is going on in this conversation.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    But you obviously still cannot talk about that without words - the intellectual activity of truthing is then asserting 'what is the case' with words.

    What about mathematical modeling? Or drawings, diagrams, sculpture, and other forms of artistic depiction? Can't lies be carried off with more than words?

    These all seem like they can be more or less truthful depictions of their subject matter. We speak of "truthful depictions," in drama, and paintings as "true to life," and the same is true for historical replicas or scale models (the latter of which once played a major role in engineering). Likewise, artifacts, words, etc. can be more or less true to our intentions, a different sort of truth. Hence, true can be predicated in many ways.

    I also think the focus on language might be massively underselling the role of the unconscious/subconscious processes involved in cognition, something we've discussed earlier.

    Words are also not a perfect representation of what is in the intellect (truth to intentions). A perfect example of this is the Stroop Test.

    iugji1wh21bb9ltd.jpg

    It is much more difficult for people to properly report the correct names of the color of text font rapidly if they are given the names of colors spelled out in a font that is a different color. People go much slower and make more mistakes. If you just do colored squares, instead of text, this effect disappears.

    A view that looked only at words and behavioral outputs might conclude that this somehow shows a difficulty in our ability to know colors in such cases. However, this is not how it is interpreted because it is obvious, from a phenomenological perspective, that the colors still appear to us as obviously as they always do. The difficulty lies in word recall, in overriding a strong habit of reading text irrespective of color (and likely due to neuroanatomy as well). Yet the truth of what color things appear to us as is about as surface level as one can get. The truth is certainly not absent from the intellect until the correct words are found, and this is shown by the fact that unfocusing one's eyes so that one cannot read the text makes the task extremely easy again. Similarly, someone with aphasia who cannot produce speech can still know a great many truths and communicate this in other ways.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    I see attraction to deflationary theories because I don't like to decide metaphysical questions on the epistemic side -- there's going to be implications no matter what, but the epistemic side is attempting to minimize the number of implications a given theory of truth will have.

    I see. From my point of view, "nothing is really true tout court, but this varies by context," seems like a very consequential metaphysical position. It claims that most metaphysical outlooks (certainly historically, but also likely in contemporary thought) are crucially mistaken.

    Likewise, what is the status of moral realism when the truth values of moral facts are allowed to vary based on "whim," as you put it?

    One can bracket the question of "what is truth," and investigate how the term is used in language, mathematics, etc. without having to commit to deflation however. I do not agree that it is a position that comes with fewer commitments. Agnosticism would be a position that comes with fewer commitments.

    Deflation is at least a position though, and I respect it for that. The only approach that really irks me is the methodology of trying to present every significant philosophical problem as a "pseudoproblem." Some problems are pseudoproblems of course, but these folks are like someone who thinks every problem must be a nail because they have discovered a hammer.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    When one quotes, it is a common courtesy not to remove the automatic link that is created. That enables readers to check on context.

    Removing it makes it look as if you are hiding something, that you are not willing to have your work checked.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    It's debatable if deflationary theories of truth "do not say there are no truths."Count Timothy von Icarus
    The deflationary account is based on the observation that "P is true" is truth- functionally equivalent to "P".

    That's pretty much it. To assert that P is true does nothing more than to assert that P. (There's the pragmatics to consider, the emphasis seen in adding "it's true that...").

    It is usually mentioned in opposition to the so-called substantive accounts such as correspondence, coherence and pragmatism. I don't think any one of these can provide a complete account of the many uses of "true".

    Deflation is different from Tarski's definition of truth in terms of satisfaction, despite the similarity in their use of T-sentences: "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white; here "Snow is white" is in the object language and is true if, in the metalanguage, snow satisfies the predicate "...is white". This is extensional becasue satisfaction would just be that snow is one of the items in the list of things that are white.

    None of these accounts say that there are no truths.

    So your accusation
    (indeed you ridiculed the notion of anything being "actually true")Count Timothy von Icarus
    remains unjustified.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    "we can assert or deny any part/whole relation as true of false... based on what is useful," is an approach, but it's hardly a serious one.Count Timothy von Icarus

    It's pretty much the approach adopted by Quine and the later Wittgenstein, although somewhat bowdlerised by your pejorative take.

    You don't have to take it seriously, of cores, but that is more about you than about doing philosophy. It might provide others with a reason not to take you seriously.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Let's have no more use of "sky daddy,"Count Timothy von Icarus
    The appropriate path would be for you to mark the offending posts for consideration by the mods.

    But I doubt that they will much care.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    ...a theory of truth cannot tell us what is true, except perhaps for what is true about truth.Moliere
    Yep. One of the advantages of Davidson's approach is that it takes truth as fundamental. That's a pretty cool move, since any theorising or ratiocination is a seeking for truth, and so presupposes that we might recognise it if we saw it.

