• J
    1.7k
    But I could say, “You should have seen the weather where I grew up” or concede partly “I must still be warm from inside.”Antony Nickles

    Yet more subtleties, but you're right to bring them up. The first response cashes out to "I call this warm, because I'm comparing it to some even colder place." The second response says, "I feel warm despite the temperature, so the reason must be . . . " Both responses propose ways not to be wrong when saying "It's warm out" -- but do they succeed? I think not, because "It's warm out" is taken to be a (more or less) factual description, not a report of how I use words or how I feel.

    Also, interestingly, I could make either of the above responses and deny that I believe it's warm out. I could say, for instance, "Yes, I understand that it isn't actually warm, this is just some info about why I use 'warm' differently and/or how I'm feeling right now. If you press me, I don't believe it's objectively warm out; I understand that such a belief isn't consistent with the temp being 0 degrees."

    Maybe it takes more, better example of when belief absolutely flies in the face of facts, because it is contingent on me, thus the desire to either discount it, or create something to fix it internally, like “emotion”.Antony Nickles

    I don't understand this exactly. Say more?

    Perhaps here we agree that the thermometer reads 0℃ and yet differ as to the appropriate response?Banno

    Another, similar way of saying the above. We concede the fact of the matter but notice that different responses might make sense for different people.

    Do we then have agreement as to the facts, but not as to what to do about them?Banno

    Well, I wouldn't have said "what to do about them," but I think I see what you mean. We differ on what to say about them, perhaps, and certainly on what they feel like.

    Do we (not you and me, but the two people discussing the temperature) agree or differ, though, on whether it's actually possible to believe it's warm out? I want to say that agreement as to the facts means such a belief is impossible for either of them. But again, that raises the familiar issue of whether one can be said to believe something one knows isn't true.
  • Banno
    27.6k
    Perhaps here we agree that the thermometer reads 0℃ and yet differ as to the appropriate response?
    — Banno

    Another, similar way of saying the above. We concede the fact of the matter but notice that different responses might make sense for different people.
    J

    In terms of Davidson's triangulation, the temperature being 0℃ is one vertices, the other two being the bloke not putting on his coat on the one hand and the interpretation of that as a bit crazy on the other.

    For folk from Canada, 0℃ may be balmy. The fact of it being 0℃ is different to the interpretation given it.
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