I think this is really the point; that Reality is spirit; which cannot be mapped, but which does the mapping and which the maps are expressions of. — John

Yet still, what is "spirit" such that I can understand it to be doing mapping?

If you make it clearer you are talking about final cause in some fashion - the general purpose which acts as an "internal" constraint on mapping - then I could agree with you perhaps. It is a key point of the semiotic view of modelling relations that the autonomous self arises as the generic habit encoding some set of guiding self-interests.

But talking about "spirit" instead suggests a theistic reading. And this is why both Hegel, with his Geist, and Peirce, with his objective idealism, can be confusing because they seem to offer themselves equally to theistic interpretations and physicalist interpretations.

Of course you probably don't think of reality as purposive, intentional or teleological as spirit is thought; you would probably think of it as a virtual chaos or something like that — John

No. I've probably said it hundreds of times that I believe in the natural systems view and so finality is a real cause in the world. That is why the second law of thermodynamics stands out as the Cosmos's most generic constraint.

So I am cool with teleology. But I see it as immanent and naturalistic, not transcendent and theistic.

But when you get down to this level it is a matter of faith, or personal preference, as to how you think about the Real. — John

Or not. My argument is that it is about models that demonstrably work. It is about conceptions expressed clearly enough for evidence to falsify them.

Faith and preference are the weakest possible basis for truth pretty much by definition.

Do you mean that we construct & share a worldview, the fact that it is shared, gives it reliable meaning, it has pragmatic use. — Cavacava

Yeah. But that construction of a worldview (or umwelt in semiotic jargon) is both biological and cultural. So because we have a shared history of neural evolution - the same kind of eyes and ears - we can already rely on some basic level of shared experience or phenomenology. So I am not arguing extreme social constructionism. However when it comes to an intellectually conceived worldview - the product of collective human enquiry - then it is still just that ... the collective view which develops and survives because it somehow works for us all in a generic way.

We have consciousness of an existent object, a tree for example, and we have a claim to knowledge of how it appears & how trees appear is part of our concept of a tree. So two separate claims: a) the thing is(we understand it is separate from us) & b) what that things is (how its concept epistemologically ties into its appearance). — Cavacava

Not sure if this is what you mean, but I am saying there would be two levels of semiosis here. There would be the neuropsychology of perception - the way our brains are already designed to force us to construct the perception of a bound object like "a tree".

The naive view is we see what is there - a tree with colours, movements, shapes. Yet psychology tells us this is an elaborate process of interpretation. A tree won't even be seen if the mind finds it more meaningful to be acting in terms of there being a wood.

And then on top of that we construct our social reality where oak trees are gods, or someone's property, or a thing of natural beauty.

The point is that it is signs all the way down. If we focus on the greenness of some leaf, that is still a psychological sign rather than a physical reality. And when we say the physical reality is some wavelength of light, that is sign heaped upon sign. It is reading numbers off dials and saying, look!, there's your true reality.

Or not. My argument is that it is about models that demonstrably work. It is about conceptions expressed clearly enough for evidence to falsify them.

Faith and preference are the weakest possible basis for truth pretty much by definition. — apokrisis

But I think that is actually the salient point. How we think our beliefs concerning the Real work for us is precisely how we think they do or do not contribute to our flourishing.

When it comes to the nature of the Real, there can be no empirical evidence, and our decision therefore cannot be an epistemic, but must be an ethical, one.

Faith and personal preference are not blind but are based on what we think works best for us.

I've probably said it hundreds of times that I believe in the natural systems view and so finality is a real cause in the world. That is why the second law of thermodynamics stands out as the Cosmos's most generic constraint. — Apokrisis

But that also sees life as being just a way that the Universe 'dissipates energy', culminating in 'maximum entropy', i.e. the 'heat death' of the Universe. It might be a scientifically accurate depiction of physical processes, but as a philosophy...?

My view is that human beings are in some real sense intrinsic to the Universe. We're not accidental byproducts of a random process, but the means by which the Universe discovers itself. That is not really articulated in a lot of Western philosophy or science, although you can find it in some of the underground or esoteric movements.

It might be a scientifically accurate depiction of physical processes, but as a philosophy...? — Wayfarer

Yeah, I was forgetting. Philosophy relies on scientific inaccuracy. :-}

My view is that human beings are in some real sense intrinsic to the Universe. We're not accidental byproducts of a random process, but the means by which the Universe discovers itself. — Wayfarer

I'm not completely against such an idea as you know. But also, I could only truly believe in it to the extent I could at least sketch out some plausible way of quantifying it as a metaphysical hypothesis.

