noticed that this is not Davidson view; but Davidson’s Account of his antagonists view? — Banno
In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do
not give up the world, but reestablish unmediated touch with the
familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions
true or false.
our improved understanding of the article might be better facilitated by your attempting to answer these questions yourself. — Banno
I read it as Davidson pointing out again that it is statements that are true or false; and since statements are part of language, their truth is relative to that language. So "il pleut" is not true in English, even if it is raining. — Banno
And so conceptual relativism is really nothing more than a difference of belief or opinion. — Moliere
Drop the neuroscience for a bit. — Banno
The sin Davidson is castigating is that of thinking we can not talk about dollars, but only about economic models of dollars. — Banno
If, rather as I do, we think that M's effect on E is more confirmatory, only shaken when overwhelmingly contradicted, then, most of the time M is running the show and the effect of R is constraining rather than forming. It limits M, it doesn't directly shape it. Now, of course M is still about R, but this affects what we can say about M in terms of truth and translatability.Theory ladened perceptual features are still about their content; they are a relation between a body and an environment. — fdrake
T) a is true if and only if for some p, a is a . . . that p and p.
The mind works by general laws ; therefore if it infers q from p, this will generally be because q is an instance of a function φx and p the corresponding instance of a function ψx such that the mind would always infer φx from ψx.
The pictures we make to ourselves are not pictures of facts
The sin Davidson is castigating is that of thinking we can not talk about dollars, but only about economic models of dollars. — Banno
Conceptual schemes, as we encounter them in philosophical exchange, are generally centered on disconnective differences in belief. What is the significance, then, of reducing conceptual relativism to a difference in belief? — ZzzoneiroCosm
The immaterialist (as defined here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7109/davidson-trivial-and-nontrivial-conceptual-schemes-a-case-study-in-translation/latest/comment) has a conceptual scheme: immaterialism. He believes the world consists entirely of mind.
The materialist has a conceptual scheme: materialism. He believes the world consists entirely of matter.
Reduce these conceptual schemes to beliefs and you have the same disconnect and very possibly the same relativism.
Would you say this sort of untranslatability is a total failure, or a partial failure? — Moliere
Yes. But he also does make an argument for this, too -- not just to accept it by fiat. And it's important to note, I believe, that this is in the section against total untranslatability. So even if meaning has more to it than the truth of convention-T -- we're talking about two languages which share nothing in common, no meaning whatsoever.
So German and English, for instance, can both express some similar meanings even if the meanings are not exactly the same. — Moliere
Partial failure in as much as the immaterialist and materialist behave in a similar way, suggesting a common core of practical beliefs. I can't really imagine a case of total failure apart from examples of severe psychosis. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Now I have to admit though that I don't know what Davidson means by charity is a condition of a workable theory. — Moliere
(I'm going to use belief to stand in for a whloe bunch of propositional attitudes...)Ramsey is a pragmatist about truth (in his later work). The Ramsey-Prior theory states that
T) a is true if and only if for some p, a is a (belief) that p and p. — Isaac
There are several errors in this formulation. To its credit, it does stop one issue - it allows us to be mistaken, in that we can have a false belief, in which case s will not be true. But notice that this is also the case with the original T-sentence, so that's not a gain. A bigger issue is that it stops there from being things that are true but not believed. So it prevents the sort of mistake in which something is true and yet not believed.s is true IFF p, and p is believed
But it isn't believed that the phone is at work; hence it is not, by this grammar, true that the phone is at work.The phone is at work IFF (the phone is at work and it is believed that the phone is at work).
...truth is relative to the believer, and we are back to relativisms is true for A IFF (p and p is believed by A)
So the proposal is the modified T-sentence
s is true IFF p, and p is believed
There are several errors in this formulation. To its credit, it does stop one issue - it allows us to be mistaken, in that we can have a false belief, in which case s will not be true. But notice that this is also the case with the original T-sentence, so that's not a gain. A bigger issue is that it stops there from being things that are true but not believed. So it prevents the sort of mistake in which something is true and yet not believed.
Suppose I leave the phone at work, but I believe that it is lost. Is it true that the phone is at work? We get:
The phone is at work IFF (the phone is at work and it is believed that the phone is at work).
But it isn't believed that the phone is at work; hence it is not, by this grammar, true that the phone is at work. — Banno
He rejects the notion of conceptual schemes, but not the beliefs claimed to be within those conceptual schemes. — Banno
So let's take a trip into partial untranslatability. — Moliere
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