Apologies for the late reply you lot. This thread moves fast.

a. The meaning of the sentence at T1 is the meaning of the sentence at T2
b. The truth value of the sentence at T1 is the not the truth value of the sentence at T2
c. Therefore, the truth value of the sentence is determined by something other than (even if in addition to) the meaning of the sentence
d. The only other thing that differs at T2 is a material object
e. Therefore, the truth value of the sentence is determined by (even if only in part) that material object

I think the argument is valid and that the conclusion refutes (3) and is consistent with (1) and (2). It might not be clear which material object(s) determine (even if only in part) the truth of the sentence, but it is still the case that it is some material object(s) which determine (even if only in part) the truth of the sentence. — Michael

I think that's a pretty strong argument against a position, though I'm not sure that that your opposition would have to accept that it's aimed correctly. I think it highlights the necessary role non-linguistic stuff plays in the language using activities we do. Though I imagine that quibbles are very possible since the argument doesn't contain the phrase "linguistic", so the opportunity to put non-linguistic stuff into semantic content still seems available to an opponent. I believe this was the strategy @Banno gestured towards later; that it's a category error to think that the non-linguistic stuff is "really" non-linguistic since arbitrary environmental objects can be brought into language practice as semantic content.

Certainly that's the discussion that's been going on here, but it's not necessarily the right discussion. — Srap Tasmaner

Glad we see eye to eye. I don't know if we can have the discussion that we'd like to have without clearing the ground, I take it this is what you've been doing.

Again, the idea here is not to smear everything together as "our forms of life," but to note that there are different modalities of reference and there is reason to think they are not entirely independent. We do not agree on how to carve up the world with words arbitrarily, but in, shall we say, consultation with how we perceive the objects and materials in our environment, how we manipulate them, what we know about them from our individual and collective histories. Language is only one of a battery of intentional behaviors that make reference to our environment or are dependent upon such reference. To understand how reference works in language specifically, we probably ought to give some thought to the other modalities as well. — Srap Tasmaner

Nothing more to add. And yes, I was trying to smuggle in more phenomenological accounts of interpretation with how I was using it!

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

I think correspondence is one way of looking at it; it really can be that a statement is true because it corresponds to the facts. But I think that for a deflationist this simultaneously says too much and too little. Too much because it doesn't necessarily reflect the T-sentence (can you have a correspondence without a truth? A representational relationships truth preserving? That kind of thing) and too little because it confines the enmeshment of world and declarative language to a particular mode (correspondence).

Though I really appreciate the broader thrust towards truth-makers:

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. — Luke

:up:

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) — Isaac

Thank you for the clarification. I agree that with the functional equivalence angle; namely two expressions will mean the same thing if they function in the same way. As a sub-case, two denotations will denote the same thing if those denotation practices function in the same way. I think where we differ is that I interpret the pragmatic context as part of the function, and the function itself isn't situated within a body, it's situated between bodies, in the environment, and within bodies - like with @Srap Tasmaner 's comment about externalism vs internalism of semantic content. I don't think "the science" sides with either side on that, at least not yet, so it remains a site of substantive philosophical disagreement.

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. — Srap Tasmaner

I also want to "yes, and" Srap in the context of functionalism + externalism, you don't necessarily need to have language tied to definite mental states with their folk psychology categories to be an externalist on this issue, you just need the functions to involve and sufficiently incorporate stuff in the environment. Like saying "the kettle is boiling" when it is indeed boiling.

That "sufficient incorporation" I believe is where the truth and like concepts come in; accuracy, fidelity, relevance and so on.

Though I imagine that quibbles are very possible since the argument doesn't contain the phrase "linguistic", so the opportunity to put non-linguistic stuff into semantic content still seems available to an opponent. I believe this was the strategy Banno gestured towards later; that it's a category error to think that the non-linguistic stuff is "really" non-linguistic since arbitrary environmental objects can be brought language practice as semantic content. — fdrake

Even if you put non-linguistic stuff/environmental objects into semantic content it is still the case that this non-linguistic stuff/environmental object is a determinant for truth. "The kettle is boiling" being true depends on the existence of the material object referred to by the phrase "the kettle".