So I would rephrase it in terms of the inexorable growth of semiotic complexity (within entropic limits). And "ascendency" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendency - is an ecological concept, cashed out in actual equations, which for instance gets at the notion of organised power.

But mystical proclamations recast in emprical form seem to loose their allure very quickly for many.

Yeah, I was forgetting. Philosophy relies on scientific inaccuracy. :-}

From the perspective of 'the natural sciences', then you have to account for phenomena in terms of causes that naturalism can deal with. But that doesn't make it comprehensive or complete. If I got your total medical history, or a DNA sample, I could find out a lot about you, in one sense - but how much would I know about your biography? Little or nothing, I would say; and that is an exact analogy.

And the kind of model I'm thinking of is nearer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and values; but I would go further and say that the process of self-realisation is something other than, and greater than, what current naturalism is able to imagine. Part of the consequences of the history of ideas is that such perspectives have generally been forgotten, although you do find them, as I said, in alternative and counter-cultural philosophies.

From the perspective of 'the natural sciences', then you have to account for phenomena in terms of causes that naturalism can deal with. But that doesn't make it comprehensive or complete. If I got your total medical history, or a DNA sample, I could find out a lot about you, in one sense - but how much would I know about your biography? Little or nothing, I would say; and that is an exact analogy. — Wayfarer

If that is an exact analogy, then you have only said you would need more empirical facts. You have not yet abandoned naturalism if you feel you need to inquire about my specific social and cultural development too.

but I would go further and say that the process of self-realisation is something other than, and greater than, what current naturalism is able to imagine. — Wayfarer

Talk is cheap. Maslow, as a scientist, did a pretty good job on humanising psychology. If you can go one better, let's hear how.

The world exists separately from us, this is its facticity. What happens in the world happens regardless of our presence. Sure we can learn about it, study fossils, the cosmos, learn how the world works, but since we are also part of the world, our viewpoint has to be circular. — Cavacava

Big subject! I think the sense of self-consciousness, of being individual subjects in a domain of objects, forces and people, is actually one of the distinguishing characteristics of modernity. I say that because in the pre-modern world, I think humans felt instinctively related to the Cosmos through their religious belief and their sense of place in the social order; it provided a sense of relatedness to the divine and social order of things. That is part of what has changed in the transition to modernity and individualism If you look at the epistemology of the medievals, they have various forms of the notion that ideas are 'absorbed by the soul'. Also the Platonic view of logic is that what we really know are the 'objects of the rational mind', of which ordinary objects are mere instantiations; but the 'real intelligibles' are known by exactly that process of the intellect 'being united' with them.

So I think part of the modern attitude is this sense that the scientific timeline which we now know, but which our predecessors didn't, is 'the real world'. But it has to be remembered that a very important part of arriving at that conception was the transition to the modern attitude which sees 'what is real' in terms of what can be represented via mathematical values - by that I mean, scientific materialism, and not in any crude sense, but as an over-arching assumption of modern Western culture. And that entails a kind of existential stance - which I think you've picked up, with reference to the 'circularity' involved in the process.

Numbers, some of the particles physicists presuppose, our concepts or ideas, are also part of reality, they are in the world insofar as we too are in the world, but they are not factual part of it in the same manner as a tree. Part of the problem is that in saying 'a tree' we are using a general term (b) to specify a fact, a particular, which necessarily only points to the appearance and not (a), which is presupposed but not known, and we have no guarantee of the correctness of the correspondence between a & b except pragmatically. — Cavacava

Also a big topic! The ontological status of number is a big unanswered question. If you look at the article on Philosophy of Mathematics on Wikipedia, you will notice it is very large, and has an enormous number of references. I think the 'nature of number' is something that we all feel must be intuitively obvious, but really is a very difficult question. After all, Russell's effort to ground mathematics in logic, Principia Mathematica, was never completed.

Then the other point you're touching on is universals. The word 'tree' is a concept and is determinative in some respects - you and I will know what we're referring to, but that constitutes a very wide range of very different kinds. That illustrates something important about the nature of conceptualisation.

My sympathies are generally Platonist, i.e. I am inclined to accept the reality of numbers and universals. I see them as being in an important sense 'constitutive of the operations of the mind', i.e., they're neither 'in here' or 'out there', but are the means by which we are able to think rationally and mathematically at all. There's an interesting article on Aeon, The mathematical world, James Franklin, which considers some of these perspectives from an Aristotelean perspective.

