It misleads Michael to think that truths only exist when sentences exist. — Banno

I don't think there's anything misleading about this:

1. Truth and falsity are properties of truth-bearers
2. Truth-bearers are features of language, not mind-independent abstract objects

The straightforward conclusion is that if a language does not exist then nothing else that exists has the property of being true or false, much like nothing else that exists has the property of being semantically meaningful.

Note that I'm not saying that if a language does not exist then nothing else exists.

As I mentioned before to frank, I think you're equivocating on the term "truth". When you talk about there being truths in (not at) a world without language you are not using the word "truth" to refer to the property that truth-bearers have, but something else.

As in, you draw a distinction between these two claims:

1. There are truths
2. There are true truth-bearers

Such that "there are truths in a world without language" is true but that "there are true truth-bearers in a world without language" is false.

But compare with drawing a distinction between these two claims:

1. There are falsehoods
2. There are false truth-bearers

Such that "there are falsehoods in a world without language" is true but that "there are false truth-bearers in a world without language" is false.

I don't think that this latter distinction makes any sense, and so I question the sense of the former distinction. If you're not saying that a truth-bearer is true then I don't know what you mean by saying that there is a truth.

Do they exist if language doesn't? This is the core of the issue. If sentences are features of language then even if sentences are abstract my point still stands: if there is no language then nothing has the property of being true or false, much like if there is no language then nothing has the property of being semantically meaningful. — Michael

I understand what you're saying. You're saying truth is a concept that couldn't have been meaningful 50 million years ago because there was no one to recognize any kind of concept. From our point of view, there were rocks and clouds, but those concepts didn't exist then, which means there was no one to observe that they existed.

But even in the absence of an observer, you're saying the rocks and clouds were there, doing what rocks and clouds do.

There's no need to resort to Platonism. — Michael

I think you've already accepted the existence of sentences, so you've accepted a kind of Platonism. Note that this "Platonism" is a term from phil of math. It's not about Plato.

I understand what you're saying. You're saying truth is a concept that couldn't have been meaningful 50 million years ago because there was no one to recognize any kind of concept. From our point of view, there were rocks and clouds, but those concepts didn't exist then, which means there was no one to observe that they existed. — frank

I'm saying that a truth is something like a correct description, that a falsehood is something like "an incorrect description", that descriptions didn't exist 50 million years ago, and so that neither truths nor falsehoods existed 50 million years ago.

Even if you want to claim that descriptions are abstract and not utterances, they still depend on the existence of utterances. Perhaps we might think of them as emergent abstractions.

I'm saying that a truth is something like a correct description, and that descriptions (whether correct or incorrect) didn't exist 50 million years ago. — Michael

Do you have to have those descriptions in hand in order for there to be truth? Where no description is available (say about something across the galaxy), would you say there is no truth?

Do you have to have those descriptions in hand in order for there to be truth? Where no description is available (say about something across the galaxy), would you say there is no truth? — frank

You are asking this question:

Do you have to have those descriptions in hand in order for there to be true descriptions? Where no description is available (say about something across the galaxy), would you say there is no true description?

I don't even understand how to answer such a question. It seems inherently confused.

You are asking this question:

Do you have to have those descriptions in hand in order for there to be true descriptions? Where no description is available (say about something across the galaxy), would you say there is no true description?

I don't even understand how to answer such a question. It's inherently confused. — Michael

There is some state of affairs even when there is no one to describe it, right?

There is some state of affairs even when there is no one to describe it, right? — frank

What do you mean by a state of affairs?

If you're asking if planets exist that haven't been described, then yes. I have explicitly said this many times.

But planets aren't truths and nor is truth a property of planets. Truth (and falsity) is a property of the sentences that describe a planet (or try to).

If you're asking if planets exist that haven't been described, then yes. — Michael

The existence of a planet is a state of affairs. So you accept that there are states of affairs that have not been described.

The existence of a planet is a state of affairs. So you accept that there are states of affairs that have not been described. — frank

Here's a post of mine from six days ago:

And the existence of gold does not depend on us saying "gold exists". — Michael

Here's a post of mine from six days ago:

And the existence of gold does not depend on us saying "gold exists".
— Michael — Michael

Ok. So you accept that some state of affairs obtains in the absence of anyone to describe it. I don't really know what the practical implications of your view are.

I don't really know what the practical implications of your view are. — frank

There aren't any. This was never meant as some deep, substantive philosophical point. I was simply explaining the ordinary grammar of the word "true". Which is why I don't understand why I have faced such fervent opposition.

It's almost as if you and other think I'm saying something I'm not.

I really think that this post (also from six days ago) is pretty clear.

The traditional view is that there are truth-makers and truth-bearers. Truth and falsehood are properties of truth-bearers, not properties of truth-makers, and not the truth-makers themselves.

If the appropriate truth-maker exists/occurs then the truth-bearer is true, otherwise the truth-bearer is false.

A truth-maker can exist even if a truth-bearer doesn't, but if a truth-bearer doesn't exist then nothing exists that has the property of being either true (correct/accurate) or false (incorrect/inaccurate). — Michael

I was simply explaining the ordinary grammar of the word "true". — Michael

Maybe that's how you use the word, but to my ears, if you say nothing was true 60 million years ago, it sounds like an anti-realist stance. If there were obtaining states of affairs back then, then you're picturing that world as if a human actually was observing it, dividing it up the way humans do, although I'm sure you'd disagree with this?

Anyway, I was just trying to categorize your view. I don't object unless I see a contradiction. I don't think there is one, you're just insisting on a certain usage of "true." :up:

I'd say the problem is that you want to put truth on one side and actuality on the other, but they are so closely related that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein treats them as different words for the same thing: the possibility of the book being on the table can be expressed in words, in a picture, in a model, or in the physical fact of the book being on the table.

It is because these are different modalities of expressing the same thing that one can be a picture of another. Going the other way, it's also the reason you can build the building depicted in a drawing.

Truth and being cannot be separated as you want.