I really didn't think that this would be such a controversial point. The world isn't just a conversation we have with each other. The materialist will say that there are material objects that exist and have properties, irrespective of what we say; the idealist will say that there is mental phenomena that occurs and has qualities, irrespective of what we say. That our language "carves up" this stuff isn't that this stuff isn't there, or doesn't factor into a sentence being true.

It's not the case that we just define every sentence in our language and the truth of every sentence follows from those definitions, so it must be that something which isn't our language plays an essential role. That is what my argument tries to show.

I really didn't think that this would be such a controversial point. The world isn't just a conversation we have with each other. The materialist will say that there are material objects that exist and have properties, irrespective of what we say; the idealist will say that there is mental phenomena that occurs and has qualities, irrespective of what we say. That our language "carves up" this stuff isn't that this stuff isn't there, or doesn't factor into a sentence being true. — Michael

Yes. I agree it's strange that it's controversial. But I don't find it surprising any more. Philosophy in both analytic and continental traditions has spent a lot of time in recent years subtly correlating "mind independent" with "mind dependent" reality. I don't think we're a particularly hardline materialist forum, definitely more a correlationist one!

It's not the case that we just define every sentence in our language and the truth of every sentence follows from those definitions, so it must be that something which isn't our language plays an essential role. — Michael

A side note, possibly off track.

One way I've seen Davidson's program described is that he aims at explaining not what a given sentence means or what makes it true, but more fundamentally at speaker's competence; hence the claim that if you understand all the T-sentences of a language, then you understand that language. (That set of T-sentences is a theory of meaning for that language. Wittgenstein makes similarly holistic noises, but the point here is vaguely against compositionality, I think.)

But here's a question people might be inclined to answer very differently: if you understand all the T-sentences of a language, do you also understand a world? Or maybe even the world? Either answer is interesting.

Maybe Davidson alludes to this somewhere, I wouldn't know.

I think the problem I have with "non linguistic stuff" is our using language to point to it, which seems to incorporate it into language already. So it's not the definitions of words which make it true, as you say, but it's still how we use language that makes a particular sentence true or false -- it's only because we care about the kettle boiling that we speak of it. So we incorporate the kettle into our language by naming it and predicating things of it.

Then, suppose we were in the same room -- me picking up the kettle is also already linguistic. Language is embedded in the body; gesture is often as important as the written word in determining the meaning of a sentence. And by picking up the kettle I'm showing we've already individuated it, named it, have a handful of predicates we might use -- I can't not see the kettle as a kettle, for the most part. It's always-already linguistic, as an individuated thing that I'm thinking about and predicating things of.

Basically the same problem I've been criticizing correspondence: every instance of explaining something non-linguistic will be done linguistically, even if we include gestures and kettles and such into our language. So "fact" starts to take on a place-holder position more than being an actual thing, a placeholder to mean "the real" or "true sentences" or something like that -- all understood by us being able to speak.

I agree that the world is not a conversation. But I believe our activity in the world is linguistic, in the bigger sense of language: to include kettles and gestures and such.

if you understand all the T-sentences of a language, do you also understand a world? — Srap Tasmaner

I'd say no. My first instinct is to deny the scenario because it's impossible :D But that's no fun.

I mean, at the least, you'd have to understand all the T-sentences of all languages, it seems to me. "a world" appears different depending on the natural language I use. At the very minimal way, the phonic substance differs, which creates different relationships between concepts through phonic relationships.

So it's not the definitions of words which make it true, as you say, but it's still how we use language that makes a particular sentence true or false — Moliere

It’s not just how we use language. I say “the kettle is boiling”, you say “the kettle is not boiling”. One of us is right and one of us is wrong, and the thing that determines that isn’t me saying one thing and you saying the other (else which of us is right?).

It’s the existence of a material object (or set of material objects if you prefer, or mental phenomena if idealism is correct) and its behaviour that determines which of us is speaking the truth.

