I can tell you what it would take in order for it to be true. Things would have to be different than they are. They're not. Therefore, it's not.

I can tell you what it would take in order for it to be true. Things would have to be different than they are. They're not. Therefore, it's not. — creativesoul

So under your theory of truth, counterfactuals aren't true? I think that's a problem for your theory of truth.

And what about statements about the past or the future? Can they be true (and so correspond to facts)? If so, then what is a fact? Obviously it can't (always, at least) just be some physical state of affairs, as there is no physical state of affairs which corresponds to the true claim "there was a battle at Hastings in 1066" or to the true claim "the Sun will rise tomorrow".

.

Clearly you have never owned a pet. Or if you did you paid no attention to it. My experience is just ordinary cats and dogs, but they figure things out, sometimes difficult things, sometimes quickly! As to logic, what logic? Aristotelian categorical logic, with syllogisms? Mathematical logic? Rhetorical logic? So many kinds. Maybe they use animal logic. And how do you think if you don't use some sort of logic?

Or maybe you just mean they do not reason as people do. That seems intuitively reasonably, but maybe it isn't. At some level, I think all reasoning must be essentially the same, if not at the same level or degree. — tim wood

Well, I distinguish between thinking and reasoning, as reasoning, I believe, is a type of thinking, described by the definition I provided, "conclusions are drawn from premises". If you want to define all thinking as reasoning, then perhaps I can follow. We could proceed by distinguishing different forms of logic, like you suggest, even including "animal logic" (whatever that might be), as some basic form of logic. Possibly we could identify plant logic, and maybe some type of logic is used by DNA and cell genetics.

In any case, I would restrict "truth" to the higher forms of logic, those practised by human beings. These are the types of logic which proceed from well defined principles, requiring language for those definitions. These are the types of logic which aim specifically at truth. The lower forms of logic are pragmatic, based in practicality, usefulness, and usefulness does not necessarily direct us toward truth. Truth is a very specific ideal, and logic which is essentially pragmatic, must be directed toward truth, or else the logic may produce any sort of untrue conclusions.

By the way, rejecting my definition of reason very nicely demonstrates my point that definition is essential to truth. Without a definition of "reason", there can be no truth to the statement "animals other than human reason". Without definition there is only vague ambiguity. When "reason" means something different to you than it means to me, what could provide us with the truth concerning that matter? Truth cannot be produced by such ambiguity, it comes about only through precise definitions, such as those we find in the higher forms of logic like mathematics. So when "truth" is the ideal which we focus our attention on, we produce clear and precise definitions. When it is our intention to bring this ideal to reality, the only way it can be done is though precise definitions. Can you think of any other way?

I think you're on to something, here. In your sentence you attribute something; the word you use for what is attributed is truth. What, exactly, is that? What do you mean? How can truth be attributed if it's what you say above? I recognize this is just ordinary usage, but the whole point of this thread is to examine these ideas, to part the curtains of ordinary usage, to see if there's anything behind them. — tim wood

Anything which is attributed is a property. The property exists only as an ideal, the word refers to the idea in the mind of what it means to have that property. In predication, we identify the subject, and attribute the property. So the property is attributed by the mind, it is something (a concept) in the mind, which the subject is said to have. The subject may be a name representing a particular object, but the property which is attributed is always a universal, and therefore a concept devised by the mind. The subject/object representation is what bridges the gap between what's in the mind and what's in the physical world. So "truth" as something we attribute to what has been said, is like any other property which is predicated, it is a concept in the mind, an ideal.

Really? All the books in the world contain zero truth? All the speeches, before they're spoken? And as well my thoughts, and everyone else's, barren of truth? You're stuck on truth as a speech phenomenon, and that sounds like a bespoke definition for sure - a perfectly god one, as far as it goes. But tell me how it's not begging the question in this discussion. — tim wood

Of course I consider what has been written as part of what has been said. But unspoken words and thoughts are a completely different issue. It is impossible that 'we' can attribute truth to unspoken words because 'we' have no access to them. I can attribute truth to my unspoken words, and you to yours, but I can not attribute truth to your unspoken words. This brings us right back to where we first started this discussion, the inherently subjective nature of "truth", and its relation to honesty. If you speak words which you do not attribute truth to, then you are being dishonest.