You have not yet abandoned naturalism if you feel you need to inquire about my specific social and cultural development too. — Apokrisis

Do you think of biography as a type of naturalism? I would have thought it more a literary undertaking.

Do you think of biography as a type of naturalism? I would have thought it more a literary undertaking. — Wayfarer

Do you get to make the facts up or do you have to report them?

But then - if we stop to think about it more carefully - all we really "know" is that these are the signs we interpret in such and such a way. So we can ascribe truth to that habit of interpretation. We can point to the robustness of a relation. But the territory itself stands beyond the map. And we might not really "know" it at all. It is only our particular habit of relation that is ever actually tested, and so has its "truth" demonstrated, by some act of interpretation. — apokrisis

Don't you think that we mostly assume that there is some kind of "truth" which is beyond our interpretations? So despite the way we interpret things, we assume that there is a truth of the matter, which our interpretations cannot grasp the entirety of. And as much as we might use 'truth" to refer to consistency in our interpretations, between multiple individuals, we still assume a 'truth' which is beyond this, standing in relation to the territory itself.

The world exists separately from us, this is its facticity. What happens in the world happens regardless of our presence. Sure we can learn about it, study fossils, the cosmos, learn how the world works, but since we are also part of the world, our viewpoint has to be circular. — Cavacava

But "the world" is a construct, and the idea that what happens in the world happens regardless of our presence is a construct as well. So it's really not useful to take this type of realist position because it lacks in what we would call "truth". And once you dismiss this position as ill-founded, something which is commonly believed but not true, you no longer will see yourself as part of the world, but the world as part of yourself. The true territory is not external.

Don't you think that we mostly assume that there is some kind of "truth" which is beyond our interpretations? — Metaphysician Undercover

But that is implicit in acknowledging we are limited to interpretations. So there is always going to be uncertainty about what is left out.

And yet also - at least for pragmatist accounts of truth - it is an important point that we are also only trying to serve our own purposes. We can afford to be indifferent about "the Truth" in some grand ontic totalising sense.

Of course I, like anyone with a deep interest in metaphysics, want the whole story. I make that completeness a purpose. But I also recognise the way inquiry is in fact limited and so that informs my approach too.

Oh, and hi @theorem! — Wayfarer

Hi!

My view: truth is mind-dependent, because it is the predicate of a proposition. Propositions are true, or not true, and whether they are, or are not, is a matter of judgement, and judgement is by a mind. — Wayfarer

That's pretty much my view as well.

But there's another point - a mathematical proof, for example, may be 'mind-independent' in one sense - that is, it is not dependent on being grasped by this or that mind; it's not a matter of convention as to whether it is true or no; so in that sense, it is 'mind-independent'. — Wayfarer

Right. Basically (and as you rightly point out) mathematics is objective and public while yet remaining entirely in the order of intelligible being. This conclusion will seem counter-intuitive to the modern sensibility, but if we reject the Cartesian division of being into the mutually exclusive categories of res cogitans (subjective) and res extensa (objective) along with the Lockean analysis of sense perception it perhaps becomes bit more tractable.

This type of understanding actually tends towards 'objective idealism', that there is a rational or intelligible order, which is grasped though the intellect ('nous'); which I think is a strong underlying strain in the history of Western philosophy, until Hegel, but it's objective reality is now contested, due to the fact that physicalism generally rejects the idea of an 'intelligible order' (which is, however, still preserved in schools such as Feser's 'Aristotlean-Thomism'.) — Wayfarer

Agreed, though I'm not sure it's entirely fair to lay the blame at the feet of "physicalism". It's one thing to point out the failures of physicalism, quite another to propose a viable alternative. Critics of physicalism (such as Nagel, Chalmers, et al.) are notorious for coming up short in regards to the latter. But to your point in regards Feser, I think we are starting to see a bit of a resurgence of classical Aristotelian thought within the academic community, both within metaphysics and within the sciences. I think that the realization that Aristotle's hylemorphic metaphysics can (more or less) be cleanly separated from his erroneous physics is finally starting to take root within the modern mind. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming decades.

So... care to elaborate? — Sapientia

I'll explain it in more detail if you need me to but the nutshell version is that truth is a judgment that individuals make about the relationship between a proposition and other things (such as states of affairs if the individual is using correspondence theory).

