Philosophy is a meta-cognitive art form more than a science which aims to clarify that "big picture" of the whole of reality. — Agustino

philosophy doesn't help with that.

philosophy doesn't help with that. — The Great Whatever

Now you're changing your tune though. Previously you only claimed that philosophy doesn't produce any knowledge (or almost no knowledge).

Now it seems you're taking the very Humean position that we need to stop thinking about it and go play some billiards and we'll see the world aright :D

no, you don't stop thinking, you go study whatever it is you want to know about. philosophy has nothing to contribute to the special sciences.

no, you don't stop thinking, you go study whatever it is you want to know about. — The Great Whatever

This presupposes once again that philosophy ought to teach us some new knowledge, and we both agreed that there is no such knowledge to be gained out of philosophy right? So to say we don't stop thinking (but we do stop philosophising) in order to go study whatever it is we want to know about is problematic. It underlines that we were thinking that we're studying philosophy in order to know something, which isn't the case.

philosophy has nothing to contribute to the special sciences. — The Great Whatever

Of course! So what?

Philosophy is meta-cognitive. It doesn't add to cognition, but it can help you see things aright.

yep. so what's the matter? do you dissent to anything i've said? notice that i introduced truth with no reference to verification. so if what i say is trivial, you can't be right. you must haver made a mistake somewhere. — The Great Whatever

That it's raining if it's raining isn't inconsistent with the claim that "it's raining" must have recognisable truth conditions for it to be mean something.

Just because your claim here isn't wrong it doesn't then mean that it's an exhaustive account of the issue. It's a common response to semantic theories of truth, for example, that even though they're right, they require supplementary theories. How do we "cash out" the right-hand side of the biconditional claim that 'it's raining' is true iff it's raining?

Realism, according to Dummett, allows for a people to have a statement in their language that means "it is raining" without understanding that water falling from the clouds would verify their assertion. Wittgenstein, according to Dummett, doesn't allow for this. Therefore, Wittgenstein, according to Dummett, doesn't allow for realism.

That it's raining if it's raining isn't inconsistent with the claim that "it's raining" must have recognisable truth conditions for it to be mean something. — Michael

what are the truth conditions for "it's raining?" surely this is true iff it's raining. but as we just agreed, it's raining iff water is falling from the sky, and as we just showed, this has nothing to do with verification.

but it can help you see things aright. — Agustino

no it can't.

what are the truth conditions for "it's raining?" surely this is true iff it's raining. but as we just agreed, it's raining iff water is falling from the sky, and as we just showed, this has nothing to do with verification. — The Great Whatever

The truth conditions are recognizable, whatever they are. We know what they would be. If we didn't then we wouldn't know what "it's raining" means. "It's raining" wouldn't be a meaningful sentence in our language.

no it can't. — The Great Whatever

You blame your opponents for just repeating themselves and saying no, but if what you say here is true, then you're doing just the same! — Agustino

yes, we recognize that 'it's raining' is true iff it's raining. this has nothing to do with verification.

i demonstrate by example; you think no more clearly about 'the whole' for having studied philosophy, nor has anyone i'm aware of.

i demonstrate by example — The Great Whatever

Oh, that is indeed one thing we have in common ;)

Given that there's some use to it inside the simulation, it doesn't matter what's happening (or isn't happening) outside the simulation. The external world "drops out of consideration as irrelevant", as the author of the article in the OP says. — Michael

By this account, you've identified 3 levels of reality: (1) what you experience, (2) what immediately causes the experience (you call this "the simulator), and (3) what's really out there (you call this "the external world").

External world --> Simulation --> Perception

When I see the cup, you claim it's caused by the simulator. We don't know what causes the simulator to simulate, and we don't really understand why the simulator causes the same experiences in each person. We just know that it does. The external world is therefore deemed pragmatically irrelevant so we ignore it.

The external world, though, is not truly irrelevant because we know that the simulator was caused by something (because everything has a cause), and that something must be something in the external world. So, on a meta-analysis, the external world is relevant, but, in day to day communication, it's pragmatically irrelevant.

What has been set out here just strikes me as basic indirect realism. There is the object out there. By the time it finds its way into your consciousness, it has been transformed by all sorts of things from light, gravity, air, the composition of your eye, and the interpretive ability of your brain.

External World --> Transformation --> Perception

You say "simulation," I say "transformation," but they are the same. By the time the thing gets to your consciousness, there's no reason to think (or care) if it bears any meaningful relationship to the original thing out there. All we can say is that we have received a simulation in our heads and it was caused by something in the external world, but what that something is, we have no idea of. That thing in itself is beyond the limits of what we can know. All of this is just a basic definition of noumena.

