I don't share your allergy to all things mental. — Srap Tasmaner

When one opposes a view that is ubiquitous, it can appear that one is taking an extreme view.

I don't oppose the mental. I just do not suppose it to be confined to the inside of people's heads.

What use is a justification that is private? A private justification, like a private rule, becomes mere habit.

I don't oppose the mental. I just do not suppose it to be confined to the inside of people's heads. — Banno

I agree, if there wasn't some outward manifestation of the mental, then what would a mental life entail? Even if we exclude language, what's mental would have to seep out in some outward act (linguistic or otherwise). The mental, in order for us to call it mental, has to manifest itself in some way. We could say the same thing for what it means for something to be conscious.

Thought you might.

What do you think of the link, if any, to Davidson's rejection of conceptual schema? Davidson's strategy seems to me to be showing that conceptual schema, if they exist, must be private; but that leads to their being incoherent, unintelligible. Hence, he rejects the notion.

What link?

I chose the alternate example, whether the fence is wood or brick, as better suited to the task in hand; it's more obviously not just a question of opinion. — Banno

I like that -- especially the word "opinion" there -- but I doubt I'll continue. Far as I can tell, people were only ((or at least mostly)) reading what I wrote to see what conclusion I reached so they could agree or disagree with it. I mean, sure, philosophy traffics in abstractions, but I really hoped I could engage people at the level of a concrete scenario we could look at closely together. But I seem to be the only one interested in such a procedure.

The question was why associating the meaning of the word 'truth' with a pragmatic concept of utility caused this increase in deception. — Isaac

Oh really? You should be more clear with your questions, I didn't get that out of it at all. The point was that associating "truth" with utility renders truth as the means to the end. The end is what is wanted, the goal. Therefore truth becomes whatever it is which successfully gets a person what is wanted. Often, deception successfully gets one what is wanted. Therefore deception may be truth.

Are people more able to deceive you because they can use the word 'truth' to describe their most pragmatic models. If we banned them from using the word that way, would they somehow be shackled in their deception? — Isaac

Yes, that sums it up nicely. First, we are taught that truthfulness is a good and honourable thing. But, if from childhood, we also learn that "truth" is used in the pragmatic way, such that truth is the means for achieving one's goals, then the means to the end are always good and honourable, and there are no bad, or dishonourable means. We will then go about our lives deceiving people, believing that we are being truthful, good and honourable people, telling the truth, because we honestly believe that this is what "truth" is. We were taught that this is what truth is. And a person who honestly believes that what they are doing is right, is much more difficult to rehabilitate, and prevent from doing what they are doing, than one who believes that what they are doing is wrong, feels guilt, and wants rehabilitation. So, by giving people free reign to deceive without guilt, by using "truth" in this way, we enable them to deceive us.

I agree, if there wasn't some outward manifestation of the mental, then what would a mental life entail? Even if we exclude language, what's mental would have to seep out in some outward act (linguistic or otherwise). The mental, in order for us to call it mental, has to manifest itself in some way. We could say the same thing for what it means for something to be conscious. — Sam26

The mental manifests outwardly in many different ways, artefacts, bird's nests, beaver dams, etc.. However, the question as to whether the mental depends on an outward manifestation, for its very existence, is not so easily answered. That's the thorny issue. Experience shows me that the intent to act is prior to the act itself, therefore the mental is prior to its outward expression. So, the mental, if prior to its outward expression, cannot be dependent on the outward expression. And this is why the issue is thorny. Being independent from its outward expression, means that there is no necessary relationship between the mental and its outward manifestation. The outward manifestation therefore does not necessarily provide a reliable representation of the mental. That's the problem, and why dishonesty may be allowed to thrive.

it'd be a bloody miracle that any sort of triangulation could happen at all if there wasn't something "truthy" or representative about semantic content, and of necessity that has to be sufficiently shareable to count as such. — fdrake

Indeed. If one looks at groups which cohere and those which don't, a shared common goal is often cited as a feature of those that do. The obvious reason being that members then have to weigh up the cost of their dispute against the cost of the goal being frustrated and limit it only to that which seriously risks missing that goal. I think in philosophy there's simply too little at stake in terms of outcome (allowing any small perceived inconsistency to be exploited), but too much at stake in terms of personal narratives to want to give much leeway. These matters ('truth' perhaps being one of the biggest in this sense) are like the themes of the book we are the heroes in. They frame the plot and the characters and so can change a lot about our storylines in one go. But being our stories, there's no need to get it done which outweighs the need to get it just so. It's not like we're building a house.

