I would think that that's exactly what anyone anytime making an assertion displays. — creativesoul

If someone is asserting something is true. But one can simply assert a belief and if there is interest explain how s/he came to such a belief.

Ah... Interesting.

Going back to your earlier post, I took first notice of a previously unforeseen edit.

You added...

Basically your whole post it's a personal belief presented as a truth but you don't recognize it as such.

Do you not believe what you write?

Do you not believe what you write? — creativesoul

It is what I believe but my beliefs are in a constant state of change, mostly because of good ideas I find on YouTube and forums.

So you believe that you know what's going on in my head better than I do?

So you believe that you know what's going on in my head better than I do? — creativesoul

No, I believe what I believe. There is no greater or less than. I also believe that people who believe in truths constantly change what they believe is true. Everyone and every thing seems to be constantly changing.

You wrote:

Basically your whole post it's a personal belief presented as a truth but you don't recognize it as such...

And yet if you believe what you write, then you must believe that I am unknowingly presenting my own personal belief as a truth.

I'm not.

On that, my friend, you'll just have to trust me.

And yet if you believe what you write, then you must believe that I am unknowingly presenting my own personal belief as a truth. — creativesoul

Oh, everything you said is your belief. Thanks for sharing them, but I don't share any of them. If you want to call them truths, it's fine with me, but I don't believe any of them are true, just your beliefs. But then again, it's just my belief.

You're confusing your own imagination with reality my friend.

I've never called my beliefs "truths".

You're confusing your own imagination with reality my friend.

I've never called my beliefs "truths". — creativesoul

Great. Thanks for sharing all your beliefs with me.

Acknowledgement of mistake is crucial for correction.

So Rich, do you have anything substantive to add to the conversation about truth, or are you here to put forth ad hominem aimed in my direction instead?

Acknowledgement of mistake is crucial for correction. — creativesoul

No problem. We all have our own beliefs.

So Rich, do you have anything substantive to add to the conversation about truth, or are you here to put forth ad hominem aimed in my direction instead"? — creativesoul

Nothing other than agreeing with you (now that I have corrected my mistakes) that you are simply expressing your beliefs and that is all you were trying to do. It was my mistake (actually valuable learning experience) when I thought that you were trying to express statements that you thought were true.

I certainly believe what I write, Rich.

Do you?

Your mistake is not realizing that statements are statements of thought/belief, assuming sincerity in speech.

I certainly believe what I write, Rich. — creativesoul

I just said I did in response to the same question from you above. I believe everything I say, I just don't elevate it to truth. I just leave myself lots if wiggle room for change, since everything is constantly changing. I think it takes to much effort to attempt to create immobility in a ever changing universe. It's all about intensity, and through experience, I've learned to moderate intensity of my beliefs. In this way, it is easier to change and allow for change.

Your mistake is not realizing that statements are statements of thought/belief. — creativesoul

Well this is kind of silly already. It was an interesting learning experience.

So then do you or do you not think that your beliefs are true? Do you or do you not think that your statements are statements and/or expressions of your own thought/belief?

So then do you or do you not think that your beliefs are true? Do you or do you not think that your statements are statements and/or expressions of your own thought/belief? — creativesoul

As I said, I understand they are my beliefs that are subject to constant change as my experience and knowledge grows. I find that I learn much more when I am flexible and allow my beliefs to change. What I say it's an expression of my thoughts. But since the utterance comes after the memory of the thought then even my utterances may no longer be an expression of my thoughts. It's really quite impossible for me to create immobility in a highly fluid world of thought. I accept this as the nature of things.

You wrote:

As I said, I understand they are my beliefs that are subject to constant change as my experience and knowledge grows.

Is the above true?

What I say it's an expression of my thoughts. But since the utterance comes after the memory of the thought then even my utterances may no longer be an expression of my thoughts.

Is the above true?

It's really quite impossible for me to create immobility in a highly fluid world of thought. I accept this as the nature of things.

Is the above true?

Is the above true? — creativesoul

It is an expression of what I believe. This I believe is a reasonable description that brings to me a better understanding of what I am and my relationship to others. To call it true or not true brings me no closer to understanding the nature of my thoughts. I have a thought and I try to express it, maybe using words, oil paint, music, song, poetry, or whatever. But wait! It is not adequate or possibly my thoughts have changed as I express them. So I go back and revise. The link between thought and expression is a fluid one. Trying to create immobility within mobility for me is an unnecessary and futile effort.

Yet, some may wish to pin it down. Create an immobility that they call true. For how long? At the time of the utterance. Have they really managed to stop thought and express it so precisely so that it can be called true for the necessary time allowed. For someone else, they can believe what they wish. I don't find it possible so I allow for simple beliefs and forget about the other hopeless exercise in immobility.

Maybe saying something is true for an instance is practical but practicality should not be confused with what introspection reveals.

Statement P is objectively true def= if the truth condition expressed by P obtains (and otherwise it is objectively false).