What has been set out here just strikes me as basic indirect realism. There is the object out there. By the time it finds its way into your consciousness, it has been transformed by all sorts of things from light, gravity, air, the composition of your eye, and the interpretive ability of your brain. — Hanover

This isn't about perception, which is why it isn't indirect realism. It's about meaning. The same argument can apply even if direct realism is the case. The point of the simulation analogy is that the external world has no bearing on what the people in the simulation mean by "it is raining", even if the simulation is an exact representation of the external world.

So imagine a simulation in two different possible worlds. The simulations are identical but the external worlds in each are different. In one of these worlds the simulation is an exact representation of the external world and in the other the simulation is entirely different. Given the premise that meaning is use, the phrase "it is raining" in the first simulation means the same thing as the phrase "it is raining" in the second simulation, and so the phrases in both simulations have the same truth conditions; namely what is happening in the simulation. And if it's raining in the simulation then the phrase "it is raining" is true. Whether or not it is also raining in the external world isn't relevant.

However, looking back at this, I wonder if this is actually closer to Putnam's related remarks on the subject (his brain in a vat argument) rather than Dummett's. It might not quite be the right analogy to explain the emphasised part of the original quotation, which I think is better addressed with my question here.

This isn't about perception, which is why it isn't indirect realism. It's about meaning. The same argument can apply even if direct realism is the case. The point of the simulation analogy is that the external world has no bearing on what the people in the simulation mean by "it is raining", even if the simulation is an exact representation of the external world. — Michael

This just makes no sense to me. You can't say it's not about perception, but only about meaning, when the only meaning you're interested in is the meaning of the perception. We've already broken this down to clarify that the perception isn't equivalent to the meta-meta reality of the external world, but only the meta-reality of the simulator, but this whole inquiry is in figuring out what the products of the simulator mean to the perceivers.

Whether or not it is also raining in the external world isn't relevant. — Michael

I get all this, but that doesn't address my point. My point is that the simulator was caused by the external world. It had to be because it was caused by something. The external world is therefore relevant as the cause of the simulator, but irrelevant to the pragmatic question of what you're currently perceiving. That is, whether the simulator bears a direct relationship to the external world doesn't matter to the truth value of a proposition if the truth value you're measuring is that of the simulator. When I say "it is raining," I mean "according to the simulator, it is raining," so the truth value of "it is raining" is evaluated entirely upon what the simulator is indicating. To suggest otherwise would be asking the question whether we were having a noumenal rainstorm.

I get all this, but that doesn't address my point. My point is that the simulator was caused by the external world. It had to be because it was caused by something. The external world is therefore relevant as the cause of the simulator, but irrelevant to the pragmatic question of what you're currently perceiving. — Hanover

It's not relevant in the relevant sense. Yes, there's a causal connection (maybe; perhaps the simulator is protected from the external world rain and so the external world rain has nothing to do with the simulator at all), but that has nothing to do with what "it is raining" means inside the simulation.

As an example, given that I've caught a ball, you having thrown it at me is relevant in one sense (it is causally responsible for me having caught the ball), but it has nothing to do with what I mean when I say "this is a ball".

Yeah, but we agree to this point entirely. The "external world" as you use it is the noumena, as I've said, and positing any meaning or relevance to it other than that which cannot be known is to misuse the term. It's whatever is out there beyond our interpretative powers, but it is assumed it establishes reality in some regard.

The real issue I have is in the first part of my post, which is the crux of my belief that this "meaning is use" talk is nonsense to the extent it's an attempt to eliminate metaphysics from the conversation by suggesting that everything can be explained away by reference to how we use language. Your simulator discussion was in fact a metaphysical discussion, and it correlated meaning to reality, to the extent you defined reality as the products of the simulator.

Your simulator discussion was in fact a metaphysical discussion, and it correlated meaning to reality, to the extent you defined reality as the products of the simulator. — Hanover

I didn't mean it like that (and nor did Dummett, as far as I'm aware). Rather it's the lesser claim that the world talked about (by the people in the simulation) is a product of the simulator, and anything else that we as outside observers can see happening in the external world isn't a truth condition for anything said inside the simulation. It's the notion that words can "reach out" beyond their practical use that doesn't sit well (with Wittgenstein at least). Such a metaphysical notion of reference/correspondence is problematic. Although, again, I wonder if this is actually encroaching on Putnam's territory.