There's way more politics in philosophy than anyone cares to admit.

How many layers of metaphilosophy are we on now? — fdrake

Ha! I make it at least six. If we get to ten we get a prize.

If you want to know what is expressed, look at the behavioural commitments it imbues in someone.

Whether someone needs to actually do a behavioural (including cognitive) commitment of a belief to count as believing that belief (eg, whether the tendency to act as if ever actually needs to be enacted...) seems a different issue; and maybe there's where statements, as a model, come into it. It's a very clear cut case that someone will believe something if they are willing to assert it. — fdrake

I brought this up earlier. I think we need to consider the functionality of expressions more than their content. We can understand others even when they mess up their words, we almost know what they mean to say, and I think this is because their expressions have a purpose, which we can intuit from the circumstances. That all being just a set-up to say that asserting something is a behaviour. I think even deliberate mental acts can be construed as behaviours in some contexts. Imagine someone who believes in telepathy. How would they act on that belief? They'd really really concentrate on the message they want to send. Funny thing is though, I bet they'd scrunch their eyes up too. Even the telepathic it seems can't escape the behavioural nature of communication!

In that regard two more definite paths have been fleshed out here, I think, one is the broadly idealist (transcendetal though) Kantian move Isaac makes where it's beliefs all the way down and modelling reality is the same thing as putting a filter on it; everything we know and experience lives on "our side" of the filter. The other is a mirror image; Davidson's actually quite similar to this, only the filter is ever expanding and has a tendency toward monopoly over all expression and interpretation (@Banno), which means there's no point of talking about the other side of the filter, so what's the point in even having a filter as an object? I believe the former finds a lack of access to un-modelled reality a necessary consequence of the existence of a filter due to how interpretation works. The latter finds direct access to modelled reality a necessary consequence of the mutuality of the filter, and thus finds no better account of the filter than the variations of a shared environment. Despite being very opposite positions, both can make the move that any other position is speaking about things which are unintelligible, due to placing different conditions for the possibility of interpretation on the filter! — fdrake

...and also

I like this. I always think that @Banno and I are saying much the same thing but from a different perspective. The thing we agree on is the lack of anything Cartesian-theatre-like. We can either remove that by focussing on the the shared world and 'black-box' -ing the mechanisms, or we can do that by showing how the mechanisms fully encompass the variability people are tempted to explain by Cartesian-like moves such as 'viewing' models, or saying that all we ever 'see' are representations. I think the only difference is that in the former case, the hidden states which are modelled (neural models), simply drop out of the conversation, as being unnecessary. In the latter case, they are needed, but only as part of the meta-model of the mechanism.

Perhaps some way forward would be to place accuracy, truth, correctness and so on in whatever process generates belief as a mediating factor. For example recognising a falsehood (you then know not-X is true), or learning you are able to pick up something you could not. Neither of those things speak about knowledge being something which lasts, however. — fdrake

I think one of the problems with 'knowledge' is that is has no neural correlate, so it doesn't really have a place in the second model (the one which uses the whole mechanisms of perception and beliefs).

I don't have any trouble with a neural correlate for beliefs - "tendency to act as if", seems to work. If your neural network has a tendency to act as if X then we can say it has a belief that X. It's a bit of a bastardisation, but I think it's not too unfair to the proper meaning.

But 'knowledge' and 'truth'...? I think if I was forced to put it somewhere, I might distinguish declarative memory from other sorts and say that we could attach the term to those, but, to be honest, that's a cop out because the only reason that works is because declarative memory is the kind of thing we can declare, still thinking of the social function of the term. 'Truth' probably fits best as a kind of Peircean pragmatism, but I'm not really happy with that and would far rather say that it has no neural correlate at all.

So yeah, I have a hard time seeing knowledge, truth and correctness as having any role at all internally. I think they play social roles. We use the terms in social interactions to refer to verbal expressions of belief (of the neural sort), for various functions - mostly getting other people to do stuff they wouldn't otherwise do without the persuasive force of 'truth', or 'knowledge'.

It might be that folk follow your posts but reply to the conclusion as a way of keeping it simple.

I had a little think about your thoughts on knowledge, which I at first rejected, but on consideration there might be something to it.

When folk talk about knowledge in these fora they usually mean knowing that, and forget about knowing how. I've previously suggested that knowing that is one aspect of knowing how. That is, propositional knowledge is a type of procedural knowledge.

And procedural knowledge is just the capacity for certain behaviours.