(Y)

Do you get to make the facts up or do you have to report them?

Well, biography (and history, for that matter) requires the telling of a story, in addition to the reporting of facts. You can't disregard the facts, but in a biography, you're also concerned with their meaning, which requires qualitative judgement.

Whether any particular proposition a sentence might express is true isn't mind-dependent unless that proposition is specifically about or involves minds essentially.

But whether a certain sentence expresses a proposition, and so whether a certain sentence is true, is probably mind-dependent, in the sense that whether something counts as a sentence, and what a sentence expresses, is dependent on a linguistic practices in turn dependent on minds in some way. To deny this would be to say that for any arrangement of things in the world that logically or conceivably could be interpreted, according to some imaginary linguistic system, in a certain way, in fact already is: and so you'd be forced to say that basically everything is a sentence, and everything expresses every conceivable proposition, always (since there will always be a logically conceivable linguistic convention that could be so arranged). But this is false, so the assumption underlying it has to be; and so whether a sentence is true is mind-dependent, because what it means is mind-dependent, even though the truth it expresses isn't.

To deny this would be to say that for any arrangement of things in the world that logically or conceivably could be interpreted, according to some imaginary linguistic system, in a certain way, in fact already is: and so you'd be forced to say that basically everything is a sentence, and everything expresses every conceivable proposition, always (since there will always be a logically conceivable linguistic convention that could be so arranged). — The Great Whatever

No sentence (even imaginary ones) express propositions. Speakers express propositions by the utterance of sentences. Propositions can also be expressed by utterances which do not strictly speaking contain sentences.

Where sentences are identified as the primary truth-bearers, it's probably some artificial system like Tarski's. Using propositions as the primary truth-bearer may get us closer to ordinary language use, where the same proposition can be expressed by the utterance of a multitude of sentences.

It really doesn't matter. If a sentence has a conventional semantic content that can be modeled as a proposition, the sentence can express the proposition in that any utterance of it will express that proposition. You're just defining the relation arbitrarily narrowly.

I don’t yet know how you define any of those terms ("fact", "statement", "truth", "world") so it’s hard to evaluate your claim at this point, but at face value I’d tend to take issue with the claim that statements (for instance) are mind-independent, so perhaps we can start there. To bring this intuition out more clearly I’ll pose the following question and see where it takes us:

1. Were any statements ever made prior to the emergence of intelligent life in the universe?

The way in which you answer this question should help provide some insight into your theory of statements and, hopefully, help drive the discussion forward. — Theorem

No, there weren't. But that there needed to be intelligent life doesn't mean that there needs to be. And it's only the latter which is relevant. Do you think that there needs to be? If so, I wonder why. There certainly wouldn't be any new statements if all intelligent life were to cease indefinitely.

Just please try to make sure that you're addressing the relevant claim before you get too carried away. I think that I have already made that clear in this discussion, but I suppose I can clarify for you if need be.

My view: truth is mind-dependent, because it is the predicate of a proposition. Propositions are true, or not true, and whether they are, or are not, is a matter of judgement, and judgement is by a mind. — Wayfarer

It seems I could accept your first premise, but reject the second.

Why do you think that whether a proposition is true or false is a matter of judgement? That would have logical consequences which I find implausible or even absurd, and, because of that, I reject your second premise.

It just doesn't make sense to me, and seems unbelievable, that all of these facts, all of these events, which can be - and can have been - stated, would not, as statements, have a corresponding truth-value for that reason alone, but would instead require a mind there judging them to be true or false.

Are facts and events even relevant in your metaphysics? Because you didn't even mention them above.

Your second premise leads to a sort of relativism which I think is untenable.

If Person A judges Proposition P to be true, and Person B judges P to be false, then either P is true and false, which is a contradiction, or P is true relative to A and false relative to B. But that isn't truth, that is merely judgement, which you are calling "truth".

Also, there is good reason to believe that we can make errors of judgement with regards to the truth or falsity of a proposition, which, under this sort of relativism, simply wouldn't be possible in the way in which that is normally understood. An individual could never simply be wrong on account of contradiction with what is or is not the case, but only "wrong" relative to the judgement of those who contradict him. Whether he really is right or wrong wouldn't matter.

And he could never be wrong by his own judgement, i.e. he would always be right relative to his own judgement, since if he judges something to be true, then it is true relative to his judgement, and likewise with regards to falsity. But I think (or judge) that my judgement is fallible. So what would that entail? Seems to lead to contradiction.