You say "simulation," I say "transformation," but they are the same. By the time the thing gets to your consciousness, there's no reason to think (or care) if it bears any meaningful relationship to the original thing out there. All we can say is that we have received a simulation in our heads and it was caused by something in the external world, but what that something is, we have no idea of. That thing in itself is beyond the limits of what we can know. All of this is just a basic definition of noumena. — Hanover

To say that something is a "transformation" of " the original thing out there", or that it is "caused" by it is to make an assertion that it has a "meaningful relationship" to, or with, it.

If the meaning of a statement is existentially contingent upon a known verification/falsification method, then there are no meaningful unverifiable statements.

But there are.

Thus, it is not the case that the meaning of a statement is existentially contingent upon a known verification/falsification method.


If the meaning of a statement is existentially contingent upon a known verification/falsification method, then either our knowledge of verification/falsification methodology emerges prior to our ability to name things or naming things includes knowledge of verification/falsification methodology.

But it doesn't.

Thus, it is not the case that the meaning of a statement is existentially contingent upon a known verification/falsification method.

Bewitchment.

Why isn't this a topic about pragmatism and the latter Wittgenstein? — Posty McPostface

Let's.

Let's say something can be true whether you know it or not, whether you even can know it or not, either in principle or just as a matter of fact.

So what? If it's something we can't know, who cares? Now let's grant @The Great Whatever's claim that something can affect you even if you cannot possibly know it does.

What we can still say is this: if there is something, which we cannot know, that affects us, and we cannot know this, we cannot act in response, not in any rational way I can think of.

Even if you happened to enunciate that such a state of affairs holds, through sheer luck, you couldn't know that you had, you couldn't convince others, you couldn't learn more, form a plan of action, nothing.

Such a truth would be a truth we cannot rationally act on.

Dummett's argument concludes that the principle of bivalence be rejected because we cannot always recognize whether or not a statement is true/false. The principle of bivalence only says that all statements are determinately true/false, not that we can recognize them as such. The criterion for being determinately true/false is remarkably different than being recognized as true/false. Dummett conflates the two. I see no reason to think/believe that Witt's writing leads to that or suffers from the same.


That's it in a nutshell...

Dummett's argument concludes that the principle of bivalence be rejected because we cannot always recognize whether or not a statement is true/false. — creativesoul

That's approaching the level of making a metaphysical claim. I see no grounds to assert that. There's a bigger issue at play though. Does everything have to be demonstrably true or false for it to be real? I don't think so... Just look at numbers or other abstract entities.

From the OP

The principal connection with metaphysics is via the notion of bivalence—the semantic principle that every statement is determinately true or false. If the truth of our statements depended on the obtaining of a worldy state of affairs (as the realist maintains), then our statements would have to be determinately true or false, according to whether or not that state of affairs obtained. However, given that we cannot guarantee that every statement is recognisable as true or recognisable as false, we are only entitled to this principle if our notion of truth is recognition-transcendent. By the above argument, it is not, and hence bivalence must be rejected and metaphysical anti-realism follows (Dummett 1963).

However, given that we cannot guarantee that every statement is recognisable as true or recognisable as false, we are only entitled to this principle if our notion of truth is recognition-transcendent. By the above argument, it is not, and hence bivalence must be rejected and metaphysical anti-realism follows (Dummett 1963)

That's not entirely true. Godel's incompleteness theorem asserts that there are some propositions within a system that cannot be proven inside that system (such as the consistency of said system), thus implying a sort of recognition-transcendence. Or not?

Godel's target was inductive logic, right?

Knowing the truth conditions of 'X' guarantees knowing what 'X' means. However, it is not the other way around.

"This is a hand"

Learning what that means requires thought/belief. Learning what makes it true requires thinking about thought/belief.

So what? If it's something we can't know, who cares? — Srap Tasmaner

may of the things ppl car emost deeply about are things they don't have any way of figuring out. so in answer to your question, everyone

i mean just a beyond obvious example, we have no way of figuring out if the abrahamic god exists (let's say), but the matter is of extreme importance for one's fate after death

Godel's target was inductive logic, right? — creativesoul

Well, it is true for any formal system. Again, making the distinction between believing a proposition is true from it actually being true. For all else, redundancy in truth value or meaning.

Yes. And in fact Dummett was a devout Roman Catholic, iirc.

I was aiming for, let's say, "strategic overstatement", but I think I wound up with bollocks instead.

Unknowability just doesn't look like a big deal in this context. People act on what they believe to be true, or even believe to be probable, and either is rational. You could even know, for a fact, that a proposition has arbitrarily high probability of being true without knowing that it is true; that's surely rational grounds to act on.

I'm still thinking about other ways to approach the OP, but this doesn't look like one ...