- Nah, you are just begging the question again. That "truth" is a meta-truth of the possible world space that we are conceptualizing, not necessarily a truth internal to that world.

If you think that a world without any minds has the truth that there are no minds, then we have another example where you hold that there can be truths without minds. This is the overstepping of transcendence that I spoke of earlier.

But I am saying that. — Wayfarer

Sorry, I committed and then fixed a bad typo, but apparently not quickly enough. Cannot can.

I *think* we more or less understand each other, no?

I'm having trouble parsing this one — Wayfarer

That knowledge cannot exist absent minds isn't in dispute. It doesn't raise a problem for the 'truth requires a mind' thesis.

It is the thesis that truth requires mind that seems to face a problem, for that theory entails that if no minds exist, there are no truths (yet it seems metaphysically for there to be no minds yet for there to be truths, for something can exist and not be a mind, and under such circumstances it would be true that it exists.

But you can't split them. You're trying to divide or separate knowledge from what is real. I say it's because you're taking a view above or outside both the subject (you) and the object (world) - or trying to (cf Nagel's 'view from nowhere'). — Wayfarer

It is interesting that Banno looks like a Platonist, with self-subsistent truths floating independently of any minds. There is something about this that is resonant with analytic philosophy, and in particular its pre-critically scientistic metaphysics. This is curiously on-point for your project.

It is the thesis that truth requires mind that seems to face a problem, for that theory entails that if no minds exist, there are no truths (yet it seems metaphysically for there to be no minds yet for there to be truths, for something can exist and not be a mind, and under such circumstances it would be true that it exists. — Clearbury

Thanks, that helps me understand what you're driving at. The problem is, I think it is far from clear what 'mind' is. I think we instinctively believe that minds are the attributes of persons, which is a reasonable thing to believe. It's certainly the naturalist view.

...self-subsistent truths floating independently of any minds. — Leontiskos

I take Banno to be advocating metaphysical realism as defined in SEP (article previously cited in this thread). I don't think it's a pejorative description, even though I don't agree with it. It's probably held by the majority of people.

To some extent, we're all Platonists, considering that Plato is foundational to the culture. But the point which I would make is that truth statements (including true propositions) can only be known by minds. They're not the product of your or my mind but can only be grasped by a mind. Our minds are held together on the level of meaning by grasp of intelligible ideas - the 'ligatures of reason'. But they're not materially existent, so they can't be 'free floating' in the way that asteroids are. They're part of our 'meaning-world' through which asteroids and the like are interpreted.

But you can't split them. — Wayfarer

Knowledge and truth? Well, perhaps you can't. That's one of the odd consequences of treating truth as a propositional attitude. So much the worse for your ideas. For the rest of us, there is a difference between what is true and what is known. You know, everything we know is true, some stuff we think we know is actually false, in which case we are mistaken about knowing it, there are truths we don't know, the usual stuff.

That idea that objectivity is taking the view from above or outside is passé. There was that walk we had in the mountains...

It is interesting that Banno looks like a Platonist, with self-subsistent truths floating independently of any minds. — Leontiskos

Again, fabricating stuff. Try reading.

The Timeless Wave. I don't think it is really 'mystical' although it does consider the idea of what is outside space-time.) — Wayfarer

I would actually say this article is more or less exactly what was meant by mystical in the video.

(This is also represented by constructive empiricism, as advocated by Bas Van Fraassen — Wayfarer

I'm not sure I would agree unless there is some further record of Van Fraassen talking about this topic. But I feel like the fact that his view takes the meaning of unobservable scientific theories in a semantically literal sense is not really in line with the kind of view you're saying. I think what you say is more similar to logical positivists who are more stringent that meaning in scientific theories is tied to observability.

I take Banno to be advocating metaphysical realism as defined in SEP — Wayfarer

No.

Going back to the main point I'd like to make here, one can be a realist in one area and an anti-realistin another. So for my part, I've argued against typical examples of anti-realism such as pragmatic theory, logical positivism, transcendental idealism and Berkeley's form of idealism. I have however also defended a constructivist view of mathematics, an anti-realist position; and off-handedly rejected realism in ethics and aesthetics. — Banno

Leon seems not to have made it past the middle ages, seeing everyone in terms of Plato or Aristotle. That wouldn't be an issue, if he engaged with what is actually being said.

I think what you say is more similar to logical positivists who are more stringent that meaning in scientific theories is tied to observability. — Apustimelogist

I've noticed some similarity with my position and positivism, but I hate positivism. They have no spirit, they're all logic-chopping automatons. It was when Neils Bohr lectured the Vienna Circle and none of them asked any questions, that he exclaimed 'if you're not shocked by quantum physics, then you can't have understood (the lecture).'

