...and...?

Try each of these with "the kettle is boiling". — Banno

• "The kettle is boiling iff the kettle appears to be boiling"
• "The kettle is boiling iff the kettle is at 100℃"
• "The kettle is boiling iff the kettle has a mind-independent sui generis property of boiling, etc"

None of these work. They say too much.

...and...? — Banno

Not sure what more you want. I think I covered it when I said that a) a rigorous account of truth should cash out the consequent of the T-schema, and that b) the truth of a sentence often depends on more than just its meaning; it often depends on a material object, or on a mental phenomenon, etc.

Ok, try this: the thing that decides that a given sentence is true varies from one sentence to another.

Does that sound right to you?

Yes.

So if the same thing decides that two sentences are true, then they are the same sentence - they mean the same thing.

So if the same thing decides that two sentences are true, then they are the same sentence - they mean the same thing. — Banno

This is ambiguous.

John being a bachelor determines that "John is not married to Jane" is true and that "John is not married to Jake" is true.

"John is not married to Jane" and "John is not married to Jake" are not the same sentence; they do not mean the same thing.

Yeah, Ok, I give up.

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

Yes, but this discussion is about truth, not meaning. Does the screw example make clear that the truth is up to us?

Does the screw example make clear that the truth is up to us? — Luke

The way we carve up the world is probably a reflection of our make-up, physically, psychologically, culturally, etc.

To understand our language, an alien would have to put herself in our shoes and understand how our senses work. Then she could translate our statements into her language if that's possible. There's no guarantee than an alien would see us as distinct from the Earth's crust. You never know.

Since we can't see beyond our make-up, all we can do is work with the content of our interactions with our environment.

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

Thanks.

the truth of a sentence often depends on more than just its meaning; it often depends on a material object, or on a mental phenomenon, etc. — Michael

I'll reanimate a previous example. Those of us with an upstairs will perhaps have a landing light which has a switch upstairs and one downstairs. The landing light can be switched on or off by either switch.

We can't say, though, that whether it's on or off depends on either the upstairs or the downstairs switch. The downstairs switch could be either in the up position, or the down position and the landing light still be on. Same for the upstairs switch.

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. — Andrew M

Obviously, what I disagree with is what you say "science" tells us. So clearly I will not be producing a "scientific" source to back up my disagreement. The "science" is what I disagree with. So, I produced a philosophical source, this being a philosophy forum. I don't think we should be moving toward "scientific" sources..



You and Banno, are both, slowly coming around to see that the important and significant factor in relating truth to meaning is "honesty".

The problem for Banno is a preconceived notion of "truth" expressed by the T-sentence, and the insistence on the faulty principle that there is some sort of meaning expressed by repetition of the same phrase. But that is not consistent with any of your descriptions of meaning. It is even contrary to this:

Said of a bit of language, generally a request for different words amounting to the same thing, but more readily understood by the audience. — Srap Tasmaner

From Banno's refusal to reject the notion that the same phrase stated twice expresses some sort of meaning, or something about meaning, and insistence that truth is just this, stating the same phrase twice, we cannot get a bridge from "truth" to "meaning". The faulty representation of "meaning" prevents the possibility of such a relation.

However, if we turn things around, and start from a serious representation of meaning, we see that there are numerous ways to create a relationship between meaning and truth, such as the following:

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. — Srap Tasmaner

But of course, Banno's steadfast refusal to dismiss this idea that the T-schema says something about a relationship between between truth and meaning, despite having been advised of this from just about everyone here, stymies any progress on this matter.

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

Considering Tarski's T-Sentence "snow is white" is true IFF snow is white, you are right that the T-sentence is the metalanguage, not the right-hand side of the biconditional.

Yes, but naming it doesn't affect what it is. 200,000 years ago, snow wasn't named "snow", and the color white wasn't named "white", yet snow was still white. — Andrew M

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). — Andrew M

We agree that snow is white, and we agree that "white" could have been used to denote the colour green.

Assume that "green" was used to denote the colour white.
Given that snow is white, "snow" denotes snow, "white" denotes green and "green" denotes white, then "snow is white" denotes snow is green.
Also, "snow is green" denotes snow is white.
If snow is white, then "snow is green" is true.
IE, "snow is green" is true IFF snow is white.

In that event, doesn't this mean that Tarski's T-sentence would be false ?

That is, there is something that makes (2) true - a truthmaker - which is . . . — Luke

that what counts as a part of the kettle is up to us. — Banno

Maybe another way to put it is that the truthmaker, whatever it is, is decided by the people in a conversation. So rather than there being an eternal truth-maker which secures our true sentences, we are the ones who get to decide what counts as a truthmaker.

