(1) "the kettle" is a a referring expression; and
(2) what "the kettle" refers to, or can be used to refer to, is the kettle; and
(3) "the kettle" is an expression, and is not the same as the concrete object the kettle; and
(4) the kettle is a concrete object, and is not the same as the expression "the kettle". — Srap Tasmaner

Given that most of my posts in this discussion have been spent trying to get deflationists to admit to the distinction between the expression and the concrete object, I obviously agree.

You can see the expression "the kettle is boiling" both as a string and as what it is used to denote in context. A match between what is referred to, and the properties ascribed to it, and what it denotes in context is a truth, and it says no more to say something is true than this match actually occurring. — fdrake

Nice post. However, a "match" sounds a lot like a correspondence to my ears.

An argument I have been considering lately is the following. If the statements "S is true" and "S" are equivalent in meaning according to deflationists, then this equivalence should be maintained when these statements are converted into the questions "Is S true?" and "Is S?" With a minor grammatical adjustment, the deflationary meaning equivalence in the kettle example becomes:

(1) Is the kettle boiling?
(2) Is "the kettle is boiling" true?

Converting the statements into an interrogative form serves to highlight that there is something that prompts us to answer either affirmatively or negatively, and that is more than mere definition. That is, there is something that makes (2) true - a truthmaker - which is our perception or agreement that the relevant part of the world really is some way; that the statement accords with, or corresponds to, the state of the relevant part of the world.

I am willing to agree that:

The referent of "the kettle [is boiling]" is a collectively enacted categorisation of the environment — fdrake

And we understand the meaning of "the kettle is boiling" in the abstract without regard for its truth value. But, importantly, why we would say that the proposition is true is that it meets the truth conditions in terms of the collectively enacted meaning of "the kettle is boiling". It is not our language that decides whether the proposition is true or false; our language allows for either option. What decides (or what leads us to decide/agree) that it is true or false is how the world is, or how we find it. Are there plums in the icebox? Let's look and find out.

(Do we want to do this? Just don't reply if it is too far off topic).

So let's use the SEP article.

Read ιx as "the thing that is x..."

Michael seems to want to reject assumption (C) - is that so?

I'd go with rejecting (A), and vacillate between rejecting it because there are no facts and because if there are facts they are opaque.

What about you, Srap?

I vote not to get into the slingshot unless we really have to, but if we do I'll take the opportunity to wade into it and see if I like it any more this time.

Are we at a point now that it's the most important thing on the table?

Are we at a point now that it's the most important thing on the table? — Srap Tasmaner

No, the most important thing on the table remains how meaning and truth fit together.

This is a mistaken supposition, explained well by Kant. The name "snow" does not refer to some sort of object which preexisted the appearance within the mind, as you seem to think scientists claim. — Metaphysician Undercover

I said that snow was white 200,000 years ago, as scientists would tell us. That's common knowledge - if you disagree, perhaps you could provide a scientific source.

Today, we have Tarski's T-Sentence "snow is white" is true IFF snow is white. The left hand side is the object language, the right hand side is the metalanguage. — RussellA

The T-sentence is in the metalanguage, while the quotes name a sentence in the object language.

I agree that in our world snow is white. — RussellA

Cool.

However, in the world of the metalanguage, snow may or may not be white. — RussellA

Certainly if the word "white" were used to denote the color green then the sentence, "snow is white" would be false (since snow is not green).

It's like if you call a tail a leg, then how many legs does a horse have? We can be in agreement as long as we avoid ambiguity.

Yes! And moreover, we tend to consider far too few examples of T-sentences and correspondence to get a good grasp or their variety. — Banno

I'm always glad to find when things make sense together. :)

it's probably better for some folk to think of deflation as widening correspondence rather than denying it. — Banno

I like this notion. From my current thinking: the T-sentence allows for some substantive theories, if we wish.

And it's true that mercy is a virtue IFF "mercy is a virtue" is true; yet there are volumes on what it is to be a virtue. — Banno

This is a fun idea. I don't even know what it would look like developed.

it seems to me that it'd go along with my notion on facts -- there's a communal aspect. Not that I think we'd disagree on that, from all I've gathered. Just noting the obvious wig-wammy fact/value distinction.

it seems to me that it'd go along with my notion on facts -- there's a communal aspect. Not that I think we'd disagree on that, from all I've gathered. Just noting the obvious wig-wammy fact/value distinction. — Moliere

Well, from where I sit fact-value reduces to direction of fit. Doubtless that's an oversimplification.