You know, everything we know is true, some stuff we think we know is actually false, in which case we are mistaken about knowing it, there are truths we don't know, the usual stuff. — Banno

I've addressed those objections.

My take: ordinary language philosophy rejected idealism, thereafter concerning itself wholly with what can be meaningfully said. Did I miss anything?

By the way - have you encountered Jerrold Katz?

Jerrold J. Katz offers a radical reappraisal of the "linguistic turn" in twentieth-century philosophy. He shows that the naturalism that emerged to become the dominant philosophical position was never adequately proved. Katz critiques the major arguments for contemporary naturalism and develops a new conception of the naturalistic fallacy. This conception, inspired by Moore, explains why attempts to naturalize linguistics and logic, and perhaps ethics, will fail. He offers a Platonist view of such disciplines, justifying it as the best explanation of their autonomy, their objectivity, and their normativity. — Metaphysics of Meaning

I tried it, but I'm not familiar enough with what he's criticizing to make much headway.

I've addressed those objections. — Wayfarer

Sure. Not to my satisfaction, obviously. OLP doesn't reject idealism so much as bypass it.

I think 'ignore' would be more appropriate, but I'll let it go.

I think 'ignore' would be more appropriate, but I'll let it go. — Wayfarer

You know that analytic philosophy has its roots in critique of Hegel and Kant, so your saying it ignores idealism is no more than a rhetorical gesture.

You know that analytic philosophy has its roots in critique of Hegel and Kant, — Banno

I think 'rejection' would be more like it. I think the European philosophers' (existentialism, phenomenology) is more of a critique. The latter drew explicitly on Kant, while also critiquing him. But then, I'm also sympathetic to the //criticism of the// daunting verbosity of idealism, especially German.

But there something I would like to spell out. I’m not saying the world is 'all in the mind', but rather that the world as we experience and understand it is always mediated by the structures of the mind. Kant’s insight was that we can be empirical realists, recognizing a shared and objective reality in the phenomenal world, and fully cognisant of natural science, while also being transcendental idealists, acknowledging that reality-as-we-know-it is inextricably bound up with the mind’s conditions of knowledge. The mind doesn’t invent the world but provides the framework within which it appears intelligibly to us. //and I think that is actually a gesture of intellectual humility, incongruous though that might seem.//

Seems to me the European philosophers understand that in a way that the Anglo philosophers don't. I hope in saying that we can agree on what we disagree about.

I think 'rejection' would be more like it. — Wayfarer

Come on. Strawson's Bounds of Sense.

...the world as we experience and understand it is always mediated by the structures of the mind. — Wayfarer

You say such things to me, yes, but in other posts you tend towards a much more stringent - even strident - idealism. You invoke the thing-in-itself, which is a nonsense. Even worse, a little while ago, your posited that the world might be constructed by mind out of nothing... so not even the unintelligible thing-in-itself.

That's one of the issues here - that what you are espousing is subject to fluctuation. While that makes critique difficult, it does show that you are still wrestling with the issues.

So we have at least one truth. — Banno

What some are saying is that "a truth" means "a true proposition" and "a falsehood" means "a false proposition", that a proposition requires a language, and that a language requires a mind.

This is not to say that a mind is sufficient; only that it is necessary. The (often mind-independent) thing that the proposition describes is also necessary (to determine whether or not the proposition is a truth or a falsehood).

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions.

So the claim is that when all life dies out there will be gold in Boorara but no truths or falsehoods because there will be no propositions. — Michael

Question asked out of curiosity. In your view, if you imagined a hypothetical completely fictional observer of Boorara, and you imagined them as having a fully formed grasp of the English language and the cultural contexts required for its use... If they then said, "There is gold in Boorara", it would be true?

So I'm asking:
1 ) Take the world without humans.
2 ) Imagine that nevertheless one human existed.
3 ) Get that human to look at Boorara.
4 ) Imagine that human asserts "There is gold in Boorara".

The assertion in ( 4 ) would then be a true assertion, right? But there were no asserters in ( 1 ), so no assertions, so no true assertions. But that process still gives you a roundabout way of mapping a state of affairs (the gold being in Boorara) to an assertion ("There is gold in Boorara"), albeit now through modal contexts.

Not defending "mind independent" truth here. just asking.

Well, instead of a sentence we could consider a painting.