So if you would like to proceed toward some primordial truth, prior to language. This is the direction I would recommend. There is an attitude which we have, one toward another, an attitude of respect and honesty, which inspires us to speak the truth. This attitude of cooperation is what allows for the existence of language, definitions, and the higher form of logic which allows us to seek the ideal, "truth". But notice that the ideal, as that which is sought is what we call truth, and the primordial attitude, "honesty", as that which gives us the capacity to seek truth, is not really truth itself, but something different.

But what you do hint at is the aura that goes with, "That person speaks the truth!" This is exactly not simply agreement that P is true. Indeed it does not even say it! For brevity's sake I'll just refer again to Gurugeorge's post. There's an element of revealing/"unconcealing." And this leads to Heidegger, which path I'm content to gesture to, but am not especially eager to travel. — tim wood

Yes, I agree a lot with what Gurugeorge said. This is what we went through when we first engaged in this discussion, the subjective nature of truth. We described its base as an attitude, a frame of mind which I called "honesty", and Guru calls "trust". Notice that "honesty" is on the side of the speaker, and "trust" is on the side of the hearer. I attribute "truth" more to the speaker, as that which inspires "trust" in the hearer.

I attempted to proceed into an analysis of this subjective nature of "truth", assuming from this starting point, that truth is completely within the mind, but you would not follow, assuming that there must be some sort of truth external to the mind.

Let's try this. I concede the accuracy of all your points, so far as they go. If you say truth goes no further, then I disagree. On the other hand, if you catch a glimpse of the possibility of there being more to truth than just the several trueness of some spoken propositions, then we can continue. But near as I can tell, you have defined us into a dead end. — tim wood

It's not that I think truth goes no further than the spoken word. I think that truth is an ideal, and all ideals go further than the spoken word, because words are just representations of ideas. But I think that if we want to delve further into the nature of truth, I will only proceed if I think we are heading in the right direction. Therefore we must determine the true nature of an "ideal", before we proceed.

Do you agree that an ideal, is something which has no real existence, but it exists within the mind, as an aim, a goal, something which we desire to bring about, and "truth" is of this nature? So if we look back in time, toward a "primordial truth", it is as you would say, "dodgy", very vague, ambiguous, without clearly defined terms, and therefore 'truth" in this time was extremely limited. But if we look ahead, toward the future, we can envision a highly progressive "truth", based in clear and precise definitions, and infallible forms of logic. Would you agree, that "truth" is something which is becoming, it is coming into existence, from non-existence in the distant past, evolving out of many degrees of privation, towards a perfection in the future?

Truth is correspondence with/to fact/reality. — creativesoul

But what is correspondence with/to fact/reality?

It's a judgment that people make about how propositions relate to what they perceive.

Counterfactuals aren't true because they cannot possibly be so... by definition. Statements about past events can be. Statements about future events cannot be. No problem.

Counterfactuals aren't true because they cannot possibly be so... by definition. — creativesoul

No, they're not defined as not being possibly true. They're defined as having a dependent clause that isn't the case.

Statements about past events can be.

How? What is the nature of the facts that they correspond to? Obviously they're not some physical state of affairs as there is no physical state of affairs that is the battle of Hastings having happened in 1066.

Statements about future events cannot be.

Seems perfectly true to say that "the Sun will rise tomorrow" is true.

No problem.

I'd say it is a problem. Counterfactuals and claims about the future can be true, yet this isn't allowed by your theory on truth – and depending on how you answer the above, it may be that your theory doesn't allow for true statements about the past, either. Therefore, your theory of truth fails.

I think Michael's claim is that the counterfactual is true by virtue of some sort of logical principles. If you had two apples, and got another two apples, you would have four apples. This assertion is true despite the fact that you haven't carried out the act of getting any of these apples, and so you may not actually have any apples at all.