Or we could speak of truth conditions instead. If people agree that the truth conditions of “the kettle is boiling” are met, then the statement is true.

We must be making progress because I have something to say in response to almost every sentence here.

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. — Isaac

There is too much to say here, so this is a placeholder for an entire discussion, which doesn't really belong in this thread, despite its wanderings.

I'll say this much: this is exactly what you should say because despite being an externalist about semantics ((I think, kinda)), you're still an internalist about propositional attitudes and thus mental states; of course you have no use for knowledge as a category, because for you knowledge has parts and the only part that matters -- that drives action -- is belief. But all that's wrong: knowledge doesn't have parts, not truth, not belief, despite entailing both truth and belief; and the explanation of action solely in terms of narrow conditions, as the internalist would have it, is weaker than the explanation of action in terms of wide conditions, as the externalist would.

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 — Isaac

Show me that with the given example. You know about the missing screw; does it matter enough that you consider it when referring to the kettle? ((Never mind, I'm just about to do it for you.))

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. — Isaac

Of course your picture doesn't have every physical detail of the kettle; that's the nature of pictures.

Suppose it doesn't matter whether the screw is restored, and your picture (here a stand-in for your intention) doesn't show that it has or hasn't been. Then your picture is indeed specific enough, contra your general claim above.

Suppose it does matter whether the screw is restored, and your picture shows the kettle with the screw it lacks. Your picture is inaccurate in a salient way, and that will make a difference in actions you or I undertake relying on it.

Suppose it does matter whether the screw is restored, and your picture correctly shows the kettle missing that screw, then your action will be more effective, as will mine if you tell me there's a screw missing, if you share this crucial knowledge with me.

The most interesting case -- because it looks like it's the hardest for me -- is this one: suppose it doesn't matter whether the screw is restored, and your picture shows (correctly) that it hasn't or (incorrectly) that it has. It seems that actions taken under the false belief will come off just as well as actions taken under the true one,** because the belief concerns a detail that is irrelevant. This is not much different from making tea thinking it's Tuesday when it's actually Wednesday, but different for us because we might be tempted to say that in one case that you have an intention toward the actual (unrepaired) object in the kitchen, while in the other you have an intention toward an object, the kettle repaired, that doesn't exist. You might even use the kettle for weeks thinking you had fixed it at some point, only to discover that you never did and it made no difference.

But this is a known, and settled, issue: descriptivist accounts of names are just wrong. (You can successfully refer to George Washington even if everything you think you know about him is false.) The upshot here is that you successfully refer to the kettle in the kitchen despite possibly holding a false belief about it, perhaps many (what brand is it? when did you get it? didn't you have to replace it and this is the new one, or was that a different kettle?) and your intention should be taken, in proper externalist fashion, to be toward the actual object, not toward your possibly mistaken idea of the object.

(I probably have some cleaning up to do, but I only owe an account of the efficaciousness of knowledge in intentional action, not of the non-efficaciousness of non-knowledge in intentional action, if you see what I mean. And that's a side issue here.)

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. — Isaac

I've never found any of this sort of thing -- reducing objects to collections of fundamental particles -- at all attractive, but your alternative here is a non-starter isn't it? The kettle is not just any vessel for boiling water, but the one in the kitchen, the one you mean, the one you have an intention toward. This is easy peasy if you allow the object to be partially constitutive of your mental state, instead of assuming you need this go-between that is your idea of the object. You don't have intentions toward any such idea -- that's the lesson above -- but toward what you have ideas about.

** Note added:
This is poorly worded because knowledge is not just true belief. The assumption here is that the kettle is just fine without the screw. Suppose I believe that the kettle has been fixed because I believe I finally remembered to fix it last week -- and I nearly did, but then didn't; and suppose you, unknown to me, did actually fix the kettle. I don't know the kettle has been fixed, though I have a true belief that it has been fixed. That's epistemic luck. I handle the kettle as if it's been fixed and have no trouble; I might even attribute my successful endeavors with the kettle to my having fixed it, even though our assumption here is that it would have made no difference if the kettle had still been unfixed. There's another kind of luck there.