But there's another point - a mathematical proof, for example, may be 'mind-independent' in one sense - that is, it is not dependent on being grasped by this or that mind; it's not a matter of convention as to whether it is true or no; so in that sense, it is 'mind-independent'. — Wayfarer

Why would they be any different?

But consider that any rational proposition, whether mathematical or otherwise, can only be grasped by a rational mind. So in that sense, it's not 'mind-independent'. — Wayfarer

But that is not the sense of independence relevant to realism - at least, not the realism that I'm talking about.

This type of understanding actually tends towards 'objective idealism', that there is a rational or intelligible order, which is grasped though the intellect ('nous'); which I think is a strong underlying strain in the history of Western philosophy, until Hegel, but it's objective reality is now contested, due to the fact that physicalism generally rejects the idea of an 'intelligible order' (which is, however, still preserved in schools such as Feser's 'Aristotlean-Thomism'.) — Wayfarer

No, I don't think that that understanding (assuming you were referring to what I quoted just before the above quote) does lead to that. I think that a realist can straightforwardly acknowledge that any rational proposition, whether mathematical or otherwise, can only be grasped by a rational mind, and is not independent in that sense. That's because it isn't about independence in that sense. Of course you'd need a rational mind to grasp it! You don't think that realists deny that, do you? And even if some do deny that, I don't. A realist might deny that it would need to be grasped to be true, and that would be relevant to this discussion.

My view of the idea of 'mind-independence', is that when it is turned into a philosophical tenet, as distinct from a methodological step, it is based on the missapplication of the scientific attitude. — Wayfarer

I doubt that.

I think that those who make mind-independence claims and those who make mind-dependence claims, in the context of this philosophical debate, tend to be in the same metaphysical boat, which differs from science in that it makes claims which transcend it.

Why do you think that whether a proposition is true or false is a matter of judgement? — Sapientia

How can it be otherwise? Propositions don't float around in the ether, they are not natural forms, but only exist in the minds of rational beings who are capable of making statements, which may be true or false. So you and I will judge something to be true or false - apart from that, there is nothing inherently true or false in nature, is there? 'Things are neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so', said the bard.

You say, in the top section:

It just doesn't make sense to me, and seems unbelievable, that all of these facts, all of these events, which can be - and can have been - stated, would not, as statements, have a corresponding truth-value for that reason alone, but would instead require a mind there judging them to be true or false.

But then you say, further down:

I think that a realist can straightforwardly acknowledge that any rational proposition, whether mathematical or otherwise, can only be grasped by a rational mind, and is not independent in that sense.

Those two statements seem in conflict to me.

If Person A judges Proposition P to be true, and Person B judges P to be false, then either P is true and false, which is a contradiction, or P is true relative to A and false relative to B. But that isn't truth, that is merely judgement, which you are calling "truth". — Sapientia

Well, it's very complicated. In some cases, Person A might be factually mistaken, and Person B not, which is pretty straightforward. But in other cases, it can be very hard to adjudicate. That doesn't rule against the fact that judgements are still undertaken by intelligent subjects. It also doesn't rule against the fact that people can be wrong - often large numbers of people, about very important matters of fact, as I think we have seen in the news at least a couple of times recently.

And he could never be wrong by his own judgement, i.e. he would always be right relative to his own judgement, since if he judges something to be true, then it is true relative to his judgement, and likewise with regards to falsity. — Sapientia

I know, or rather fear, that there are things I'm likely to be wrong about, and that there are many other things I don't know. I have had to change my view, in fact I've often changed it after discussions such as these.

A realist might deny that it would need to be grasped to be true, and that would be relevant to this discussion. — Sapientia

But if that realist wanted to understand what was being talked about, they would have to grasp it. There are any number of propositions that may or may not be true, that you or I will never know about.

I think 'the realism you're talking about' is what I call 'there anyway' realism - that the big wide world is 'there anyway', regardless of whether anyone's in it, regardless whether you're thinking about it or not. Pragmatically that is true, but on another level, the world you think is 'there anyway' still relies on a perspective, namely yours. That is because the mind organises perceptions, judgements, sensations, and so on, so as to form the very concept of 'there anyway'; that is a volitional act, or, in some sense, a mental construction, in the Kantian sense. But again, it's not something in your mind or my mind alone, it is an inter-subjective reality, very similar to what Husserl called an 'umwelt' or 'lebenswelt', namely, a world that is imbued with judgement and meaning. That is what the ''there anyway' realist actually believes in, whilst at the same time pretending that they have no part in it.