We can simplify this by saying that statements concerning possibilities can be true. This allows us to make true propositions concerning the future, and produce reasonable conclusions concerning the future. "If it rains tomorrow, anything left outside will get wet". "If my phone gets wet it will be ruined". These are true propositions. Therefore I ought not leave my phone outside if it is possible that it may rain tomorrow, and I value my phone.

And what about statements about the past or the future? Can they be true (and so correspond to facts)? If so, then what is a fact? Obviously it can't (always, at least) just be some physical state of affairs, as there is no physical state of affairs which corresponds to the true claim "there was a battle at Hastings in 1066" or to the true claim "the Sun will rise tomorrow". — Michael

You don't really need counterfactuals or statements about the past to demonstrate that the correspondence theory doesn't work (there's a lot of philosophical controversy surrounding them). Just take the simpler case of negative facts (that is, negated propositions that are true). It is a true statement that Bernie Sanders is not the the president of the US, what is the 'corresponding' thing or the entity that makes it true? It is certainly not the existence of Bernie himself with the negation sign attached to him. Or what about the fact that Barack Obama is not (the current) president of the US? Nothing in the world corresponds to either of these statements yet they are true and have furthermore different truth conditions.

I'll play devil's advocate.

The object that makes it true that Bernie Sanders is not the President is Donald Trump. [ Being POTUS ] is a property only one object can possess at a given time. Since Trump possesses this property, no other object does.

Alternatively, if we're not locked into objects, it could be the fact that Donald Trump is POTUS.

There is mass agreement that Trump is President but mass agreement does not make something true. Someone can easily come along and say the election was fixed and that Trump is not his/her President. General agreement on any statement does not make something true. It just means lots if people agree. This can change and often does.

Truth implies some immobility and as far as I can tell everything is constantly changing, especially history. The victor writes the history.

You wrote:

No, they're not defined as not being possibly true. They're defined as having a dependent clause that isn't the case.

Irrelevant. Counterfactuals pose no problem for my position. I've accounted for them.. without issue, even if not false by their own definition.

I wrote:

Statements about past events can be(true/false).

You replied:

How? What is the nature of the facts that they correspond to? Obviously they're not some physical state of affairs as there is no physical state of affairs that is the battle of Hastings having happened in 1066.

Statements about past events are true by virtue of their correspondence to past events, and false when such correspondence is lacking. It's not hard to understand. It doesn't require complexity.



I wrote:

Statements about future events cannot be(true/false).

You replied:

Seems perfectly true to say that "the Sun will rise tomorrow" is true.

In order for that statement to be true, the sun would have to rise tomorrow... Until then, it's a prediction and as such cannot be true until what it says will be the case is.

I'd say it is a problem. Counterfactuals and claims about the future can be true, yet this isn't allowed by your theory on truth – and depending on how you answer the above, it may be that your theory doesn't allow for true statements about the past, either. Therefore, your theory of truth fails.

The above presupposes that counterfactuals and claims about the future can be true.

That is precisely what's at issue. That needs argued for. I've done that. You've yet to.

Counterfactuals and predictions cannot be true.

That is not a flaw of my position. It is a consequence thereof.

I've said what it would take for your candidate to be true. Are you rejecting those truth conditions?

That is precisely what's at issue. That needs argued for. I've done that. You've yet to. — creativesoul

You haven't argued that. You've simply said that them being true is incompatible with your theory and so can't be true. But if that's all it takes to argue for a theory then I could put forth any theory I like and dismiss anything that contradicts it as necessarily false. If I say that to be true is to be written by me and you respond by saying that such-and-such a thing is true even though it isn't written by me, can I just argue that it must be false because it isn't written by me? Of course not.

So if you want to argue that counterfactuals are not a problem for your theory then you need to show that counterfactuals cannot be true without assuming that to be true is to correspond to a fact (and again, you're yet to even explain what a fact is).

That is not a flaw of my position. It is a consequence thereof.

