I think it stems from Frege's notion of truth as object(truth values)?

Especially when your position is so counter-intuitive...

So if you do not wish to engage in this discussion, don't.

There was a very fine thread elsewhere - must have been the old forum.

The conclusion is that the slingshot doesn't work; but the how is the interesting bit.

Seems to me we have two misdirected attempts to "fix" T-sentences. In one, @isaac adds belief, and as a result commits unwittingly to antirealism. In the other, @Janus reads it as correspondence to the facts, and apparently falls into the slingshot.

So if you do not wish to engage in this discussion, don't. — Banno

I did want to. But you ignored all my objections. Now you're back to defending T-sentences again...

You need to stop picking on people smaller than you. Find another forum where you have some competition. :)

. But you ignored all my objections. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Seriously?

So, set out your objection for me; and I will answer it, again.

Seriously? — Banno

They're above. Have a look if you'd like to respond in good faith.

You need to stop picking on people smaller than you. Find another forum where you have some competition. :) — christian2017

Are you familiar with other active forums? Sociology, psychology, history, literature? I've had a search but no luck.

I don't use them because i haven't been kicked off of this one yet but here is one:
https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/

don't use them because i haven't been kicked off of this one yet but here is one: — christian2017

Thanks. I did find that one...

More interested in psychology and sociology...

Passive aggressive. You say i didn't respond, but refuse to tell me what it was I didn't respond to.

Well done, you. You win.

You say i didn't respond, but refuse to tell me what it was I didn't respond to. — Banno

It's too much to re-type. Again: It's above, if you're genuinely interested in a dialogue.

If you can break a language down into 10s of thousands of aspects or what i would like to call variables you approach a threshold of accuracy in comparing how two different phrases relate to each other. Whether they are from two different languages or the same language this is true. In calculus there is the concept of the asymptote. Absolute truth is like trying to reach the asymptote but as you increase effort you very often see little or insignificant gain in getting there. The absolute truth probably exists but it is extremely tedious to get there. I see this as the concept of spending dollars to save pennies.

Perhaps a link? If you can't be bothered, then don't complain.

He rejects the notion of conceptual schemes, but not the beliefs claimed to be within those conceptual schemes. — Banno

If the essence of a conceptual scheme can be located in a far-ranging belief, are we back to square one? Back to an essentially (although a belief- rather than a concept-based) relativistic picture?

What is the significance of the rejection of conceptual schemes if our beliefs continue to paint a picture of fundamentally different ontologies (and sister -ologies)?

so... that was it? That was a question for me, not molie?

There was a ton more but that's a good place to start. Any thoughts?

It’s I hope easy to see that if two folk disagree as to their beliefs, one of them is perhaps wrong.

But there are those who argue conceptual relativism. They think that truth is relative to conceptual schemes, and hence hope to save things like Chinese medicine from being wrong.

Getting rid of conceptual schemes reintroduces being wrong.

It’s I hope easy to see that if two folk disagree as to their beliefs, one of them is perhaps wrong. — Banno

Belief seems just as potent in creating a kind of weltanschauung-relativism. Different people believe the world fits best into such and such a belief system. Not such a far cry from conceptual relativism. Maybe you can clarify the distinction.

"Wrongness" in connection to belief introduces a heavy-handed subjectivism. Where certainty is absent.

Immaterialist versus materialist. Christian spiritualist versus scientific atheist. Can "wrongness" defuse these kinds of divergences?

I’m going going to put Soames’ explanation for why Davidson’s argument fails in my own words. I’m really not much of a logician, so it took me a while to get it. You can look at Soames' history of analytical philosophy in the Davidson section to get it straight from him.

Lets start with a language L (which isn’t English). This is an unusual language because there are only two sentences of this language. Don’t worry, it will be obvious why this generalizes when we’re done.

We’ll call these two sentences X and Y. If we translate X into English, we’ll get sentence x. If we translate Y into English, we’ll get sentence y.

Now we’re going to do something with Tarski. This is going to involve something that Tarski calls a truth predicate, but I want to make sure you don’t get the impression that this is the regular truth predicate that we all know and love. This is a special Tarskian thing. I’m not even going to call it “true” because that will cause confusion. I’m just going to call it T.

I’m going to tell you that T is a property of s iff
s is ‘X’ AND x
OR
s is ‘Y’ AND y

The above is a definition of the T-predicate. Don’t suppose this means we defined truth. We can’t do that. Just to make sure the above is clear, I’ll use Soames’ example: s is T iff s is ‘La camisa es azul’ AND The shirt is blue. It just helped me to change the sentences into variables.

Now we’ll look at something closer to the T-sentence format:

‘X’ is T iff x (‘La camisa es azul’ is T iff the shirt is blue.) This bolded T-sentence-like object is meant to create the impression we can use T to derive the meaning of a sentence of L.

Let's look at the first part of the bolded sentence: 'X' has T as a property. When does our definition of T say about this? When would 'X' have T as a property?