Are you happy now?

Correspondence is truth. It is what makes statements true. The lack thereof is what makes them false. — creativesoul

But the question is whether this talk about 'correspondence' adds anything substantial over and above what we can already say just using the notion of truth. If what you mean by 'correspondence' is not meant as an explanation of anything (as you claim) then can we simply drop this words and say everything that you want by using only 'truth'?

If some truth requires meaning and some meaning requires interpretation then.... — creativesoul

The truth of a proposition or statement requires that the statement has meaning, and this requires that the statement or proposition has been interpreted because without interpretation there is no difference between meaningful and meaningless. Therefore the truth of a proposition or statement requires interpretation.

If this is only "some truth", which requires interpretation, and not all truth, then we're back to what I asked for earlier, an example and demonstration of a type of truth which does not require interpretation. That other type of truth, which does not require interpretation, cannot be a belief, because beliefs require meaning and interpretation in the same way as statements, in order to be true.

if all known instances of truth require meaning, and therefore interpretation because there is no difference between meaningful and meaningless without interpretation, then we can produce the inductive conclusion that all truth requires interpretation. Since this is the case, as no examples to the contrary have been found, therefore, we can say that interpretation is an essential aspect of truth. Truth does not exist without interpretation. Interpretation is the essence of truth.

Now we can proceed to the rest of my claim. All interpretation is subjective. Therefore truth is necessarily subjective.

Statement P is objectively true def= if the truth condition expressed by P obtains (and otherwise it is objectively false).

Are you happy now? — Fafner

You have expressed a conditional, "if". This means that the condition must be fulfilled, for "objectively true". That condition (the truth condition expressed by P obtains), can only be fulfilled by a subject. A subject must determine, decide, judge, whether the condition obtains. Therefore you define "objectively true" as something subjective. Your use of the term "objectively" only covers up, or disguises the fact that the thing referred to is inherently subjective.

That condition (the truth condition expressed by P obtains), can only be fulfilled by a subject — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't agree with that.

A subject must determine, decide, judge, whether the condition obtains. — Metaphysician Undercover

Judging that a truth condition obtains is a different thing though from the actual obtainment of that truth condition (you can have the one without the other). You cannot just assume (without begging the question) that they are the same thing.

I agree that in order to know that a truth condition obtains you have to form a judgment, but it doesn't prove that the obtaining of the truth condition itself requires a judgement. You are once again confusing epistemic and metaphysical questions.

Judging that a truth condition obtains is a different thing though from the actual obtainment of that truth condition (you can have the one without the other). — Fafner

This is what you said:

Statement P is objectively true def= if the truth condition expressed by P obtains (and otherwise it is objectively false). — Fafner

Without an interpretation of "P", there is no such thing as "the truth condition expressed by P". What is expressed by P is the product of an interpretation of P. Therefore the truth of P is relative to the interpretation. Interpretation is necessarily subjective. So I'll repeat myself, you define "objectively true" as something subjective. Your use of "objectively" only disguises the fact that what you are referring to is something subjective.

without interpretation there is no difference between meaningful and meaningless — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm a little puzzled by this.

If I speak to you in a language you do not know, it would make sense for you to say, "That's meaningless to me." "Meaningless to me" would mean "I can't understand this." But even if it were meaningless to you, it could be and is meaningful to me and to anyone else who knows that language.

But you seem to have something very different in mind. If I say something to you in a language you know, must you interpret what I said for it to be meaningful to you? I'll grant that conversation usually involves some ambiguity, some ellipsis, and so on, and sometimes those have to be cleared up to understand what someone is saying. I suppose you could call that interpretation.

But that's by and large a matter of clarifying which of several meanings the speaker meant. You could say that until one meaning is settled on, what was said does not have a meaning. But it doesn't look much at all like the case of speech in a language you don't know. If there's an interpreter on hand, she could transform the meaningless into the meaningful for you, but that's not much at all like the problem of selecting one among several meanings.

What the two cases do share is an asymmetry: there is no reason to think I do not understand what I say to you, whether I speak in a language you don't know, or speak ambiguously in a language you do know, or speak with the exemplary clarity of a post such as this one. I have no need of an interpreter to understand what I say; nor do I need to disambiguate it or fill in whatever was elliptical in it. So I cannot see that my own speech was ever meaningless to me in any sense, even without either of the two sorts of interpretation.

You wrote:

But the question is whether this talk about 'correspondence' adds anything substantial over and above what we can already say just using the notion of truth. If what you mean by 'correspondence' is not meant as an explanation of anything (as you claim) then can we simply drop this words and say everything that you want by using only 'truth'?

Using "correspondence" works best. I am a correspondence theorist, just not one who mistakenly holds that thought/belief formation is existentially contingent upon language or it's acquisition.

I'd like for you to read the following quote. This is the third time it's been posted in this thread.

creative wrote:

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?

Correspondence to fact/reality.