It’s the existence of a material object (or set of material objects if you need prefer) an its behaviour that determines which of us is speaking the truth — Michael

Only because we care about truth in relation to the material world, though. English is set up like that: Here we have a language with a truth predicate and a false predicate. We're able of expressing opposition. We already agree that there are kettles, that boiling is something they can or cannot do, that negation of a proposition indicates that both cannot be true at the same time. There's a lot of conceptual work that comes "along with" understanding a language, and evaluating whether a propositions is true or false. So much so that we're not really sure how much language is doing and how much the world is doing. Individuation, in particular, is something I'm really not sure about being a mental or material phenomena. if it's a mental phenomena, then quite literally it's not the material world -- which could be just one big fact -- that makes the sentence true. It's that we have minds that can individuate parts of a world that is, in fact, wholly connected and not individuated at all.

Only because we care about truth in relation to the material world, though. English is set up like that — Moliere

Yes, and I’m trying to describe how truth works in the English (or other natural) language. So I don’t understand this response.

But here's a question people might be inclined to answer very differently: if you understand all the T-sentences of a language, do you also understand a world? Or maybe even the world? Either answer is interesting. — Srap Tasmaner

I’d say no. Understanding that “snow is green” iff snow is green and that “snow is white” iff snow is white isn’t understanding that snow is white. For that you have to actually look at the material world/experience it.

English can also be set up like this:

"7 + 5 = 12" is true

My suggestion is that "the kettle" works in a similar manner as "7" -- they are both abstract names. It's not like I go about saying "kettle00110292910" or some other unique identifier. And in fact it'd be confusing if I did do that. In a particular conversation we understand that we're using the abstract name as a particular name. The only difference is what we decide to use the names for, and which predicates link said name to the set of "true propositions" and which predicates link said name to the set of "false propositions"

Most of the sentences, should we choose to go through it, about the kettle I bet we'd say we'd agree upon. In this scenario the only one we disagree upon is the predicate "...is boiling"

So what makes it true or false is, in fact, its boiling. But "...is boiling" is also linguistic. It's understood in a wider sense. After all "...is boiling" as applied to a kettle really just means whatever is inside it is in the state of boiling, transitioning from a liquid to a gas. The kettle itself isn't boiling at all, if we choose to use the general name "kettle" to only refer to the metallic kettle, and not the water inside. It's only because we agree upon what "the kettle" picks out that we can even check the material world in the first place.

The kettle itself isn't boiling at all, if we choose to use the general name "kettle" to only refer to the metallic kettle, and not the water inside. It's only because we agree upon what "the kettle" picks out that we can even check the material world in the first place — Moliere

But we still have to check the material world because it is the material world that determines whether or not the sentence is true. All you’re saying is that we decide what the sentence means. The meaning of a sentence isn’t the truth of the sentence. The truth depends on the meaning, but it also depends on the material world.

Unless something is true by definition, “S means p, therefore S is true” is an obvious non sequitur.

me picking up the kettle is also already linguistic. — Moliere

That just strikes me as clearly false. I understand the point you're making, but lately on this forum people making that point use the phrase "forms of life" more often than they use "language-games" to try to mitigate its implausibility.

Language is embedded in the body; gesture is often as important as the written word in determining the meaning of a sentence. — Moliere

Language, in obvious ways, supervenes on the body and on gesture. No fine motor control, no speech, no writing. Can you say the same thing the other way? Obviously not.

"In the beginning was the word" is false.

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). — Moliere

Would you say that significance is equivalent to what matters to me, what is relevant and how it is relevant to me ( or to us)? And arent these terms equivalent to the sense of a meaning? In Wittgenstein’s example of workers establishing the sense of meaning of their work-related interchanges( requests , corrections, instructions, questions, etc) , the words they send back and forth to each other get their sense in the immediate context of how each participant responds to the other. It seems to me the ‘we’ of larger groups must be based, as an abstractive idealization, on this second-person structure of responsive dialogic interaction. The particular sense of meaning of a consensus-based notion can never simply refer back to the dictates of an amorphous plurality we call a community. A community realizes itself in action that , as Jean-Luc Nancy says, singularizes itself as from
one to the next to the next.