Either when 'X' is 'X' AND x
OR when 'X' is 'Y' AND y

The lower part obviously can't be, so we’re left with: 'X' is 'X' AND x

Now let's add the rest of the bolded T-sentence like object:

('X' is 'X' AND x) iff x

This above statement is a triviality that results from the T-sentence rule triviality it was born from. We can't use it for much of anything.

Maybe tomorrow we could talk about what happens to Davidson's argument when we actually put a dose of Truth in it.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for doing the work. I don't have much in the way of a response. I'm not much of a logician myself. Interested to see what our resident analyticals make of it.

Thanks for doing the work — ZzzoneiroCosm

It was worth the laugh when I got it.

They think that truth is relative to conceptual schemes... — Banno

As you're no doubt aware - having spent so much time on the forums - it's a rare thing for a mind to be ahubristic and circumspect enough to draw a distinction between its truths and its beliefs.

I don't think so. Rather, it acknowledges that some are not. Whereas, you seem to be taking a hard line stance that we have no direct access to any referents at all; Have I misunderstood? — creativesoul

Not quite. The issue that originally drew me into this conversation was one about the model-dependant nature of perception. It is well-evidenced that we do not have direct access to the referents of perception-talk. As such we need to be able talk in terms of model-dependant realism in order to discuss the matter. Once outside of that realm, and into the realm of socially-mediated objects, I think Davidson is right - there are simples which are sufficiently common to all language users as to render 'conceptual schemes' about them completely translatable and therefore redundant. Once outside of this realm the other direction - theoretical theories in physics, we again, need to be able to talk about simples which are not shared, which are present in some schemes and not in others and whose presence can sometimes make the schemes incommensurable.

When we say that some statement is true, we do not mean the same thing as when we say that it is believed. — Banno

Nor doe the truth theory imply this. Only that truth must, in some cases, be a property of beliefs, not that being believed is the same as being true.

there are things that are not believed and yet true. — Banno

If truth is a property of propositions, then you don't escape this - we might no less want to say "there are things which are true and yet have no propositions formed about them". The only way out of this, if you want to be able to make those kinds of assertions, is to have truth a property of facts. But then you have to be a realist about facts and this causes all sorts of other problems which have caused philosophers (like Ramsey) to question this line also. People like Ramsey haven't forwarded the idea of truth being a property of belief on a whim without realising the consequences.

Say 'the cat is on the mat' is a fact (a true one), then being on the mat must be a complex property of 'the cat', which, being true, must also be a fact. But 'having the cat on it' is also a complex property of 'the mat' which must also be real as it is also a true fact. Yet there is only one thing that is the case 'the cat is on the mat', but we have three facts which are now real (in order for them to be true). They are not logically identical (they cant be because one contains three logical elements, the others only two), yet they are equivalent (only the case by virtue of the others). Basically, the three say the same thing, and so presumably have the same meaning, but they cannot have the same meaning because they are different logical constructs.

Likewise, if want truth to be a property of propositions, there are problems.We end up being unable to make sense of "He said something true" without invoking the proposition and the name for that proposition in the same language. We could surmount that problem by treating "he said" as a complex, Something like (∃α)(∃β)(∃ℜ) [He asserted (αℜβ), and αℜβ], but then here no property is mentioned at all. Truth becomes an incomplete symbol, which may well be an adequate position (Ramsey certainly thought so), but it doesn't solve the problem you had originally.

He's saying so because the notion is contained within a mind and there are limits that places on what it can possibly be. — Isaac

The notion of a cat might be contained within a mind, though I'm not so happy with the vocabulary. Let's make it a bit less abstract.

(1) I have a cat. The cat meows and sits on the things. The cat is currently on the mat.

If I "Ramsify" this, this would be:

(2) I believe I have a cat. I believe the cat meows and I believe the cat sits on things. I believe the cat is currently on the mat.

Notice that (1) is about the cat. (2) is about me.

Believing that I have a cat is much different from having a cat. Believing that the cat meows is much different from the cat meowing. Believing the cat sits on the things is much different from the cat sitting on things. Believing the cat is currently on the mat is much different from the cat being on the mat.

The key difference there is that the belief is always a dispositional property of an apprehending agent towards a statement or an event (propositional attitude @Banno), whereas the cat being on the mat is a relationship between the cat and the mat. If we say that "the cat is on the mat" as an event is only a dispositional property of an apprehending agent, then the cat and the mat are both only notions contained within a mind. The cat being on the mat becomes a mental event of belief; a state of an internal model alone; rather than an external stimulus; a relationship between our internal model's processing style and external stimuli's presentation and operation.

Or, put another way, the cat being on the mat causes (or strongly probabilistically promotes) my belief that the cat is on the mat.

For Ramsey, a belief that p is a disposition to act as if p, and here speech is taken as an act. So if you hold the disjunction to be true, if someone were to ask "is it possible that there are less than 3 bodies in orbit around Saturn at the moment?", holding the disjunction to be true compels you (all other matters being equal) to answer "yes". — Isaac

I think this is the most important point: Belief is a disposition toward a speech act. I think we can agree here. From what you've quoted from Ramsey;

the ideally best thing is that we should have beliefs of degree 1 in all true propositions and beliefs of degree 0 in all false propositions. But this is too high a standard to expect of mortal men, and we must agree that some degree of doubt or even of error may be humanly speaking justified

Statements are still true or false simpliciter. "The cat is on the mat" is either true or false. Nevertheless, belief must come in degrees of probability. This implies the two notions are independent. That is, there are mental-bodily events of disposition to perform speech acts (beliefs about statements) and there are the events that those dispositions are regarding (the propositional content of the statement).