SO there may be some scope for considering procedural knowledge as preceding or anterior to propositional knowledge, and hence truth.

You've gone from what ought to be the case, to what is the case. — Isaac

I'm not seeing that. — Banno

Ah, maybe I'm mistaken then. It seems that you say on the one hand that we'd have no basis for our agreement that the models were both 'of the neighbourhood' without a shared model, and then say that because of this we actually do have a shared model. We could, could we not, simply proceed without having any justification? We don't have to have a shared model, just because without one we'd be unable to justify our agreement that the conflicting models are both 'of the neighbourhood. We could just agree they are anyway?

What I have in mind is more that the house is a construct of our interaction. — Banno

Ah! I should have read on. That makes much more sense to me. Still, I'll leave the above by way of explanation.

This is not to say that we do not have a model of the house in terms of some weighting of neural patterns. Perhaps we do; while a very interesting issue in its own right, that is secondary in this context. — Banno

Yes. I think we (or maybe just I) need to start talking in terms of neural-models and social-models. The two are quite distinct. Neither are much like a model as in 'a model car'.

I see the social model as a set of agreements which constitute 'the world'. That this is a kettle, that is a table...and so on. In neural terms, we're agreeing on what it is we're neural-modelling.

We do so to minimise surprise, so we can have reliable expectations of how other people will behave. The link then between our neural models and our social model is that the latter is an attempt to maintain some intersocial reliability in our use of the former, but in doing this trick, we turn our neural models into a radically different type of thing. Not to mention the fact that I don't think we do any of this consciously...

It's simply advantageous if your neural-model of the kettle is the same as mine. Then we can make tea together. So I take your actions toward the kettle as information updating my priors about it (and vice versa). Again, all subconscious. Our language about kettles, I think, is just an efficient way of achieving the same task.

I think Davidson's argument against conceptual schema is in line with the private language argument. After all if there are no private languages there are also no private models. — Banno

Yeah. So this idea of a private model would be the equivalent of creating the social-type model, but keeping it to yourself. Yet the only purpose of the social-type model is intersocial cooperation. So what would be the point? All one would be doing, I think, is taking a social model and playing 'what if...?' with it.

Let's look at the liar sentence this sentence is false - we don't need to know, in this case, the definition of truth/falsity; whatever they are, if true is the opposite of false and the law of bivalence holds, the liar sentence is neither true nor false. The long and short of it, "true" and its negation "false" can have any meaning we wish so long as logical rules applied to them are defined well and applied strictly, oui mes amies?

Cool, broad agreement, then.

It's simply advantageous if your neural-model of the kettle is the same as mine. — Isaac

This might need clarification. If I've understood, there need be no homomorphic similarity between the neural nets of two individuals. The point is not that the networks are similar, but that their output - in this case, the behaviour of dealing with kettles - meshes. And I'll use "meshes" rather than "is the same", since I'll boil the kettle and make the tea but you can be Mother.

And this fits in with the mention of knowledge, in my reply to @Srap Tasmaner, above. You and I both know how to ride a bike, but the proof of this has nothing to do with our having similar neural paths in our brains, and everything to do with not falling off. We also both know that eight is four time two, and again this is to do with our capacity to count eggs and buttons and to share pizza slices and not with our having the same patterns of firing neurones.

Which is not to say that there may not indeed be patterns in that firing. This is the "anomalous" bit in anomalous monism.

The interesting part of the work your compatriots are doing is determining the extent to which our neural patterns do match.

The point is not that the networks are similar, but that their output - in this case, the behaviour of dealing with kettles - meshes. — Banno

Yes, that's exactly it. My bad expression to blame for the lack of clarity there.

And this fits in with the mention of knowledge, in my reply to Srap Tasmaner, above. You and I both know how to ride a bike, but the proof of this has nothing to do with our having similar neural paths in our brains, and everything to do with not falling off. We also both know that eight is four time two, and again this is to do with our capacity to count eggs and buttons and to share pizza slices and not with our having the same patterns of firing neurones.

Which is not to say that there may not indeed be patterns in that firing. This is the "anomalous" bit in anomalous monism. — Banno

Yep, absolutely. Knowing things is a social game of comparisons in our shared world, we don't look into each other's brains to find out, not even by proxy, as you say, we might well find nothing whatsoever similar. Just to add even more grist to that mill. The bit of our brain that some might claim 'knows' how to ride a bike today might well not even be the same bit that 'knows' it tomorrow. Most neural nets have a lot of redundancy and carry out multiple functions. Hence my focus on behaviour, rather than concepts. I rather see concepts as post hoc. Something we use after the event to help us understand why that situation just lead to that behaviour. But that may be too behaviourist for most tastes.