Maybe another way to put it is that the truthmaker, whatever it is, is decided by the people in a conversation. So rather than there being an eternal truth-maker which secures our true sentences, we are the ones who get to decide what counts as a truthmaker. — Moliere

Would you also agree that we are deciding not just what is the case but how it is the case, how it is relevant? Asking a language community if it is true that the kettle is boiling and assuming that a unanimous ‘yes’ means all participants are sharing a fact of the matter ( whether a fact of the ‘real’ world or a fact of linguistic use) imposes a certain presupposition on the situation. If we believe that an agreed upon truth is a shared sense of meaning , it will steer us away from investigating individual differences in interpretation of the ‘true’ situation. For our purposes, the discrepancies either do not exist or are ignored.

If on the other hand, we understand the agreed upon truth that the kettle is boiling to amount to distinguishable individual positions of interpretive sense , of what is at stake, within a loosely interconnected community of participants( what the kettle is, what boiling means, how truth operates for us, what it is about the kettle boiling that matters to us), what we wil do with our ‘truth’ may be different than in the first case. Our interest will be focused not on the use within the community of a unitary sense of meaning (the truth of the boiling kettle), but the responsive positioning and repositioning of each participant’s role within a partially shared discursive situation. From this vantage, the dialogic back and forth of judging the ‘truth’ of a matter within a community doesnt secure what is at issue as a single selfsame object of sense. (the truth of the boiling kettle).
Rather ,the responsive engagement of mutual adjudication is a shifting reciprocal adjustment of significance of claims and their justification.

I would call the passage from ignorance to knowledge learning. You learned your mother's name from her or from someone else who knew it. On your usage, by remembering you would learn your mother's name (again) from someone (yourself) who doesn't know it. — Srap Tasmaner

The thing is there are probably many facts I have learned which I cannot remember, and continue to be unable to remember, let's say even for many years. But one day the memory may surface and I know a long forgotten fact again. Could I be said to have known it all along? Does it depend on how long I forget something, or how often?

Did you come up with this usage of "know" yourself? — Srap Tasmaner

Sure, I'm not committed to it; it just occurred to me as an alternative usage, and I thought I'd give it a run to see whether it causes more or less confusion, sharpens anything up and so on. Perhaps it's an example of something that comes from knowing myself (in the Biblical sense). :wink:

Could I be said to have known it all along? — Janus

Yes.

The main thing is to recognize when propositional attitude verbs are factive. If I remember that today is Joe's birthday, then today is Joe's birthday. When I see that a package has been delivered, a package has in fact been delivered. If I regret leaving my car window down, it's down.

If I remember that today is Joe's birthday, then today is Joe's birthday. When I see that a package has been delivered, a package has in fact been delivered. If I regret leaving my car window down, it's down. — Srap Tasmaner

What about all the times you end up being wrong? I remember that today is Joe's birthday, but that turns out to be wrong. The thing I though was a package turns out to just be a piece of trash. It starts raining, and I regret that I left the car window down, yet it turns out that I actually didn't leave it down.

What about all the times you end up being wrong? I remember that today is Joe's birthday, but that turns out to be wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you didn't. Nobody's talking about infallibility here. You thought you did, you could've sworn it was today, whatever. But "I remember that I put my keys on the table," if true, entails that I did. No more than any other sort of statement, propositional attitude reports cannot vouch for their own truth.

Could I be said to have known it all along? — Janus


Yes. — Srap Tasmaner

Right, so the example was remembering after a long time something I have forgotten. Is my remembering it the criterion for saying that I knew it all along? What if I never remember something I once knew, but have forgotten, is it then the case that I nonetheless know it? If so would the criterion for saying that I know it be that I once knew it? Once known, always known, then?

The main thing is to recognize when propositional attitude verbs are factive. If I remember that today is Joe's birthday, then today is Joe's birthday. When I see that a package has been delivered, a package has in fact been delivered. If I regret leaving my car window down, it's down. — Srap Tasmaner

So, you seem to be saying that if I remember or regret something, then that something is a fact, and that even though it seems like I might remember or regret something, if that thing is not a fact, then I am not remembering or regretting it, but merely think I am remembering or regretting?

Is my remembering it the criterion for saying that I knew it all along? — Janus

Yes.

What if I never remember something I once knew, but have forgotten, is it then the case that I nonetheless know it? — Janus

Who can say? We do of course lose knowledge.

And look none of this is transparent to us. You can rack your brains trying to remember something, conclude that you've well and truly forgotten, and then an hour and half later it pops into your head. So it goes.

So, you seem to be saying that if I remember or regret something, then that something is a fact, and that even though it seems like I might remember or regret something, if that thing is not a fact, then I am not remembering or regretting it, but merely think I am remembering or regretting? — Janus

Yes, and I think obviously so, if you just think about what you're saying.