That just strikes me as clearly false. I understand the point you're making, but lately on this forum people making that point use the phrase "forms of life" more often than they use "language-games" to try to mitigate its implausibility. — Srap Tasmaner

It does seem to me that people have been taken so completely by Wittgenstein and those like him that they’re being bewitched by language in the opposite direction. Now apparently everything is language.

That just strikes me as clearly false. I understand the point you're making, but lately on this forum people making that point use the phrase "forms of life" more often than they use "language-games" to try to mitigate its implausibility — Srap Tasmaner

"Forms of life" is a phrase I try not to use because I don't feel like I really understand it too well -- "language-games" I feel comfortable with, though.

Would it help if I called gesture linguistic in a broad sense, whereas "kettle" is linguistic in a narrow sense? Or does that just seem obviously wrong-headed, to you? Better to keep "language" to refer to the written word?

"In the beginning was the word" is false. — Srap Tasmaner

I should have replied to this too -- ah well.

I agree with this entirely.

"In the beginning was the word" is false. — Srap Tasmaner

Do you have nonlinguistic experiences? I don't think everyone does.

Would you say that significance is equivalent to what matters to me, what is relevant and how it is relevant to me ( or to us)? — Joshs

I think so. That makes sense to me at least. I'd say there's both a relevant-to-me and relevant-to-us: We let go of some of ourselves in joining a group, and even change ourselves as we stay within a group. There's both what's significant to me, and the significance generated by being a part of a group, and the interaction between those two layers of significance, and the history of cares which brought the group to the point where I first encounter it.

And arent these terms equivalent to the sense of a meaning?

Maybe. I've been taking "meaning" as primary for this thread -- so rather than having a theory of meaning, I've been attempting to use the semantics of English to get at truth. So I'd probably do the same here -- assume meaning to spell out significance.

In Wittgenstein’s example of workers establishing the sense of meaning of their work-related interchanges( requests , corrections, instructions, questions, etc) , the words they send back and forth to each other get their sense in the immediate context of how each participant responds to the other. It seems to me the ‘we’ of larger groups must be based, as an abstractive idealization, on this second-person structure of responsive dialogic interaction. The particular sense of meaning of a consensus-based notion can never simply refer back to the dictates of an amorphous plurality we call a community. A community realizes itself in action that , as Jean-Luc Nancy says, singularizes itself as from
one to the next to the next.

I definitely had the slab-brothers in mind in saying what I've said about including gesture in language. And I think I agree that a community realizes itself in action. And I agree that no one in a community could say "well the community says" or something along those lines -- I'm not sure communal meaning fits within dictates, or even entirely fits within beliefs (aren't there communal stories, myths, feelings, or relationships at least in addition to communal belief?)

But we still have to check the material world because it is the material world that determines whether or not the sentence is true. All you’re saying is that we decide what the sentence means. The meaning of a sentence isn’t the truth of the sentence. — Michael

I agree. I suppose what's still got me is the abstracta -- if we have any sentences in English which do not refer to material conditions, and that sentence is true, and correspondence is true, then the abstract sentences must correspond to some fact that is not-material. I don't think there is such a fact, so I'd reject correspondence theory as a universal theory of truth -- since 7 + 5 is 12, and "7 + 5 = 12" is true.

I'd reject correspondence theory as a universal theory of truth -- since 7 + 5 is 12, and "7 + 5 = 12" is true. — Moliere

So do I. I think coherence is a better fit for formal systems like maths.

But I should add that I don’t think it’s a given that I’m talking about the correspondence theory. I’m not saying that some sentences correspond to material objects; I’m only saying that some sentences depend on material objects to be true.

As a rough analogy to explain the difference, speech depends on a speaker, but it doesn’t correspond to a speaker.

Would it help if I called gesture linguistic in a broad sense, whereas "kettle" is linguistic in a narrow sense? — Moliere

Probably a bad idea. Language is a real thing, a specific thing. Not every form of communication, for instance, is language. Neither is every form of intentional or referential action linguistic.

Gesture, for instance may in some cases be propositional without being linguistic. That's messy, but I don't have anything riding on it. What does matter is that there is a well-known linguistic use of gesture in sign language. If you just define all gesture up front as linguistic, you miss what distinguishes sign language from pointing or waving.