First, we are taught that truthfulness is a good and honourable thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well there's our first mistake then. 'Honesty' is the good and honourable thing. 'Truthfulness' is a game used to convince people your beliefs are better than theirs. Often honourable, often not.

I rather see concepts as post hoc. — Isaac

Music to mine ears. In the past I've gone further and argued that concepts are things we do, not mental furniture. The number 1 is not a thing so much as a pattern of behaviour. Same for democracy and even London.

Don't look to the meaning, look to the use.

Music to mine ears. — Banno

Bit boring for everyone else when we agree though!

In the past I've gone further and argued that concepts are things we do, not mental furniture. — Banno

Yes, that works as far as my model (scientific model - going to start specifying from now on) of cognition goes. A concept might be recognised by the repeated pattern of behaviours. Like all the apples on the table are real, but the set {all the apples on the table} isn't an additional thing in the room. It's a façon de parler.

There are, interestingly, a lot of quite strong correlations between identifiable areas of the brain (even down to specific neurons) and certain concepts, but I still agree that it's not right to talk of them as somehow containing or representing those concepts because alone they don't cause anything we'd recognise as such. It's more that they're consistently involved in producing that behaviour. That makes them super useful for us studying that behaviour, but not particularly important when it comes to understanding the social psychology of it where the other bits of the brain involved are far more enlightening. Like "oh look, the language centres are lighting up every time he tries to solve this maths puzzle" is far more enlightening than "oh look, the 'democracy' neuron fires every time he thinks of democracy" which is almost just tautological once you've accepted the idea of such neurons.

What such 'grandmother neurons' might show is that we internally cluster several otherwise distinct behavioural patterns, but again, these clusters can only ever loosely correlate with public notions such as 'democracy' because a private concept makes no sense.

The Revision theory, discussed in some other posts, appears to offer a way to map out the circularity of the T-sentence definition of Truth. — Banno

It still has to be explained how the T-sentence is a definition of truth.

1. "p" is foo iff p

(1) isn't a definition of "foo". (1) only states the condition under which "p" is foo. And so too with the T-sentence: prima facie it only states the condition under which "p" is true; it doesn't define "[is] true".

As I mentioned before, Tarski didn't think of the T-sentence as being a definition of truth, only as something that must be entailed by the definition of truth. You've responded several times by saying that it is later authors who have taken the T-sentence as being a definition, so perhaps you could present their arguments to that effect?

I would say we're looking for some q where "[is] true" means q, or where "'p' is true" means q.

...these clusters can only ever loosely correlate with public notions such as 'democracy' because a private concept makes no sense. — Isaac

There's the nub.

It still has to be explained how the T-sentence is a definition of truth. — Michael

I'll refer you to the discussion of definitions in the article cited. From about p.242 it discusses exactly this.

I don't have a jstor account so I can't read it.

Try this URL. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4545102

You should be able to read it online for free. Might need to create an account.

Thanks.

It seems to be saying the same thing that I said:

... the equivalences of the form 'A' is true if and only if A ... define the conditions under which [my emphasis] a sentence is true.

Just as my example of "p" is foo iff p defines the conditions under which a sentence is foo. But the T-schema doesn't define "[is] true" and my F-schema doesn't define "[is] foo".

If we want a definition of truth (and not just a definition of truth conditions) we need some q where "[is] true" means q, or where "'p' is true" means q. Ramsey's redundancy theory is at least one attempt at this.

What's happening here is a new way of treating definitions.

Not sure what you mean.

Well there's our first mistake then. 'Honesty' is the good and honourable thing. 'Truthfulness' is a game used to convince people your beliefs are better than theirs. Often honourable, often not. — Isaac

I don't see any sense in your proposal, to separate "honest" from "honourable" (considering the family resemblance), such that being honest might often not be an honourable thing. I suppose that since there is no logical necessity to these relations, there might be a few instances when being honest is not honourable, but I would not say "often not", as you did.

So I'll dismiss your reply as not a serious attempt to address the issue. In fact, I would classify it as a dishonest attempt. To characterize the problem I described, as a problem with associating "honest" with "honourable" (saying that being honest might not be the honourable thing), instead of facing that problem I described, to deal with it properly, is just a dishonest denial of the problem.