I've little problem with values being true or false. Surely it's true that mercy is a virtue IFF mercy is a virtue. T-sentences seem to work fine here.

The issue remains as to when we ought be convinced that the kettle is boiling or mercy is a virtue. But these are obviously very different questions than the nature of truth.

I've little problem with values being true or false. — Banno

Sure, I agree.

The error theory would just say they're all false.

The issue remains as to when we ought be convinced that the kettle is boiling or mercy is a virtue. But these are obviously very different questions than the nature of truth. — Banno

I agree with the overall thrust here though. Thinking on it I believe the above what i posted above is a quibble, in the grand scope of the conversation. A thread for another day.

how meaning and truth fit together — Banno

"Meaning" and "mean" are really extraordinary words.

There's

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(1) What do you think it means?

That is, what does it indicate, point at metaphorically?

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(2) What does that mean?

Said of a bit of language, generally a request for different words amounting to the same thing, but more readily understood by the audience. Sometimes an alternative to

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(3) What is that supposed to mean?

What are you implying?

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(4) What is the meaning of this?

Astonishment. As if to suggest that a situation is senseless, inexplicable, absurd.

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(5) I mean it.

I am resolved, and what I said was said in all seriousness. Closely related to

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(6a) He didn't mean it.
$\ \ \ \ \ \$(6b) You don't mean that.

Speech that should not be taken at face-value, as serious and honest, and suggesting it was said with some other purpose than honest expression. Also a wish that this is the case.

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(7) That's not what I meant.

(i) I spoke with one meaning in mind, but you interpreted my words as having another. (ii) I spoke with a particular intention, but you took me to have another. Occasionally part of an acknowledgement that my speech was ambiguous.

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(8a) I meant to ...
$\ \ \ \ \ \$(8b) I didn't mean to.
$\ \ \ \ \ \$(8c) I meant to do that.

(a) I intended to ..., but I haven't.
(b) I didn't intend to. Very close to claiming exemption from blame.
(c) Said of something done unintentionally, a claim to have done it intentionally often to escape embarrassment or take credit for an accidental achievement. Never convincing.

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(9) We had the experience but missed the meaning.

Hmmmmmm. Perhaps related to

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(10) What does it all mean?

What is the purpose or the point of it all? Possibly provides an alternative reading of (4): what is the point or the purpose of what I am witnessing (suggesting that it has none, or none readily apparent)?

Related to

$\ \ \ \ \ \$(11) What is the meaning of life?

Always look on the bright side of it.

:up:
You are channeling Austin, The Meaning Of A Word...

The truth value changed because I painted the kettle red. — Michael

Is that true?

I can't see how it's coherent to escape the way meaning determines truth by claiming some intervening statement is true anyways.

If you're going to do that, you might as well say "the kettle is black" is true because you painted it black.

"I painted it red" isn't an un-interpreted, raw fact of this world-outside-language. It's just another already interpreted fact of the world, just like the kettle's blackness. In order to agree that you did, indeed, paint the kettle red, we need to agree what the kettle is and what 'red' is (and what 'painting' is, but we can leave that for now).

You're introducing it to the argument as if it were a purely material fact, but it's a fact of exactly the same kind as the one we're troubling over.

I love the fact that I always get a free anecdote along with the philosophy in your posts. I immediately tried the trick on my son, who was visiting. We were most amused.

But to the meat of it...

If, for instance, that screw holds one end of the handle in place, you know whether and how the handle can be used. It will be important for me to have that knowledge too in order to put the kettle on. (I have a dozen or so possible scenarios in my head now, but I assume you don't need any of those spelled out.) — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that makes sense. In my model, I would see that as an expectation I have, a belief about what using the word "kettle" will do in the context. A belief about your beliefs, if you like. Given that the target of all this is 'truth', though, and 'truth' being traditionally a component of knowledge. I might say, for clarity, that neither I not you need to 'know' any of this. It's sufficient that we believe it.

the fact that there are multiple options doesn't mean you didn't have something specific in mind — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed. But never specific enough, is Ramsey's point, to make propositions about which can then be objects of the sort of analyticity that questions of Truth put them under. We might, this way, end up with a kind of private correspondence theory of truth "the kettle is black" is true for my kettle (the one I had in mind). I suspect most purveyors of truth-theories, would be dissatisfied with that.