Ah, OK. I guess I'm just looking for something a little more universal from a theory of truth, and I see the T-sentence as setting out that universal relationship effectively for all sentences other than the liars -- including sentences like the kettle.

But I should add that I don’t think it’s a given that I’m talking about the correspondence theory. I’m not saying that some sentences correspond to material objects; I’m only saying that some sentences depend on material objects.

As a rough analogy to explain the difference, speech depends on a speaker, but it doesn’t correspond to a speaker. — Michael

I think that sentences depending on material objects is close enough to count for my purposes. For me I'm getting caught up in the notion that it's us who decide what counts as "material object" -- "us" historically, at least, since "Kettle" is a word with that kind of history. Yes, the material object matters to truth, but that's because we're using "truth" just like that.

Maybe this is just something we'd go back and forth on though :D -- maybe it's nothing.

"Forms of life" is a phrase I try not to use because I don't feel like I really understand it too well — Moliere

You can hardly be faulted for that. It's a linguistic gesture that seems to have no propositional content.

Just to set out where my mind is headed at the moment, then:

Everything is text, even if in the beginning there was no word. I'm thinking this is more a transcendental condition of understanding rather than a metaphysical thesis -- language is how we come to understand the world. Before we were linguistically adept we had very little in the way of understanding. And as we develop our linguistic powers we're able to see more of the world than we were before. Even on an individual level, that can be experienced.

However, unlike Kant, I don't think I'd say this "cuts us off" from the really real -- rather, what's really real is just right there before us always-already changing. To understand is to grasp the world with language. But the world changes and we have to go back out into it, dip into the elementality constituted by my own desire to build again my edifice of understanding-grasping the world.

Language as a specific thing is English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, sign language . . . the natural languages each have their names, and they have specific traits as you say. And in the broad sense they all count as writing.

Language in the broad sense includes gesture as outside of even sign-language. Sign-language, after all, is just writing with a medium other than ink or sound, and the person speaking-writing in sign-language can also point and wave and jump for joy and clap and smile and so on. And we are even able to distinguish between sign-language and gesture when someone is signing to us!

BUT -- as you say:

Probably a bad idea — Srap Tasmaner

I'm just writing the above to get at where I was coming from. I'm fine with not using this way of talking, and keeping "language" for the narrow sense to keep things clear, especially as I am uncertain how to be super specific in the broad sense. It just seemed relevant to truth is all.

Ah, OK. I guess I'm just looking for something a little more universal from a theory of truth, and I see the T-sentence as setting out that universal relationship effectively for all sentences other than the liars -- including sentences like the kettle. — Moliere

The T-schema doesn’t say much and is compatible with more substantial theories of truth, e.g:

“7 + 5 = 12” is true iff 7 + 5 = 12, and

7 + 5 = 12 iff “7 + 5 = 12” follows from the axioms of maths, therefore

“7 + 5 = 12” is true iff “7 + 5 = 12” follows from the axioms of maths

The T-schema doesn’t say much and is compatible with more substantial theories of truth, — Michael

Sure. I mean, I said exactly that earlier in the thread :D

The problem is that they aren't universal. And, in order to evaluate "better fit" for any given theory of truth, you'd have to understand truth already. So the very act of being able to evaluate correspondence/coherence in particular circumstances means we must already have some understanding of truth that is neither correspondence or coherence, at least if by "better fit" we mean "seems to be about the right description"

For me I'm getting caught up in the notion that it's us who decide what counts as "material object" — Moliere

Your wording is ambiguous and leaves it open to equivocation. We decide that the word "water" refers to this stuff, that the symbol "2" refers to this number, that the letters "H" and "O" in chemistry refer to these elements, but we don't decide that water is H₂O.

And, in order to evaluate "better fit" for any given theory of truth, you'd have to understand truth already. So the very act of being able to evaluate correspondence/coherence in particular circumstances means we must already have some understanding of truth that is neither correspondence or coherence — Moliere

The T-schema suffers from the same problem, as I mentioned before.

1. "p" is foo iff p

This is not a theory, or definition, of "foo".

If we want an actual definition of truth then we need some q such that “[is] true” means q, or “‘p’ is true” means q.