Do you know the type of dishonesty I'm talking about? If someone shows you a bad habit of yours, which has a bad effect in the work place for example, and you rationalize the bad effect as the result of someone else's actions rather than as the effect of your own bad habit, in an attempt to avoid addressing your own bad habit. That's the kind of dishonesty I'm talking about here. Instead of directly addressing the problem I described, you are trying to characterize it as the result of something else.

I don't have any trouble with a neural correlate for beliefs - "tendency to act as if", seems to work. If your neural network has a tendency to act as if X then we can say it has a belief that X. It's a bit of a bastardisation, but I think it's not too unfair to the proper meaning. — Isaac

This is exactly the type of correlation which I described as problematic. The existence of dishonesty demonstrates very conclusively that "the tendency to act as if X", cannot be correlated directly with "has a belief that X". And so, as I described in the following passage, the outward manifestation does not provide a dependable representation of the mental "belief'.

So, the mental, if prior to its outward expression, cannot be dependent on the outward expression. And this is why the issue is thorny. Being independent from its outward expression, means that there is no necessary relationship between the mental and its outward manifestation. The outward manifestation therefore does not necessarily provide a reliable representation of the mental. That's the problem, and why dishonesty may be allowed to thrive. — Metaphysician Undercover

You and I both know how to ride a bike, but the proof of this has nothing to do with our having similar neural paths in our brains, and everything to do with not falling off. — Banno

This provides a good example of the disconnect between the outward manifestation, and the inner "mental". If we look at numerous people who know how to ride a bike, we really cannot make any conclusions about any particular "beliefs" which are involved with this activity. Each person learned under different circumstances, and so has different mental correlations involved.

Now, someone like Creative would state that a child will not touch a fire, so this behaviour demonstrates a certain "belief". But this is just a reflection of how we generalize similar behaviours. We observe human beings behaving in similar ways, so we posit a common "belief" which is responsible for such similar behaviour. But that's really just a naive over simplification. Each individual human being is particular, and unique, having learned one's "how to" under circumstances distinct from every other human being.

However, we see great benefit in conforming these particular circumstances of learning, creating institutions like schools, which provide similarity in learning circumstances. So this indicates that there is some sort of correlation between the process of learning, and the mental capacity which is developed through the learning. From this, we can say that there is some sort of similarity in the mental capacity of two distinct individuals who know how to do the same thing (ride a bike), but to conclude that these people share "beliefs" associated with this activity is not justified by this. There is a similarity in mental activity, not a similarity in belief.

The further problem, is that when we create a definition of "belief", and validly talk about beliefs, there is likewise a disconnect between the belief and the mental activity. So it can be true that two people have the same belief, but this does not necessitate that they have the same mental activity associated with that belief.

I don't see any sense in your proposal, to separate "honest" from "honourable" — Metaphysician Undercover

Not any proposal I've made, that.

Do you know the type of dishonesty I'm talking about? If someone shows you a bad habit of yours, which has a bad effect in the work place for example, and you rationalize the bad effect as the result of someone else's actions rather than as the effect of your own bad habit, in an attempt to avoid addressing your own bad habit. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you having problems at work? If you need to talk to someone...

The existence of dishonesty demonstrates very conclusively that "the tendency to act as if X", cannot be correlated directly with "has a belief that X". — Metaphysician Undercover

Why's that?

If we look at numerous people who know how to ride a bike, we really cannot make any conclusions about any particular "beliefs" which are involved with this activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? Not the belief that bikes are for riding? The belief that one sits on the saddle and pushes the pedals? That the brakes are for stopping? ... We've no idea at all what beliefs people might have?

Now, someone like Creative would state that a child will not touch a fire, so this behaviour demonstrates a certain "belief". But this is just a reflection of how we generalize similar behaviours. We observe human beings behaving in similar ways, so we posit a common "belief" which is responsible for such similar behaviour. But that's really just a naive over simplification. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why? Not all Oak trees are the same, that doesn't suddenly raise problems with us deciding that some trees are more similar to each other and calling that group 'Oaks'. But knowing you I expect you've got some problem with that too.

it can be true that two people have the same belief, but this does not necessitate that they have the same mental activity associated with that belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

Who said anything about it 'necessitating' it? It's not necessary to call some trees Oaks, we just do.

You'll have to just lay out the difference between the two, I'm not sure I'd be using the same distinction as you. — Isaac

Small-t truth I've been reserving for the truth we attribute to sentences, which is shown by the T-sentence -- the truth predicate can be dropped when using a sentence, and is added to a sentence under consideration. We come to understand small-t truth by learning the language in which said predicate is a part of.

