For Tarski, it was two identical sentences, one from an object language and one from a metalanguage.

But let's do it your way.

The quoted part is a sentence that's been mentioned. The RHS is a sentence that's being used. Used as in uttered?

Used as in setting out a state of affairs.

What is on the RHS is a state of affairs, a fact, what is the case, the relevant correlation, the extension of the sentence...

What is on the RHS is a state of affairs, a fact, what is the case, the relevant correlation, the extension of the sentence... — Banno

A truthmaker, then. And if it's a state of affairs that does not obtain, what is it?

Wrong.

False.

Wrong — Banno

The RHS can be wrong.
The world can't have the property of being wrong.

The RHS is not the world.

The RHS is not the world. — frank

It is if it is true; and that's what is salient. But I'm not interested in the ontological status of counterfactuals, nor is it relevant. What counts is that if the RHS is true it is how things are, if it is how things are it is true. How that is decided is irrelevant.

It is if it is true; — Banno

Ok. :cool:

What is on the RHS is a state of affairs, a fact, what is the case, the relevant correlation, the extension of the sentence... — Banno

What's the extension of an apology?

The sentence on the right is being used, not mentioned. — Banno

Used as in setting out a state of affairs. — Banno

What is on the RHS is a state of affairs — Banno

What's the extension of an apology? — fdrake

While confusion of use and mention is endemic, can we please focus on ordinary declarative statements?

While confusion of use and mention is endemic, — bongo fury

How should we understand use and mention?

As the difference between using a word or phrase to mention (refer to, denote, describe, point at) an object and using a quotation or other word or phrase to mention the word.

I.e. the distinction ignored here,

any subject of a sentence, anything to which we refer.
— SophistiCat — bongo fury

To be is to be the subject of a predicate.
— Banno — bongo fury

we normally use a sentence to assert something about a (referring) subject.
— Andrew M — bongo fury

I'm cool with phrase extending to cover statement, even though I dispute that (or at least how) whole statements refer. As long as the statement isn't systematically confused with its alleged referent (event, or worldly fact as fdrake puts it). E.g. virtually any reference to "states of affairs".

Those perceived differences are what our talk is grounded in, i.e., they provide the context for our talk.
— Andrew M

If you'll permit me to be a bit socratic, when you say that they "provide the context for our talk", and that this context "grounds" the use of language, I was wondering if you could comment on:

(1) How speech acts are assigned to contexts; how do you tell which context a speech act is in? — fdrake

Speech acts occur in a context. So part of the context in the hypothetical I presented was that it was raining. How you tell what the context is is both a matter of looking (as Alice did) and being correct (as Alice was).

(2) Whether the context of a given speech act doesn't just "ground" but also determines some component of its meaning - or in a more pragmatic vocabulary, if the context the speech act arises in influences the norms of use of the speech act? — fdrake

If I understand you then, yes. If someone were unclear about what rain was, then it could be ostensively demonstrated. If someone claims that it is raining, then they are identifying their situation as being that kind of situation.

I agree that speech acts both contextualise norms of language use and arise in contexts, what I think this does is stop them from being appealed to as a ground at one moment and as an expression in that ground the next. — fdrake

I don't follow. Can you give an example here?

I think the extension of a statement is its truth value.

While confusion of use and mention is endemic, can we please focus on ordinary declarative statements? — bongo fury

If you like. I think they're being emphasised in an oscillatory manner.

To my tastes @Banno is trying to have his cake and eat it too - language is pragmatic, generically speech acts aren't assertions, truth plays a central role in a theory of meaning (of assertions).

Allegedly: belief's a two place relation with an agent on the left and a statement on the right, but that works out the same as the agent having a belief about the statement's disquotation because the statement and its disquotation are truth functionally equivalent (despite that one is a statement, and one is a worldly event - the world as a metalanguage).

When you push on the alleged connection between the statement and its truth condition, we end up with "use", pragmatics, norms being used to justify the belief claim.

When you push on the pragmatics, you end up with something like a formal semantics of statements alone to justify the belief claim.

Repeat ad nauseum, never talk about anything substantive. It feels like a holism that will use anything it deems connected to avoid articulating a point.

I think the extension of a statement is it's truth value. — frank

Fine, add that to the parenthetical varieties of "alleged referent" above.

the statement and its disquotation are truth functionally equivalent (despite that one is a statement, and one is a worldly event - ). — fdrake

Now you're doing it. The statement is a disquotation (of its quotation).

the world as a metalanguage — fdrake

Qué?

Fine, add that to the parenthetical varieties of "alleged referent" above. — bongo fury

Heaps of alleged referents. If we accidentally say something true, the world is born in the shape of our sentences.

This would make a good graphic novel.

Sorry, I had on intention to disrupt. When I first started reading the debate, it seemed oddly familiar, and now I remembered why: I had a Christian "friend" who, over the years, went to great lengths in trying to convert me. His style was to produce a science-inspired or philosophy-inspired argument, parts of which were indisputable and to which I agreed, and then he'd go for the jugular. I didn't convert. But now and then I notice and become aware of the consequences (and damage) that being exposed to his conversion effors left on me. Your debate about propositions was one such instance.

Now you're doing it. The statement is a disquotation (of its quotation). — bongo fury

I was summarising what I understood as Banno's account.

Yes, sorry. :ok:

@Banno is doing it again.

...our only point of disagreement is your refusal to acknowledge that events have propositional form; that states of affairs are shaped like propositions. — Banno

...the very equivalence between word and world. — Banno

From my second post in the debate...

The above conflates what accounting practices require with what that which is being taken into account requires. Another conflation here is between our accounting practice and that which is being taken into account by virtue of using that practice. These confusions are part and parcel to Banno's approach, for they are built in. There is an utterly inadequate notion of belief at work here as a direct result. — creativesoul

The world can't have the property of being wrong. — frank

There's an emaciated notion of truth, meaning, and belief at work here in Banno's position, which comes as no surprise to me given that truth and meaning are both existentially dependent upon belief formation. They both emerge via correlations drawn between different things.

Statements are sometimes extensional; it's not a game that can be played with all utterances. You know that.

Your point?

When you push on the alleged connection between the statement and its truth condition, we end up with "use", pragmatics, norms being used to justify the belief claim. — fdrake

Yep.

When you push on the pragmatics, you end up with something like a formal semantics of statements alone to justify the belief claim. — fdrake

That doesn't look like what I am saying...

I'd like you to fill this out.

...the world as a metalanguage... — fdrake

To be clear, the metalanguage is on the left, and contains the truth predicate. The object language is on the right. So the object language is the world.

The missing piece may be that the world is, in Davidson's words, always and already interpreted. The illocution of making statements involves representing the world in words - that's what the game is.

How should we understand use and mention? — frank

It's not difficult to understand.

Use is deploying a word, phrase, sentence, group or groups of sentences to refer, command, entreat, explain or whatever else we do with words, phrases, sentences or groups of sentences.

Mention is referring to a word, phrase, sentence or group of sentences.

Do you see any problem with this?

The missing piece may be that the world is, in Davidson's words, always and already interpreted. — Banno

He got this idea from Heidegger no doubt.

Joke intended.

Which joke?

Smoke may be a sign of fire, but it is not a symbol of fire. Seems obvious to me. — Janus

Fair enough. Even Goodman explored in that direction early on. But Catherine Elgin (chapter 8 here, but no pdf or preview) argues that his mature theory shows how being a sign of fire, in the sense meant, is fully explained as a species of symbolising fire. Not something essentially different, and hence (though this isn't Elgin's point) not an excuse to impute symbolic thinking (or an alleged cousin of it) anthropomorphically.