And that's the problem. It's a proof by contradiction. If a consequence of your theory is that certain things cannot be true, and if those things can be true, then your theory is wrong. You can't defend against a proof by contradiction by simply reiterating your theory and its consequence.

Pots and kettles...

What makes a counterfactual true?

That's a good suggestion, but strictly speaking "Trump being the POTUS" is not itself an entity but a fact, i.e., something which depends on a description (Trump being the POTUS is not an intrinsic property of Trump). Because consider that Trump's existence by itself is also compatible with the opposite proposition - viz that Bernie is the president (had Bernie won the presidency, Trump would still exist), so Bernie's not being the president doesn't logically depend on Trump himself. So my point is that the putative truth-maker for "Bernie is not the president" has got somehow to include Bernie himself, because it seems to me that the a truth maker should logically entail the proposition that it makes true; you can't just add to it some other auxiliary descriptions.

But this is not a decisive objection, and I agree that the correspondence theorist has some room to maneuver here.

Here's another objection to correspondence, that I read in Frank Ramsey's "Facts and Propositions". The key idea is that mere physical entities in the world (such as objects or events) cannot serve as truth-makers for propositions because they are too "coarse-grained".

Consider the proposition that "Caesar was murdered". What entity makes this proposition true? It seems that it is the event that Caesar was murdered (-"the murder of Caesar"). But what about the proposition "Caesar died in 44 BC"? Since his death was caused by his murder, his death must be the same event as his murder. But if this is so, it means that the same entity (the same event) corresponds to two different propositions (and they are different propositions because they mean different things: not all deaths are the result of a murder). And now this is a problem, because the correspondence theory is supposed to assign a unique truth-maker to each proposition, that explains why the proposition is true under some specific conditions and not some others. And that entails that if two propositions have the same truth conditions (they correspond to the very same entity, if true) then they are the same proposition. But "Caesar was murdered" and "Caesar died in 44 BC" are not the same proposition, so the correspondence theory is inadequate.

What entity makes this proposition true? It seems that it is the event that Caesar was murdered (-"the murder of Caesar"). — Fafner

To continue, I think even this account has problems. What does it mean for something that has happened to presently be an event? Is there some (physical?) state of affairs that currently is the fact that such-and-such a thing happened? Maybe a block-theory account of time can help here (although even then I'm sceptical), but without such a recourse, what is the ontology of the past, and how does that play into a correspondence theory of truth?

What makes a counterfactual true? — creativesoul

What makes a counterfactual true, is the same thing which makes any proposition true, how the words are defined. In most cases, correspondence is inherent within the definitions, so that the definitions correspond with usage of the words. But a definition does not necessarily adhere to correspondence, and usage varies. In some cases we define words the way we want to, regardless of whether this corresponds to the way that the words are used or not.

So, creativesoul defines "true" as corresponding, and this makes it true that counterfactuals cannot be true, despite the fact that Michael would define "true" in another way, making it possible for counterfactuals to be true. One might insist, that there must be an "objective truth" to the matter, but how could there be? We are free to define and use words how we like, and clearly "true or false" depends on how the words are defined. Truth is subjective.

I read a bit about truth-makers after I posted this, and what you say here makes sense. I'm going to think about this stuff some more.

Sure, but this argument is interesting because it shows that the correspondence theorist gets into trouble even if we grant him that past events can somehow 'correspond' to propositions uttered at the present, so we don't have to make any controversial metaphysical assumptions.

We do want to preserve the intuition that a proposition is true if things are the way it says they are, don't we?

We do want to preserve the intuition that a proposition is true if things are the way it says they are, don't we? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but this is not a 'metaphysical' explanation of truth. When you say that proposition P is true iff such and such is the case, then you simply repeat P, and this really doesn't explain why P is true, in the sense in which the correspondence theorist attempts to explain it. He thinks that the thing that we have to mention in the right hand side of "P is true iff X" must be (in some sense) something different from P, but the trouble is (as Ramsey's argument and others show) that if we don't mention P itself in right hand side, then whatever you put there wouldn't explain the truth of P (since it is something different); but if we do mention P then the theory becomes trivial and uninformative. This I think shows that we should abandon all metaphysical ambitions to 'explain' truth (i.e., postulating entities that 'correspond' to sentence and so on).