Big-T truth I've been reserving for the substantive theories of truth, or even bigger picture notions that are sometimes equated with Truth -- such as the story of Jesus this thread began with.

I think in philosophy there's simply too little at stake in terms of outcome (allowing any small perceived inconsistency to be exploited), but too much at stake in terms of personal narratives to want to give much leeway. — Isaac

At our worst, yes.

Especially among us amateurs and enthusiasts.

The only "carrot" in the conversation, as far as I can see, is being able to expand one's own thoughts by hearing others. But we all have something invested in these stories so it can be easy to forget that.

That's a good summation.

Which of these is the “no models” view?
— Luke

The latter, there's no model in the sense that there's no mediation of contact between word and world via a "conceptual scheme", which is a system of organising experience that is specific to an individual and not parsable in terms of anything communal. I don't think people mean the same thing by "model" in this thread — fdrake

Davidson points to Kuhn ‘s paradigms as examples of conceptual schemes, and so Kuhn included in his argument that, as you put it, ‘there's no point of talking about the other side of the filter, so what's the point in even having a filter as an object?’

But Kuhn’s paradigms aren’t specific to individuals, and they aren’t dependent on theoretical models either. A shared paradigm doesn’t require a shared theoretical
model, since it has to do primarily with intercorrelated practices. It seems to me the real difference between Davidson and Kuhn has to do with Davidson’s assumption ( I may have this wrong) that two people receiving the same stimulus must have the same sensation, which justifies his belief that a translator is always able to describe the world to which the language being translated applies.

“…while nomological relations between events (relations involving laws) depend on the descriptions
under which the events are given, relations of causality and identity obtain irrespective of descriptions – if the
icing-up of the road did indeed cause the skid, then it did so no matter how the events at issue are described.
(The form of description – whether mental or physical – is thus irrelevant to the fact that a particular causal
relation obtains).” (Stanford Encyclopedia)

Kuhn believes instead that our perceptions are thoughgoingly interpretively mediated, so we begin from multiple stimulus driven worlds.

Small-t truth I've been reserving for the truth we attribute to sentences, which is shown by the T-sentence -- the truth predicate can be dropped when using a sentence, and is added to a sentence under consideration. We come to understand small-t truth by learning the language in which said predicate is a part of.

Big-T truth I've been reserving for the substantive theories of truth, or even bigger picture notions that are sometimes equated with Truth -- such as the story of Jesus this thread began with. — Moliere

Thanks. So, small-t might fit with the sort of use that amounts to statements about the world, Ramsey-like redundancy. Where to say "p is true" is simply to assert p?

Your big-t truth might more like Ramsey's 'problems in the vicinity'. More about the nature of belief than truth as a predicate?

The only "carrot" in the conversation, as far as I can see, is being able to expand one's own thoughts by hearing others. — Moliere

Yes, if they're told well. Philosophical positions are like pieces of music. Worth curating, but you have to be in the right mood to listen to each one.

Where to say "p is true" is simply to assert p? — Isaac

Yup! The only thing I've asserted against the redundancy theory is the liar's paradox, since it gives the value false in addition to true -- and noted that while it's an interesting paradox, I don't think it counts against redundancy since it counts against every theory of truth: it's basically a wash, in terms of which theory to believe, since they all have answers to the liar's paradox -- and furthermore I think it's a bit of a feature of language more than something substantively interesting. But, still, good to note that particular riddle.

As for Ramsey, I can't claim to have read him. But encounters with the people on this forum and thinking through their thoughts have shifted my beliefs.

Yes, if they're told well. Philosophical positions are like pieces of music. Worth curating, but you have to be in the right mood to listen to each one. — Isaac

True. Or, have the mental energy for it.

Though these days I think I'm more partisan than a curator would be. Curating is important, but eventually one has to commit.

Oh, no wonder you didn't reply to my question, "What link?" Sorry, I was thinking of a link to a web site. :gasp: It's so easy to misunderstand. You were clear, but my brain had other ideas.

What do you think of the link, if any, to Davidson's rejection of conceptual schema? Davidson's strategy seems to me to be showing that conceptual schema, if they exist, must be private; but that leads to their being incoherent, unintelligible. Hence, he rejects the notion. — Banno

Well, if you believe that Wittgenstein's point about a private language is well-founded, then it would follow that Davidson is correct to reject the notion of a private conceptual schema. It would be incoherent and unintelligible.