The "Snow is white" corresponds to snow being white if snow is white. — Janus

Which one? There are two of them in the T-sentence.

If you say the first, then you've mistaken the name for the thing.

If you say the second, you are saying snow is white corresponds to snow is white.

You sound confused about something which is very simple. The sentence "snow is white" corresponds or fails to correspond with the actuality. If snow is white, then it corresponds, if not, then not. Is that so difficult to understand?

I'm very confused. What's an actuality?

@Isaac, it seems to me that your approach commits you to a form of antirealism.

The realist view would be that there are things that are true yet not believed. You appear to be rejecting that view.

"actuality"

https://www.google.com/search?q=actuality&oq=actuality&aqs=chrome..69i57j35i39l2j0l2j69i65j69i60j69i61.1047j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

ac·tu·al·i·ty
/ˌak(t)SHəˈwalədē/

noun
noun: actuality
actual existence, typically as contrasted with what was intended, expected, or believed.
"the building looked as impressive in actuality as it did in magazines"
Similar:
reality
fact
truth
the real world
real life
existence
living
really
in fact
in actual fact
in point of fact
as a matter of fact
in reality
actually
in truth
if truth be told
to tell the truth
indeed
truly
in sooth
verily
in the concrete
existing conditions or facts.
plural noun: actualities
"the grim actualities of prison life"
Origin

late Middle English (in the sense ‘activity’): from Old French actualite or medieval Latin actualitas, from actualis ‘active, practical’, from actus (see act).

Are you serious? A real event, object or quality of course. Also sometimes referred to as a fact or a state of affairs.

The realist view would be that there are things that are true yet not believed. — Banno

Is it things which are true or propositions? The realist view, I would say, is that there are unknown actualities, or things, about which true statements could be made, or true beliefs held, if they were to become known.

How did that help?

I'm told that "snow is white" is true iff it corresponds to the actuality; and further, that "snow is white" is true iff snow is white. AND presumably "the cat is on the mat" will be true iff it corresponds to the actuality; and yet, "the cat is on the mat" is true iff the cat is on the mat.

Hence, the actuality is both that the cat is on the mat and that snow is white...

One actuality to rule them all.

Are you serious? — Janus

Yep. It's a rendering of an argument found in True to the Facts, and elsewhere, that shows that if you treat true statements as referring to facts, you end up with one fact.

You seem to playing dumb for some reason I can't fathom.

Slingshot argument.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts/slingshot-argument.html

It looks really cute and interesting.

I'm drawing out the consequence of your claim that T-sentences say something about facts, by trying to get you to explain what a fact is.

You said it was the actuality. That didn't get you any further.

Really, how does the logic of that go? Is it just that there is a global actuality that may be understand to be constituted by local actualities, or something else more profound?

Yep. This is a variant.

Unfortunately, I don't know what this means:


ιx[x = Socrates and s] = ιx[x = Socrates]
ιx[x = Socrates and t] = ιx[x = Socrates]

But for those who do understand....

"Taylor rejects (A) and (C) understood in accordance with a classical view about logical equivalence (Taylor 1985). On his view, two sentences are logically equivalent iff the corresponding biconditional is a logical truth, and what count as a logical truth depends on what one takes to be the logical vocabulary. Taylor excludes identity and any primitive description operator for that vocabulary, and the resulting notion of logical equivalence he calls tight logical equivalence. On that conception of logical equivalence, (C) is false, and Taylor buys (A).

Let us assume now that in premisses (A)–(D), ‘logically equivalent’ means the same as ‘classically logically equivalent’. If (A) is false, then facts are extremely fine-grained. In particular, rejecting (A) leads to rejecting Modal Criterion (see section 2.1.1). For take ‘u’ and ‘v’ logically equivalent. Then ‘u’ and ‘v’ are true in the very same worlds. Suppose that each of these two sentences corresponds to a fact, x and y, respectively, with x and y distinct. The existence-set of x is the set of worlds at which ‘u’ is true, and similarly for y. So x and y have the same existence-set, but they are distinct.

Searle (1995) rejects (A), as do Barwise and Perry (1981).

(B) is implausible on a Russellian view about descriptions as devices of quantification. Take the sentences ‘ιx[x = Socrates] = Socrates’ and ‘ιx[x is John’s favourite philosopher] = Socrates’. On Russell’s view, the first is to be understood as ‘there is a unique object identical to Socrates, and whatever is identical to Socrates is identical to Socrates’ and the second as ‘there is a unique object identical to John’s favourite philosopher, and whatever is identical to John’s favourite philosopher is identical to Socrates’. Now even on the assumption that Socrates is John’s favourite philosopher, there is little temptation to view the last two sentences as corresponding to the same fact. (B) is much more plausible if descriptions are treated referentially."

Everyone knows what actuality is, just as they know what truth is. They are both irreducible and cannot be explained in more basic terms. Truth is a property of propositional statements, and propositional statements are about actualities. If there were no actuality then statements could never be true or false.

The great fact...

One disarms the slingshot by removing correspondence.