That deflationary impulse is powerful too, I'll grant you. I'm keeping an open mind for now.

But you don't have to be a defletionist about truth even if you reject correspondence; one can still maintain that truth is an important and substantive concept, but only reject the idea that it requires some sort of metaphysical explanation.

(there's a wonderful paper by Cora Diamond "Unfolding Truth and Reading Wittgenstein" (-yes she's one of my favorite philosophers) that argues for the possibility of such an intermediary position which is neither deflationist nor metaphysical).

So counterfactuals are existentially contingent upon language.

Is there any sense of "truth" that is not existentially contingent upon language? Perhaps this be better put a bit differently:Does any sense of "truth" define something that we discover? Does any sense of "truth" set out something that is not existentially contingent upon language? Is any sense of "truth" necessarily presupposed by all others? Is any sense of "truth" necessarily presupposed by statements, regardless of whether or not they are actually true?

I was reading a bit of Russell's "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" tonight because I had been reading Nietzsche and his theories of truth are so confusing I felt I needed an antidote and Russell seemed like a good place to start. :-)

I like that he makes the distinction between facts, which have no truth value, and beliefs, which do have a truth value.

Facts have no truth value, Russell says, because you can't have a false fact, and truth requires falsity. There are just facts. And there are facts of many different kinds, i.e. arithmetic mathematical facts, physical facts, etc.

I think part of the reason Nietzsche was making my head spin was because a) I couldn't really get clear on his notion of truth and b) I think in the current American political climate, it is so important to get in touch again with notions like fact and truth.

I don't take these things for granted. I believe that it is true that there are facts. I am not exactly sure how to define a fact, but I suppose as a first pass I'd say a fact is something about the way things really are. In other words, I suppose facts make up reality.

This is, of course, all leading up to some kind of correspondence theory of truth, which I believe during this period of Russell's thinking (1918 I think) he held, although at one point he held something like an identity theory of truth.

I feel very sympathetic to the correspondence theory of truth tonight. It seems so basic and yet feels so right.

My coffee cup has coffee in it right now. This is a fact (although give me a few more minutes and it won't be a fact anymore). The proposition that I put forth in a sentence before, that my coffee cup has coffee in it right now, is true because it corresponds to the fact that my coffee cup does indeed have coffee in it right now. (actually it's decaf, which some people may reject as real coffee, but nevertheless...)

Did Trump collaborate somehow with Russia with the intention of trying to win an election? I do not know the answer to that question (although I have a strong belief). However what I feel quite certain of right now, is that he either did or did not. There is a fact of the matter. One of those facts exists. In other words, there was an event that either took place (call it collusion if you will) or did not take place. If it did take place, if the fact is that Trump colluded, then my belief that he did collude would be true. If he did not, my belief would be false.

So there it is again, the correspondence theory. If my belief corresponds to the event in question, that it is a true belief. If not, then it is a false belief.

Either way, there is a fact of the matter.

Anyway, facts. I like 'em.

Nice.

That's the common-sense take. Conventional correspondence theory gets mired in attempting some type of one to one nonsense between propositions and facts. Blather. Several different thought/belief can correspond to the same set of events(same facts). The issue is in the conception of "proposition", amongst other places.

My coffee cup has coffee in it right now. This is a fact. — Brian

My coffee cup has coffee in it right now. This is true.

How do our statements differ?

I feel very sympathetic to the correspondence theory of truth tonight. It seems so basic and yet feels so right.