If every object we were concerned with carried a UUID, and we could keep track of those, we could use those to end up in the same place. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that's right, but not in a concrete world-outside-language sense. The object that I'm referring to when I say "put the kettle on" may or may not have the errant screw. I may not care. my picture of it may simply not be in sufficient detail to even decide if it has the screw or not. And I think this is because the "kettle" bit of the sentence doesn't refer to an object by material composition, it refers to an object by function. What I'm referring to with "kettle" there is 'whatever it is that boils the water', not 'that collection of fundamental particles there'.

...but then, that referent is awfully hard to use as an object of correspondence, since lots of potential states answer to it.

I take it that Isaac has a strong position that they're linguistic all the way down and what they count as publicly is what they are, and the reference mechanism actually references an entity conjured up by collective agreement rather than some concrete fact. The referent of "the kettle" is a collectively enacted categorisation of the environment, rather than some environmental object. — fdrake

That's pretty close, but I've maybe clarified a bit in my reply to Srap above. That categorisation is about function, not spatio-temporal locations. We're not collectively declaring that that collection of matter-soup there is a 'kettle', so much as declaring that whatever collection of matter-soup is boiling the water is a 'kettle' (plus a boatload of other functional requirements adding specificity - so 'my kettle' is 'whatever aspect of the environment boils water and I can determine where it goes without any counterclaim... 'the black kettle' is 'whatever aspect of the environment boils water and which would be difficult to see against my stove in the dark'... and so on)

Let's say that the kettle is boiling is true, what would the proximate cause of that expression's truth be? My intuition for that is that the kettle really did boil. I think Banno, @Srap Tasmaner and @Michael would agree (though possibly for different reasons), though I suspect @Isaac would have a strong quibble. — fdrake

You'd be right. I couldn't see it as a cause, so much as a repetition of the sentence you're analysing. If the expression in question is "the kettle is boiling", then looking at what 'causes' it to be true seems a little disconnected. I could understand the question of what cases us to say it's true, but not of some state of the world causing an expression to have some property...

...unless maybe utility. Which (much to many people's distaste, no doubt) is the other route I'm tempted by in discussions about truth. I think the hidden states of the world constrain what we can collectively enact, which is where I diverge from the more radical idealist interpretations of model-dependence. So we might say that "the kettle is boiling" would be a useless expression unless the world were in some state.

My suspicion is that there is a gap brought about by there being a difference in kind between neural networks and truth statements. — Banno

Yep, mine too. Basically, the gap is 'black-boxed' out. I have one model where hidden states are inferred by neural networks and then acted upon (to reduce surprise), then another where in real life we name those hidden states by their collective function (by how we together act on them). So 'kettle' refers to the hidden state we treat as a kettle. Whether our treatment will be successful is between us and our models. But where 'truth' might fit is opaque. Obviously it can't reference the hidden states, that would be futile, nor the model (we don't even have access to those ourselves, only their output in terms of action). so I can't see anything in the model of how we interact with the world that 'truth' could possibly refer to... hence my preference for redundancy.

In more Wittgensteinian terms, there is an active intent that makes the kettle a kettle. The kettle exists as a result of our treating it as such; which is not to deny that our intent is constrained, Isaac's hidden states. But it is constrained by the kettle; that seems to be what we have decided to call some of the hidden states.

So, Isaac, perhaps those states are hidden from our neural nets, but not from us — Banno

I should have read on, I could have just agreed rather than write it all out longhand...

I think 'hidden states' is a confusing term. I would prefer it weren't the one used, but it's become a technical term now, so we're stuck with it, but too many think it means hidden as if the states were just behind that rock, or round the corner. all it means is that they are in connection with nodes at a Markov boundary of a network and thereby, in some sense, 'hidden' from the nodes within that network (ones that are obviously only connected to the boundary nodes). so yes. There's no reason to think they're hidden from us in the common sense. We name them, and we make tea with them.