"The cat is on the mat" is true.
I believe "The cat is on the mat" with degree p.

These notions don't contradict each other; they are about different things. Events and mental/bodily states towards them. I think what should be emphasised here is that there are two models of belief operative here:

Ramsey's: Belief takes a statement and assigns it to a degree of probability (for an agent).
The other one: Belief takes a statement and assigns it to true or false (for an agent).

A logic of belief in Ramsey's would look like Bayesian computation. A logic of belief in "the other one" would look like a modal logic.

In your discussion so far, it seems you are trying to portray belief as somehow necessary for a statement of truth. In this regard, I think we can agree that an agent would not state a sincere belief if they were not predisposed to do so. But I think we can make a relevant distinction here:

For Ramsey, belief is a numerical summary of a predisposition towards a statement (interpreted as a speech act). This is about an agent that may perform a range of speech acts with different evaluations. I believe "there are exactly 3 bodies in orbit around Saturn" with degree $p_1$, I believe "there are more than 3 bodies in orbit around Saturn" with degree $p_2$.

For "the other one"; belief is a propositional attitude towards performing a particular speech act. "I believe that there are more than 3 bodies in orbit around Saturn". Namely, we believe a statement when we would state that we believe it. The criterion for having a belief here is more aligned with what speech acts we do perform than what speech acts we could. Belief in model 2 crops up when the range of possibilities of belief collapse down to only one; holding to be true; belief in model (1) is ever present and describes the range of possibilities; evaluating with a degree.

So you do have a belief, in some degree, in each of the three options. Without such beliefs you could only justifiably believe the abstract logical truth of disjunction, not the specific one regarding Saturn and its moons. — Isaac

I would not perform any speech act in that list. I withhold belief in the "other" sense. But I do have different degrees of belief in the list items. It looks to me that the best bet would be "There are more than 3 bodies currently in orbit around Saturn", but I don't have an explicit probability assigned to the statement.

Given that both accounts sever belief from truth; predisposition from event; I think the following question is the crux of the disagreement. It's something "hidden" behind the contrary notions of belief discussed in the thread.

In any case; why would my predisposition towards any of the statements in the list be necessary for there to be a given number of bodies in orbit around Saturn? At best, it's simply necessary for my speech acts and for my psychological states. My mind does not constrain the behaviour of Saturn. The behaviour of Saturn constrains my behaviour of forming beliefs about it.

It is well-evidenced that we do not have direct access to the referents of perception-talk. As such we need to be able talk in terms of model-dependant realism in order to discuss the matter. Once outside of that realm, and into the realm of socially-mediated objects... — Isaac

Which makes the all referents of such perception-talk and model-dependent realism socially mediated... doesn't it?

Getting rid of conceptual schemes reintroduces being wrong. — Banno

To be fair, so does embracing them but expecting them to connect up.

I agree the stock characters create an atmosphere of caricature. At the same time, I've encountered, on these forums, both simplistic reductive materialism and its immaterialist nemesis, duking it out in a nearly caricatural dialogue.

I've simplified my "stock characters" for the sake of clarity and non-complexity. The historical approach sounds useful too. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Cool. Just as long as we keep it in mind I think that's all that's needed -- since they are stock characters, it is we who are actually talking, putting words into their mouths, and what-not. So we can easily modify what they say along the way, too.

This is clear to me. We assume a background of shared belief and practice charity to facilitate communication. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Cool.

Rephrasing this to see if you think I understand you:

Broadly speaking, to facilitate communication (or "translation") charity and the presupposition of a background of shared belief are brought into play.

But in the case of ideological nemeses duking it out, charity is suspended and the presuppsition of a background of shared belief is abandoned.

In the former case, communication is the priority.

In the latter case, something like evangelism is the priority. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. You see this sort of thing when you watch some of the debates between New Atheists and Christian apologists. The speakers are more addressing their audience than they are addressing one another. Sometimes that's not the case, but I've noticed that whenever they start to understand one another the audience also starts to lose interest. :D Or, at least, some of the audience starts to lose interest -- they wanted to see the bad guy taken to task, not understanding.

Also, I think it's worth noting that even in these cases, at least with respect to the Davidson paper, the two usually do understand one another -- the differences between these extreme beliefs is not a matter of untranslatability. It's a difference in emotional commitment to two beliefs that are percieved to be in competition -- it's a matter of a threat to one's identity, a psychological matter, and not a linguistic one where the schemes the two hold make it impossible for them to communicate, even partially so, or impossible for them to both be wrong. They can still both be wrong, or maybe just one of them be wrong.

Meaningful disagreement is an oxymoron. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, right!

;)