    That's pretty close to how I think of languageMoliere
    Cool. And yes, the next step is the iterative and constructive aspect of language, allowing the construction of our social world.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    We can't tell what is actually happening in another person's head, or our own head, when we are believing or are knowing. Why would we think invoking dog-beliefs would help clarify anything?Fire Ologist

    If an agent acts in some way then there is a belief and a desire that together are sufficient to explain the agent's action. Banno wants water; he believes he can pour a glass from the tap; so he goes to the tap to pour a glass of water.

    We attribute belief in order to explain behaviour. We attribute belief tot he dog based on its behaviour.

    Whether the dog really has a belief in mind is moot.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Yes, there is something of the deflationary account in 's reply. Although ""truth is the adequacy of thought to being" is pretty obtuse, and might look a bit like correspondence.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    I think its more the fact that we cannot talk about truth without using sentences and words.Apustimelogist
    That's bang on.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    I'm inclined to agree with this. many a thread gets lost in arguments about animal beliefs and prelinguistic actions, which it seems to me to somehow miss the point. We attribute beliefs to actors in order to explain their acts, but it does not follow that there is a thing in the brain, or even the mind, of the actor that is the belief.

    But here we are heading towards anomalous monism, perhaps too far from the topic.
  • Moliere
    5.1k
    I see. From my point of view, "nothing is really true tout court, but this varies by context," seems like a very consequential metaphysical position. It claims that most metaphysical outlooks (certainly historically, but also likely in contemporary thought) are crucially mistaken.Count Timothy von Icarus

    True! That's pretty much what I suspect -- I don't know if I believe it yet or not because I remain uncertain about how one justifies metaphysical beliefs.

    These days I tend to think of the real as absurd -- "atoms and void" swerving about without any meaning. And the atoms need not be how we understand atoms today, though they can be. But it's an explicitly metaphysical belief rather than the science of chemistry. Chemistry will survive even if a metaphysics of the absurd -- atoms and void -- turns out false.

    Likewise, what is the status of moral realism when the truth values of moral facts are allowed to vary based on "whim," as you put it?Count Timothy von Icarus

    Now I could turn you off entirely by admitting what I believe :D -- I'm still a moral nihilist in the sense that I don't think there are true "ought" statements. There's more to this based on what I see in the world and how human beings behave, but that's way off course.

    But moral realism can work with what I'm proposing. Suppose we have a sentence like:

    "Everyone ought take care of their parents in their old age because they took care of you in your young age"

    We can say this is true. If it's true then it's a fact. (My belief on facts is that they are true sentences)

    Now, as I think of facts that does not thereby mean there's a moral reality which secures our moral propositions or makes them true. But a moral realist would assert that just as we have objects in the world to which we're referring to there are also morals -- of some kind or other, that are hard to specify -- which "ought" statements can refer to. And they can be true or false on the basis of that reference (which, I take it, would be to possible acts we can take)

    One can bracket the question of "what is truth," and investigate how the term is used in language, mathematics, etc. without having to commit to deflation however. I do not agree that it is a position that comes with fewer commitments. Agnosticism would be a position that comes with fewer commitments.Count Timothy von Icarus

    I think the idea is to minimize, rather than eliminate, commitments. Else we run into problems of begging the question when we come to arguments about what is real. (though if we're truly agnostic, sure, that's fewer commitments -- but it doesn't say anything either)

    Deflation is at least a position though, and I respect it for that. The only approach that really irks me is the methodology of trying to present every significant philosophical problem as a "pseudoproblem." Some problems are pseudoproblems of course, but these folks are like someone who thinks every problem must be a nail because they have discovered a hammer.

    Oh, yes. I'm not one to reduce philosophical questions to pseudoproblems, except to say that they need not be solved to live a good life: I don't think people need to do philosophy to live fulfilling and happy lives.

    But that doesn't mean they're pseudo-problems, from my perspective. And even if they were I don't mind investigating them for fun.
  • Moliere
    5.1k
    Cool. And yes, the next step is the iterative and constructive aspect of language, allowing the construction of our social world.Banno



    Yes, there is something of the deflationary account in ↪Count Timothy von Icarus's reply. Although ""truth is the adequacy of thought to being" is pretty obtuse, and might look a bit like correspondence.Banno

    @Count Timothy von Icarus's account looks to me to be a correspondence theory.

    The dog thinks, I think, and we can conform our thoughts to the world in our own way and when we do so we have some kind of truth.

    I'm wondering if some of the conflict here is due to our preferences on whether we ought start on the side of metaphysics or whether we ought start on the side of epistemics.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Count Timothy von Icarus's account looks to me to be a correspondence theory.Moliere

    Looking again, you may be correct.
    "truth is the adequacy of thought to being."Count Timothy von Icarus
    Really not sure what this says.
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