"Steve can see that Mark is uncomfortable," if true, entails that Mark is uncomfortable. If it's false, we've got nothing: maybe Mark is uncomfortable, maybe not. But it can't be true without Mark in fact being uncomfortable.

If it can truly be said of me that I remembered that you don't like strawberries, then it must be the case that you don't like strawberries, There are multiple ways for this to go wrong. I could be thinking of someone else, so it's false that I'm remembering something about you; I could be lying, claiming to remember this when I'm just guessing, so false again; and of course if you do like strawberries then there's no way I could remember that you don't -- I can only be under the mistaken impression that you don't, so again no true memory.

all that's wrong: knowledge doesn't have parts, not truth, not belief, despite entailing both truth and belief; and the explanation of action solely in terms of narrow conditions, as the internalist would have it, is weaker than the explanation of action in terms of wide conditions, as the externalist would. — Srap Tasmaner

Go on...

The upshot here is that you successfully refer to the kettle in the kitchen despite possibly holding a false belief about it, perhaps many (what brand is it? when did you get it? didn't you have to replace it and this is the new one, or was that a different kettle?) and your intention should be taken, in proper externalist fashion, to be toward the actual object, not toward your possibly mistaken idea of the object. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm with you so far, but all this seems to make our vague picture sufficient to get the job done. I'm not seeing the link to it being sufficient for the analysis of truth.

In order to get you to make tea, my picture of the kettle can be vague (not even deciding if it includes the screw or not), it can be mistaken (I could think al along that it's a mine when it belongs to you)...it doesn't matter one jot to get the job done since you can infer my intent sufficiently.

But in order to check the truth of "the kettle is boiling", it's insufficient. Unless all you want to be true is "the kettle {the picture I have of it at the time I'm speaking this sentence} is boiling {the idea of 'boiling'' that I have at the time of speaking this sentence}". That, I suppose, could be true by correspondence, but only the speaker would know and only at the time of speaking, so I can't see that being the story of 'truth' the correspondence theorists are looking for here.

The point I was making was that if we cannot collectively and permanently agree on what a kettle is, the we cannot asses the truth value of any statement about it by correspondence. Correspondence to what?

You can successfully refer to George Washington even if everything you think you know about him is false. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't even agree here, but ready to be schooled. In what way 'successful'? If I think GW is cow an what her to be brought to me for milking and say "fetch me George Washington". When I'm brought a US president, I'm certainly not going to think my reference was successful.

The kettle is not just any vessel for boiling water, but the one in the kitchen, the one you mean, the one you have an intention toward. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. I used 'the one which boils the water' as shorthand. we could add 'the one which boils the water, the one which I get to take home without conflict, the one which I can reach when I sat on the rocking chair...' We can still make a functional account. It just takes imagination, because writing it all down longhand is tiresomely time-consuming.

You don't have intentions toward any such idea -- that's the lesson above -- but toward what you have ideas about. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree. I'm not sure if you're think I don't, but, for clarity, I do.

I don't know the kettle has been fixed, though I have a true belief that it has been fixed. That's epistemic luck. I handle the kettle as if it's been fixed and have no trouble; I might even attribute my successful endeavors with the kettle to my having fixed it, even though our assumption here is that it would have made no difference if the kettle had still been unfixed. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this just shows the problems with attributing the idea of 'knowledge' to truth. Fraught with such problems. Knowledge as justified true belief doesn't really make any sense. But that's definitely another thread, one that I think already exists even...

I'm not seeing the link to it being sufficient for the analysis of truth. — Isaac

Wasn't meant to be. This round of the conversation was my attempt to clarify the merry-go-round several of you were on that seemed to me to come down to a problem about reference rather than a problem about truth. I still think that. The endless back and forth was about whether the kettle is a linguistic object.

Speaking of truth:

in order to check the truth of "the kettle is boiling" — Isaac

we cannot asses the truth value of any statement about it by correspondence. — Isaac

I suppose I could be wrong, but this is not how I understand things.

A substantive theory of truth would be a metaphysical theory that explains why true statements are true and false statements are not true. It's an account of what constitutes the truth of a proposition. Or maybe what makes a proposition true. Or in virtue of what a proposition is true. And so on.

It doesn't tell you how to check whether a statement is true; it doesn't tell you how to assess the truth-value of a statement, so perforce not even a correspondence theory, if anyone has one of those, would tell you that you assess the truth-value of a statement by checking to see if it corresponds to something or other. What a correspondence theory would say is that if a proposition is true, it is true because it corresponds to 'the facts' or whatever.