I;m drawing out the consequence of your claim that T-sentences say something about facts — Banno

I haven't said that T-sentences say anything about facts by the way. As I read it the T-sentence shows the logic of the relationship between some kinds of sentences or statements or propositions or whatever word you want to use to refer to what is asserted, and actuality, or factuality, or reality or whatever word you like to use to refer to what is. The relationship is between what is being proposed and what is so. What is being proposed may be true or false in relation to what is so. Are you going to deny that?

So actuality has no bearing on truth then?

And you have not explained anything about what the fact or the actuality or whatever is.

Further, if you read the T sentence as

"p" is true if it corresponds to the facts,

you end up with one fact.

What this shows is that it is of no use to intersperse talk of facts or actuality or whatever between the T-sentence's right hand side and the world.

All that is needed is the sentence, unmediated.

So actuality has no bearing on truth then? — Janus

When one unpacks what one means by actuality, all one gets is "...is true".

you end up with one fact. — Banno

Again: though I don't have the background to formulate a proper objection, this assertion is clearly debatable:


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/facts/slingshot-argument.html

"Taylor rejects (A) and (C) understood in accordance with a classical view about logical equivalence (Taylor 1985). On his view, two sentences are logically equivalent iff the corresponding biconditional is a logical truth, and what count as a logical truth depends on what one takes to be the logical vocabulary. Taylor excludes identity and any primitive description operator for that vocabulary, and the resulting notion of logical equivalence he calls tight logical equivalence. On that conception of logical equivalence, (C) is false, and Taylor buys (A).

Let us assume now that in premisses (A)–(D), ‘logically equivalent’ means the same as ‘classically logically equivalent’. If (A) is false, then facts are extremely fine-grained. In particular, rejecting (A) leads to rejecting Modal Criterion (see section 2.1.1). For take ‘u’ and ‘v’ logically equivalent. Then ‘u’ and ‘v’ are true in the very same worlds. Suppose that each of these two sentences corresponds to a fact, x and y, respectively, with x and y distinct. The existence-set of x is the set of worlds at which ‘u’ is true, and similarly for y. So x and y have the same existence-set, but they are distinct.

Searle (1995) rejects (A), as do Barwise and Perry (1981).

(B) is implausible on a Russellian view about descriptions as devices of quantification. Take the sentences ‘ιx[x = Socrates] = Socrates’ and ‘ιx[x is John’s favourite philosopher] = Socrates’. On Russell’s view, the first is to be understood as ‘there is a unique object identical to Socrates, and whatever is identical to Socrates is identical to Socrates’ and the second as ‘there is a unique object identical to John’s favourite philosopher, and whatever is identical to John’s favourite philosopher is identical to Socrates’. Now even on the assumption that Socrates is John’s favourite philosopher, there is little temptation to view the last two sentences as corresponding to the same fact. (B) is much more plausible if descriptions are treated referentially."

And you have not explained anything about what the fact or the actuality or whatever is. — Banno

What is there to explain. You already know what it means for something to be an actuality or a fact. Why play dumb?

When one unpacks what one means by actuality, all one gets is "...is true". — Banno

When one unpacks what one means by truth all one gets is "is actual".

Here is the SEP's take on the slingshot(Davidson style)...

All the way at the bottom/end of the page...

One disarms the slingshot by removing correspondence. — Banno

That's not the only way...

you end up with one fact. — Banno

aabb(ιx)(x=a∧Fx)(ιx)(x=b∧Gx)[Fa][a≠b][Fa][Fa][Gb][a≠b][Gb][Gb][Fa]=(ιx)(x=a∧Fx)G1,ι-INTR=(ιx)(x=a∧x≠b)G2,ι-INTR=(ιx)(x=b∧Gx)G3,ι-INTR=(ιx)(x=b∧a≠x)G2,ι-INTR=(ιx)(x=a∧x≠b)G4, G5,ι-SUB=(ιx)(x=b∧a≠x)G6, G7,ι-SUB=[a=(ιx)(x=a∧Fx)](A1)=[a=(ιx)(x=a∧x≠b)](A1)=[a=(ιx)(x=a∧x≠b)]G8, G10,ι-SUB=[a≠b]G11, G12,Transitivity of==(A1)=(A1)=G9, G14,ι-SUB=[a≠b]G15, G16,Transitivity of==[Gb]G13, G17,Transitivity of=(G4)(G5)(G6)(G7)(G8)(G9)(G10)(G11)(G12)(G13)(G14)(G15)(G16)(G17)(G18)

Take that.

Again: though I don't have the background to formulate a proper objection, this assertion is clearly debatable: — ZzzoneiroCosm

Sure; so the onus is on @Janus to show how he voids it. I've give one way.

When one unpacks what one means by truth all one gets is "is actual". — Janus

...and all that means is "...is true". Which is exactly what the T-sentence says.

Sure; so the onus is on Janus to show how he voids it. I've give one way. — Banno

Maybe if this was a formal debate where the interest is in winning. The fact that far more brilliant minds than our own take issue with it should be enough to give us pause.