Obviously if there was someone around to paint the landscape then there could be an accurate (or inaccurate) painting, but it doesn’t make sense to talk about there being an accurate painting if there is nobody to paint the landscape.

I’m not sure what purpose there is in imagining a painter being there.

A proposition can be assessed at a possible world, which might be the actual world. The proposition isn't inside the world. Propositions don't have location or temporal extension.

A proposition can be assessed at a possible world, which might be the actual world. The proposition isn't inside the world. Propositions don't have location or temporal extension. — frank

I’m not a Platonist, I don’t believe in the existence of abstract entities. There are just meaningful sentences that we describe using the adjectives “true” and “false” when certain other conditions are satisfied.

Any talk of there being true propositions in a world without language is mystical mumbo-jumbo.

Outside the use of propositions, the options for realists is limited. You can do Davidson, but it's pretty convoluted. Your best bet is probably truth anti-realism, which means the truth predicate has a social function and nothing more.

I don't know how you come to that conclusion. I think you're overthinking it.

There's gold in Boorara. If I say "there's gold in Boorara" then what I say is true. If nobody is alive to say "there's gold in Boorara" then there's still gold in Boorara even though nothing true is being said by anyone.

You're doing what I said, which is making an assertion at a possible world. Asserting P is the same thing as saying that P is true.

I think what you're trying to describe is truth anti-realism, where truth is meaningless outside acts of speech. That's fine, but you can't be a metaphysical realist that way. If you're good with that, then cool.

Plus that's not what Wayfarer is saying.

You're doing what I said, which is making an assertion at a possible world. Asserting P is the same thing as saying that P is true. — frank

You're not paying attention to tense.

1. It will rain tomorrow
2. "It will rain tomorrow" is true
3. "It is raining" will be true tomorrow

(1) and (2) are the same, but (3) is different. This is more apparent with a different example:

1. All languages will die out eventually
2. "All language will die out eventually" is true
3. "All languages are dead" will be true eventually

(1) and (2) are the same, but (3) is different. (1) and (2) are true but (3) is false because an English-language sentence that asserts that all languages are dead contradicts itself.

So in our case:

1. Gold will exist after languages die out
2. "Gold will exist after languages die out" is true
3. "Gold exists" is true after languages die out

(1) and (2) are the same, but (3) is different. (1) and (2) are true but (3) is false. "Gold exists" cannot be true after languages die out because "Gold exists" cannot exist after languages die out.

All languages will die out eventually, and when they do no true propositions will exist; — Michael

You shouldn't use "proposition" if you don't accept it's meaning. For you, a truth bearer is an utterance, because you need someone to actually speak for truth to exist. You're just going to foment confusion if you don't pay attention to how the terms are used.

One does not need to believe that propositions are abstract entities that continue to exist even after the death of all life to talk about propositions.

One does not need to believe that propositions are abstract entities that continue to exist even after the death of all life to talk about propositions. — Michael

The word proposition has a technical meaning in philosophy. It's along the lines of content. It reflects the way a realist talks about the world. She speaks of unspoken truths, for instance. We seek the truth about Pluto's atmosphere, and so on.

No one really cares what sort of "existence" propositions have. We talk about them as a way of handling analysis of the way we think. We do, in keeping with Frege, refer to them as abstract objects, which signifies that they are not necessarily mental objects that are held in the mind at a certain time and place.

If @TonesInDeepFreeze was here, he could go off on you endlessly about how stubborn you're being in the face of what the SEP explains about it.

Yes, the word "proposition" has a technical meaning in philosophy, but that meaning does not entail Platonism. See for example the section titled "The Nature and Status of Propositions" where they discuss various conceptualist arguments against the claim that propositions "exist in the absence of all mental states."

Maybe you disagree with conceptualists, but they are quite welcome to talk about propositions without committing to Platonism.

Maybe you disagree with conceptualists, but they are quite welcome to talk about propositions without committing to Platonism. — Michael

Conceptualists are concerned with the make-up of possible worlds. They're often thought of as sets of propositions, but a conceptualist wants to say they're sets of properties. If you notice, the SEP article explains that conceptualists end up being Platonic about properties instead of propositions. I first came by the idea of possible worlds by way of Kripke, so I don't worry over this issue. Possible worlds are logical constructs.

Anyway, the next two sections express the view that it's no big deal that propositions are abstract objects. We need them to come somewhere close to describing the way we think, so don't put the ontological cart before the necessary donkey.

Since you're liking the conceptualist approach, I'm assuming you accept that we're really talking about the existence of gold in a possible world. Right?

Wait, am I hallucinating or did you edit your post? I can't find the statement I was objecting to.