I didn't look at that thread, so if my comment is wonky.. sorry. — Mongrel

I split all of the relevant comments from that discussion and moved them here, so you shouldn't need to look at the other discussion.

The question of whether anything at all is mind-independent is one that can be debated. — Mongrel

I think that there certainly are things which are mind-dependent. The question is whether truth is one of them.

But independently of that situation, we frequently use the concept of truth to speak of the unknown.

"No one knew who killed the butler. The detective sought to reveal the truth."

This implies some proposition regarding the butler's killer which is true, but unknown. In this case, it's clear that "truth" does not indicate a mind-dependent property. — Mongrel

Yes, I agree. The other position has to go against the way in which this language is usually used.

But "the world" is a construct, and the idea that what happens in the world happens regardless of our presence is a construct as well. So it's really not useful to take this type of realist position because it lacks in what we would call "truth". And once you dismiss this position as ill-founded, something which is commonly believed but not true, you no longer will see yourself as part of the world, but the world as part of yourself. The true territory is not external.

The world exists without us, we have the remains of previous life forms that inhabited the world for millions of years. The world does not contain truth in itself, it is factual. We construct 'a world', a view we share with others that is comprised of what we and others have learned.

The point is that this facticity, what is in-it-self, is different from what is for us. The existence of thought is contingent, the world exists without it. The factual world must have a structure which is independent of us, which exists even if we do not.

Truth is not in the factual world as such, it is a constuct we lay over the world to make it intelligible, but clearly there is no guarantee that our maps correspond to what the world is in itself.

It really doesn't matter. If a sentence has a conventional semantic content that can be modeled as a proposition, the sentence can express the proposition in that any utterance of it will express that proposition. You're just defining the relation arbitrarily narrowly. — The Great Whatever

The question, then, is whether or not propositions are sentence-dependent. If so, and if sentences are mind-dependent, then propositions are mind-dependent. And if truth is proposition-dependent then truth is mind-dependent.

Yes, I agree. The other position has to go against the way in which this language is usually used. — Sapientia

But I think it's a bit of a leap to go from "we talk about truth as if it's mind-independent" to "truth is mind-independent". Maybe something akin to fictionalism or quasi realism is correct.

But that is implicit in acknowledging we are limited to interpretations. So there is always going to be uncertainty about what is left out. — apokrisis

I don't think that it is the case that "interpretation" implies necessarily that there is a truth to that which is interpreted. Since we live in a world of change and motion, it may well be the case, that what is, depends on perspective, such as what is indicated by the relativity of simultaneity. If the truth is perspective dependent, and each perspective is capable of producing an interpretation, then how can there be such a thing as "the truth' which is beyond our interpretations?

And yet also - at least for pragmatist accounts of truth - it is an important point that we are also only trying to serve our own purposes. We can afford to be indifferent about "the Truth" in some grand ontic totalising sense. — apokrisis

Now you introduce a temporal aspect to the interpretation itself, suggesting that when we interpret, now, we have a view toward the future, and this may influence one's interpretation. This really complicates matters with respect to 'the truth", because now judgements concern what will be, or ought to be, just as much as what is. And if we extend this toward the past as well, we have judgements about what was as well as what is.

If there is a radical difference between what was (that it cannot be changed), and what will be (that it may or may not occur), how could we reconcile these two distinct aspects of reality with a "truth" which concerns what is.

Whether any particular proposition a sentence might express is true isn't mind-dependent unless that proposition is specifically about or involves minds essentially.

...and what a sentence expresses, is dependent on a linguistic practices in turn dependent on minds in some way. — The Great Whatever

Aren't these two statements somewhat contradictory? How can it be the case that "what a sentence expresses" is mind dependent, but whether or not "what the sentence expresses" is true, isn't mind dependent. If there is no such thing as "what the sentence expresses" without a mind, then how could there be a truth or falsity concerning "what the statement expresses" without a mind?

The world exists without us, we have the remains of previous life forms that inhabited the world for millions of years. The world does not contain truth in itself, it is factual. We construct 'a world', a view we share with others that is comprised of what we and others have learned. — Cavacava

The point was, that this "the world" is something which is produced, and assumed by us. We assume that there is something out there which exists independently of us, and we call it "the world". So "the world" refers to that which is assumed to be independent, through the means of a concept, which is how we presently understand this assumed entity.