Sweet.

Admiration for the screw example. It makes it so clear that what counts as a part of the kettle is up to us.

The error I see in what Michael proposes is that he thinks we can talk about the kettle outside of language. He needs a "non-linguistic kettle" to make his account work. — Banno

When I say that kettles are non-linguistic I mean that they are not words or sentences or any other feature of language. I’m addressing those who say that the truth of a sentence is determined by some other sentence, like some kind of coherency theory, which is false in the case of a sentence like “the kettle is boiling”. The truth of the sentence is determined instead by a material object and its properties.

Once we fix the meaning of a sentence such that it refers to that material object and its properties, changes to that material object and its properties change the truth value of that sentence without changing the meaning of that sentence, and so the truth of that sentence depends on more than just its meaning.

Sometimes “it is raining” is true and sometimes “it is not raining” is true. This isn’t explained by us continually revising the terms in our language: it’s explained by events in the material world; events which occur irrespective of language.

Admiration for the screw example. It makes it so clear that what counts as a part of the kettle is up to us. — Banno

The screw example does make clear that what counts as a kettle is up to us. Does it make clear that the truth is up to us?

What do you think?

I think the screw example does not address truth. I've also previously criticised deflation for truth relativity. I didn't think deflationists would embrace truth being relative. Do you? If not, then how do you avoid it? I explained earlier today why I think truth is not relative. What do you think?

The truth of the sentence is determined instead by a material object and its properties. — Michael

But not in all cases.

But not in all cases. — Banno

I was referring to the sentence "the kettle is boiling".

I have mentioned before that I'm not talking about every sentence. Obviously the truth of a sentence like "1 + 1 = 2" does not depend on a material object and its properties. A coherency theory would be more fitting for formal system like maths.

It still seems to me that you have deflation wrong.

So the truth of different sentences is determined by different things.

Is there some pattern we might use to find what it is that determines the truth of a given sentence?

In contrast, Tarski sets out in the first part of his 1933 article, a minimal criteria for an adequate theory of truth. It must set out, for every sentence S, some X such that "S" is true IFF X.

The task before us is to find X. — Banno

IS there a way to determine X?

And I think that you have it wrong. Does the screw example make clear that the truth is up to us?

It makes clear that the meaning of the sentences that are true or false is up to us.

IS there a way to determine X? — Banno

Well, is there a way to determine which metaphysics is correct? If materialism is correct then the truth of "the kettle is boiling" depends on the existence of a material object; if idealism is correct then the truth of "the kettle is boiling" depends on the existence of a mental phenomenon.

This is why, as I have said many times, that the T-schema doesn't say much. It doesn't answer a question like the above, which is important. We need to cash out the consequent of the biconditional. I made a start at that here:

We've been taking as a starting point "snow is white" is true iff p and then discussing p, whereas I think we should instead take as a starting point snow is white iff q and then discuss q.

Snow is white iff snow appears white, or
Snow is white iff snow reflects all wavelengths of light, or
Snow is white iff snow has a mind-independent sui generis property of whiteness, etc.

We can then bring this back to truth-predication by understanding that if "p" is true iff p and if p iff q then "p" is true iff q.

"Snow is white" is true iff snow appears white, or
"Snow is white" is true iff snow reflects all wavelengths of light, or
"Snow is white" is true iff snow has a mind-independent sui generis property of whiteness, etc.

If you need a metaphysics before you can decide if the kettle is boiling, you're doing it wrong.

the T-schema doesn't say much. — Michael

But it says what can be said.

Snow is white iff snow appears white, or
Snow is white iff snow reflects all wavelengths of light, or
Snow is white iff snow has a mind-independent sui generis property of whiteness, etc.

Try each of these with "the kettle is boiling". Again, I think you are considering too limited a set of examples.

But it says what can be said. — Banno

But not what only can be said. We're not required to just stop at "snow is white" is true iff snow is white. A rigorous account should cash out the consequent of that biconditional.

If you need a metaphysics before you can decide if the kettle is boiling — Banno

I don't. I need a metaphysics to understand that a boiling kettle is a mind-independent material object, or that it's a mental phenomenon, etc.