Obviously, what I disagree with is what you say "science" tells us. So clearly I will not be producing a "scientific" source to back up my disagreement. The "science" is what I disagree with. So, I produced a philosophical source, this being a philosophy forum. I don't think we should be moving toward "scientific" sources.. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's poor philosophy to reject well-established facts about the world.

Assume that "green" was used to denote the colour white.
...
IE, "snow is green" is true IFF snow is white.

In that event, doesn't this mean that Tarski's T-sentence would be false ? — RussellA

Not at all. The object language is in quotes (let's call it Greenglish), while the metalanguage is conventional English. If the object language were instead German, it would be:

"Schnee ist weiß" is true IFF snow is white.

The RHS is an English translation of the German sentence in quotes on the LHS. If snow is white, both sentences are true. If not, both sentences are false.

Similarly, in your example, the RHS is a conventional English translation of Greenglish. If snow is white, both sentences are true. If not, both sentences are false.

Then you didn't. Nobody's talking about infallibility here. You thought you did, you could've sworn it was today, whatever. But "I remember that I put my keys on the table," if true, entails that I did. No more than any other sort of statement, propositional attitude reports cannot vouch for their own truth. — Srap Tasmaner

Ok, I just wanted that clarification the qualifier, "if true". If we have no way of knowing for sure whether what we honestly believe "is true" or not, then what good is the "propositional attitude"? It cannot be an acceptable logical principle, to allow us to draw any valid conclusions.

It's poor philosophy to reject well-established facts about the world. — Andrew M

No, it's called skepticism, and that is by no means "poor philosophy". Only uninformed philosophers would call it that.

No, it's called skepticism, — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, you've raised it to a fine art!

The issue, as I see it, is that observational data and evidence should inform our philosophy. When there's a conflict, that's a signal that we need to check our premises.

If we have no way of knowing for sure whether what we honestly believe "is true" or not, then what good is the "propositional attitude"? It cannot be an acceptable logical principle, to allow us to draw any valid conclusions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I mean, it's exactly that, and nothing else.

The inference rule

$\ \ \ \ \ Kp\ \vdash\ p$

Allows you to conclude p from Kp, but doesn't tell you whether Kp is true. It is indeed just a logical principle along the lines of modus ponens, which also can't tell you that your premises are true. Does that make modus ponens useless?

In what way 'successful'? — Isaac

I don't think this thread can or should accommodate a digression on names (though maybe we're going to end up there anyway).

I will, though, point you back to Oliver Sacks's dad and the glass on the table. The essence of that joke is the conflict between dad's descriptivist theory of his reference to the glass,** and little Oliver's more causal, externalist theory of his dad's reference. That should clarify the difference at least. Is it a coincidence that Oliver is capable of retrieving the intended glass but not even Zeus could act on Oliver's dad's theory?

(I'm cheating a little, but in a way warranted by our examples, because definite descriptions are ambiguous between picking out an unknown object that uniquely answers to the description, and picking out a known object by what amounts to the construction of a nonce name. Here, I'm relying on the latter in treating "the kettle" and "the glass on the table" as essentially names. It may well be I have forgotten too much about this and am passing over some important distinction there.)

** Or, I should probably say, his pretense of holding such a view.

Upon re-reading you and I, my thoughts keep getting stuck on "deciding" -- we decide, yes, but I'm less certain that I decide. However, I'd agree with your picture in your second paragraph -- I don't deny individuality, only de-emphasize it. I'd say that the communal meaning supersedes individual meaning insofar that the community decides what counts as "significant": we and not I, as much, decide upon significance, and what counts as significant is what binds together communities (significance is that layer of interpretation that allows us to have conflicting beliefs and see one another as belonging still).

Now, as an individual member of a community, yes -- this here:

Rather ,the responsive engagement of mutual adjudication is a shifting reciprocal adjustment of significance of claims and their justification. — Joshs

is a good description. I'd say this is a "closer" view from where I've been sitting, which is assuming some amount of "fixidness" from the history of English itself. But I think I agree with you in saying that the history is changeable, that it morphs with our usage. It's just got an incredible amount of momentum at this point. It's not a fresh abstraction that we get to define. Rather, we trace with the tools we've inherited.

So I'm hesitant to use "decision" when it comes to "how to" -- "decision" might give the impression that we have libertarian freedom with respect to our beliefs. I'm not sure I'd say my beliefs are like that. I'd say they are partially inherited, though certainly I've changed them too with time (and mis-use). Perhaps what I'd say is that an individual has their way of doing things, and "how to" or "significance" can change by presenting one's viewpoint to the group, but the signification only changes if enough people within a group adopt the belief about significance that an individual offers.