So we have a constructed "world", which is conceptual. There is also an assumption, that there is a real world which "world" refers to, an assumption that "world" is not just a fictitious, fantasy concept. We justify this assumption by referring to the remains of previous life forms and other scientific beliefs.

But this is all backwards. We should really deny this assumption of "the world", until it is justified, and produced as a logical conclusion, rather than taken as an assumed premise. This means that we should go through all the evidence from all the various fields of science, and other forms of knowledge such as theological knowledge, then we can start to make conclusions about mind-independence. If this evidence produces a conclusion that there is a "world", then the assumption is justified. if not, then we move on to a new conception.

The point is that this facticity, what is in-it-self, is different from what is for us. The existence of thought is contingent, the world exists without it. The factual world must have a structure which is independent of us, which exists even if we do not. — Cavacava

Even this statement which you make here, acts as evidence that there is no such thing as the world. You say "what is in-it-self is different from what is for us". So for us, there is such a thing as the world. If, what is in-it-self, is different from this, shouldn't we conclude that in reality there is not a world?

Truth is not in the factual world as such, it is a constuct we lay over the world to make it intelligible, but clearly there is no guarantee that our maps correspond to what the world is in itself. — Cavacava

When we are so convinced, that there is a good possibility that our maps do not adequately represent what is in itself, that our constructed "world", and the things which we believe as truths concerning this world, don't adequately correspond to the assumed independent reality, then why not drop this assumption until it can be justified?

It really doesn't matter. If a sentence has a conventional semantic content that can be modeled as a proposition, the sentence can express the proposition in that any utterance of it will express that proposition. — The Great Whatever

This is wrong because determining what proposition is expressed by the utterance of a sentence requires knowing something about the context of utterance.

Say you walk in a library and you see a poster pinned to the wall that reads "Physicists are imported." As you contemplate the meaning, a host of fascinating insights open up for you. You subsequently find that the poster is part of an art installation in which the artist is having posters made from computer generated sentences. This is one of them.

You think to yourself: "See! The sentence expressed a proposition all on its own.. without any help from a human mind."

No. It didn't. You derived a proposition from it by projecting a context of utterance. You were the speaker. As I told you: some sort of shenanigans will be required to take sentences as primary truth-bearers.

You're just defining the relation arbitrarily narrowly — The Great Whatever

What relation?

Also the Platonic view of logic is that what we really know are the 'objects of the rational mind', of which ordinary objects are mere instantiations; but the 'real intelligibles' are known by exactly that process of the intellect 'being united' with them.

I think Plato's Dialogues are some of the most sublime works ever crafted. I am not totally in agreement with what has been described as his Theory of Forms. He spends very little time in his 35 dialogues discussing them and in his Theaetetus where, if anywhere, one would expect the theory showcased, they are not mentioned. The problem with his depth of his thought lies in Socratic irony, a form of dissimulation. I think Plato was afraid that what happened to Socrates & Protagoras could happen to him as well, so he framed his thought in his dialogues to make it correspond to several possible levels of interpretation.

The circularity concerns our position with the world. We are particulars, contingent beings existing in a real, existing world, our ability to think is factually contingent in the world, it could have been otherwise.
This ability to think of ourself separately from the world, our ability to make the world our object enables us to construct a world that is meaningful, which contains truths. However, we have no objective position in this process, only a subjective (relative) position, and any truths we decide upon are for us (the circularity), since there is no guarantee that what is for us corresponds to what is in itself.

No, there weren't. But that there needed to be intelligent life doesn't mean that there needs to be. — Sapientia

Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be admitting (at least) that there could not have been any statements had there not been any intelligent life, but why? In your view, what is it exactly about intelligent life that makes the existence of statements possible?

Do you think that there needs to be? If so, I wonder why. — Sapientia

Yes I do, mostly because I subscribe to the notion that statements are sign relations that require one or more minds as fundament in order to be instantiated.

If Person A judges Proposition P to be true, and Person B judges P to be false, then either P is true and false, which is a contradiction, or P is true relative to A and false relative to B. But that isn't truth, that is merely judgement, which you are calling "truth". — Sapientia

Ever heard of God? Human judgements are fallible, God's are not. What your example here demonstrates, is that there is no truth without God. There may not be any God, and there may not be any truth. Would that thought influence the way you live your life?