My coffee cup has coffee in it right now. This is a fact (although give me a few more minutes and it won't be a fact anymore). The proposition that I put forth in a sentence before, that my coffee cup has coffee in it right now, is true because it corresponds to the fact that my coffee cup does indeed have coffee in it right now. (actually it's decaf, which some people may reject as real coffee, but nevertheless...) — Brian

The op is concerned with the difference between "true" and "truth". The difficulty with correspondence theory is that as much as it is concerned with true statements, "it is true that my cup has coffee in it", it has no approach to truth itself. In a sense, you could say that it takes truth for granted, as it takes correspondence for granted.

If we ask the question, what is correspondence, we get a completely different approach to "truth". We cannot just say that it is true that my cup has coffee in it if my cup has coffee in it, as correspondence assumes, because this is just redundancy. So we must look at the two things which are said to correspond, and despite the fact that they are completely different (one is a statement the other a state of the world), they are both interpreted in the very same way. "My cup has coffee in it", and the specified state of the world, must both be interpreted as the same. in order that the statement is true.

Synthesis (maybe). MU above argues that truth is a product of mind, a property attributable to some propositions. As such, truth is a concept, an ideal.

It's not that I think truth goes no further than the spoken word. I think that truth is an ideal, and all ideals go further than the spoken word, because words are just representations of ideas. But I think that if we want to delve further into the nature of truth, I will only proceed if I think we are heading in the right direction. Therefore we must determine the true nature of an "ideal", before we proceed.

Do you agree that an ideal, is something which has no real existence, but it exists within the mind, as an aim, a goal, something which we desire to bring about, and "truth" is of this nature? So if we look back in time, toward a "primordial truth", it is as you would say, "dodgy", very vague, ambiguous, without clearly defined terms, and therefore 'truth" in this time was extremely limited. But if we look ahead, toward the future, we can envision a highly progressive "truth", based in clear and precise definitions, and infallible forms of logic. Would you agree, that "truth" is something which is becoming, it is coming into existence, from non-existence in the distant past, evolving out of many degrees of privation, towards a perfection in the future? — MU

I agree about ideals. The real is simply imperfect manifestation of the ideal. But the question as to whether truth is an ideal is entirely definition dependent.

1) Let's suppose it is: truth is an ideal. Whence ideals? Which came first, the horse or the ideal (of a ) horse? I think the real horse came first. But what would be the real truth that is prior to the ideal? If this question is legitimate, then it follows that truth is not originally or entirely an ideal. Further, it can reasonably be asked what property the ideal has that is not already manifest in its instances. What property does the ideal horse have that is not already manifest in one or another real horse? (Assuming that the ideal horse is not an unnatural or super-natural horse, although it's fair to include in the one ideal horse all the perfections of many real horses and none of their imperfections.)

In sum, on the assumption that truth is an ideal, then it appears as a consequence that there's something real to account for.

2) Let's assume that truth is not just an ideal. It follows immediately, then, that there's more to truth than just being an ideal. Where else would that be but in the real, in praxis.

I do not agree with the notion that truth evolves (at least in any long-term historic sense that is relevant to this discussion). By "primordial" I meant prior in a semantic and not a temporal sense. This not to be confused with the entirely different notion that the understanding of specific ideas should, can, and so far seems to, evolve as part of historical process.

As an ideal, truth is a universal. The essence of universals (it seems to me) is grounded in their possibility. And that possibility is realized exactly in the true. One might say that truth is the promise, true is the delivery.

I have read that the Cartesian division of mind from world is a great trap and problem, not least because implicit in the Cartesian divide is the need for an account of how the the gap between world and mind is bridged. The attempt to contain truth entirely in the mind, within the structures of applied reason, seems a legacy of the Cartesian model, which carries its baggage of the need for connection with the world. For other understandings, those that house truth and mind all "in the world," the problem of the Cartesian division simply does not arise.

Truth, then, becomes the possibility that we trust, or at least can hope for, that is realized in the true. The ideas of truth and true are in part just as MU claims. But as part of being in the world, they extend beyond the idea into that which makes them truth, or true.

In consequence, it would appear that, some aspects of common usage aside, the truth is never true; and true is never the truth. I hope I never have to take a witness's oath in a court of law!