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I'm using the term "correspondence" in as precise a fashion as language allows. On my view, correspondence is presupposed within all rudimentary thought/belief by the very act of drawing a mental correlation between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or oneself;emotional/linguistic state of mind. That 'act' is rudimentary thought/belief formation(cognition). That is as simple as it can sensibly be said to be. All correlation presupposes the very existence of it's own content. All thought/belief consists of correlations being drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's mental/nervous state.

During initial language acquisition, there is no speech forthcoming from the agent/student. Meaning is being built via memory and recollection(also consisting in/of the same such mental correlations). During initial language acquisition, the student can doubt neither the accuracy of it's own physiological sensory perception, nor the accuracy of the very method being learned in order to talk about the world and/or ourselves(where applicable).




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You wrote:

The truth of a proposition or statement requires that the statement has meaning...

Agreed.

...and this requires that the statement or proposition has been interpreted because without interpretation there is no difference between meaningful and meaningless.

Clarity is needed.

Without interpretation a statement would be meaningless to the interpretor.<--------That I would agree to. Interpretation attributes meaning. Not all get it right. However, it does not follow from the fact of an interpretor not successfully grasping the meaning of a statement that the statement in and of itself is meaningless. It cannot be. Statements require meaning. That is precisely what's being interpreted.

Thus... we can find old artifacts and know that they're meaningful, even if we do not grasp it. Even if we do not draw the same correlations as the language users did in past, we can know beyond all reasonable doubt that they drew mental correlations between their own marks/utterances/gestures/etc. and the world and/or themselves.

You wrote:

Therefore the truth of a proposition or statement requires interpretation.

You're failing to properly quantify both truth and meaning. There is more than one kind of each. They all have common denominators.

Some truth requires interpretation. Correspondence with/to fact/reality does not.

Thought/belief formation creates meaning, attributes meaning, interprets meaning, all by virtue of drawing correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent's own mental state. Doing so necessarily presupposes the content of correlation.

Thus, the attribution of meaning presupposes it's own correspondence to fact/reality, by virtue of presupposing the existence of it's own content.

Meta wrote:

If all known instances of truth require meaning, and therefore interpretation because there is no difference between meaningful and meaningless without interpretation, then we can produce the inductive conclusion that all truth requires interpretation. Since this is the case, as no examples to the contrary have been found...

Examples to the contrary are everywhere Meta. You're working from an emaciated notion of thought/belief, and the argument suffers from the fallacy commonly called "affirming the consequent".

All interpretation of statements involves language. Not all thought/belief does. Some is prior, and must be. For there is no ability to learn that this is called "a hand", without necessarily presupposing the existence of this(whatever this may be). One learns that this is called "a hand" by virtue of drawing correlations between this and the utterance.

Interpretation is existentially contingent upon thought/belief, not the other way around. Thought/belief consists entirely in/of mental correlations.

Correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content. That is precisely the emergence of both, truth and meaning, as we know it.

When one is attributing meaning to objects of physiological sensory perception and/or themselves, s/he is doing so by virtue of drawing mental correlations. This does not require being interpreted. A child can burn their fingers for the very first time and involuntarily form thought/belief about those events. Those thought/belief will re-take command their attention the next time the same source of fire arrests their attention. It will command their attention immediately after it happens as well. The child will not voluntarily touch the fire immediately after getting burned. The child will not do so because it has learned that touching fire hurts. It cannot state it's beliefs, and yet it has them none-the-less. It attributed/recognized causality within the event that it found itself in. We know that that's true, regardless of whether or not the child can talk. The attribution/recognition of causality need no language, and yet doing so requires mental correlations be drawn.

That is rudimentary thought/belief.

Attributing/recognizing causality comes very very early on. We've watched it happen long before metacognition has begun in earnest. That's a crucial consideration. Such attribution continues on throughout language use and well into metacognition. The attribution and/or recognition of causality happens through all thinking life, and it does so with varying complexity that is roughly proportional to the complexity of the language being used to do so(when applicable). When there is no language, it is performed by virtue of becoming aware of what's going on around, and much later, within us. We do so, as do all thinking creatures, by virtue of drawing correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself.

By the way, it is crucial to draw and maintain the meaningful distinction between attributing meaning and interpretation. The latter consists entirely of the former, but not the other way around. What else are we interpreting when we interpret statements if not the meaning thereof?

Suspending one's judgment is a wise move when appropriate. Taking that to the extreme is unwise at best. Forming and holding true thought/belief does not require immobility. One can be certain that some belief or other is true without closing off the possibility of it's being wrong. That certainty is warranted when and if it is well-grounded.

Denying that your thought/belief presupposes truth doesn't fare well when held alongside everyday relevant facts to see whether or not it makes sense.

Granting that you believe what you write, then all we would need to do is copy some of those statements, put quotes around them and we would have statements of belief.

What's to be believed about those statements if not that they're true?