JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Consul »

Astro Cat wrote: June 29th, 2022, 1:35 am @Consul

I guess what I'm wondering is that normally when we make statements like "a is F," we're observing a property and reporting it. When I touch a towel I report that it's not wet, I don't know how to ask this, but why does this seem like I'm doing the same thing that I would do when I touch the towel and report that it's soft?
You can perceive that the towel isn't wet, but not by perceiving its nonwetness as a real negative property of it.
You can see that the room is empty, but not by seeing its emptiness as a real negative property of it.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Leontiskos »

Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:51 pmI'm convinced that there are no negative or "privative" entities of any ontological kind: Existence is positive!
Absences, lacks, and omissions aren't entities.

Someone might object: Wait a minute! Can't an absence or lack of oxygen kill me? If it can, it must be something rather than nothing, since nonentities cannot cause anything.
Well, although a person's death can depend counterfactually on an absence of oxygen—in the sense that the person wouldn't have died if oxygen hadn't been absent—, there is no efficient causation by the absent oxygen in terms of chemical/physical force or energy. For what causes your death in the event of an absence of oxygen is not the absent oxygen (as a negative entity) but the collapse of your life-sustaining functions which depend physiologically on oxygen.
Astro Cat wrote: June 29th, 2022, 12:01 amOn your view, then, when I say that the towel is dry, is that not true?
It is first important to distinguish privation from absence. Privation is the absence of something that is due, whereas absence is just absence simpliciter. That my car does not have wheels is a privation. That my car does not have teeth is a mere absence. As Aquinas says:

As was said above (Article 1), evil imports the absence of good. But not every absence of good is evil. For absence of good can be taken in a privative and in a negative sense. Absence of good, taken negatively, is not evil; otherwise, it would follow that what does not exist is evil, and also that everything would be evil, through not having the good belonging to something else; for instance, a man would be evil who had not the swiftness of the roe, or the strength of a lion. But the absence of good, taken in a privative sense, is an evil; as, for instance, the privation of sight is called blindness. (Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Question 48, Article 3)

(Note that for Aquinas goodness maps to being and evil maps to non-being, and evil is defined as a privation of good)

Whether we consider the dryness of the towel a privation or a mere absence is a matter of semantics, because the towel is an artifact and has no natural (substantial) form. The further complication asks whether "dry" merely means "not wet," which is not a given. I believe it is this latter complication that makes the towel case curious.


Regarding the question of truthmakers, it seems clear to me that an absence can make a proposition true, and that the proposition will yet not be true in virtue of any positively existing entity. In the case of mere absence we would seem to be asserting that some counterfactual has not obtained.

In the case of both absences and privations we attribute being or existence only in an analogical or metaphorical way (e.g. "There was thick darkness," is something like a poetic way of expressing a very complete absence of light). In the case of privation the property (or pseudo-property, if you wish) has a firmer analogical existence than in the case of absence. For example, "The man is blind," expresses a privation rather than an absence, and the blindness--although not a being in itself--will always be able to be traced back to being. That is to say, privations like blindness have causes, whereas absences need not have causes.

As the Philosopher says (Metaph. v, text 14), being is twofold. In one way it is considered as signifying the entity of a thing, as divisible by the ten "[Categories]"; and in that sense it is convertible with thing, and thus no privation is a being, and neither therefore is evil a being. In another sense being conveys the truth of a proposition which unites together subject and attribute by a copula, notified by this word "is"; and in this sense being is what answers to the question, "Does it exist?" and thus we speak of blindness as being in the eye; or of any other privation. In this way even evil can be called a being. Through ignorance of this distinction some, considering that things may be evil, or that evil is said to be in things, believed that evil was a positive thing in itself. (Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Question 48, Article 2, Reply to Objection 2)
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Leontiskos »

Astro Cat wrote: June 29th, 2022, 1:35 am @Consul

I guess what I'm wondering is that normally when we make statements like "a is F," we're observing a property and reporting it. When I touch a towel I report that it's not wet, I don't know how to ask this, but why does this seem like I'm doing the same thing that I would do when I touch the towel and report that it's soft?
Because not-wetness and softness are two different things. There are some fabrics on which moisture is very difficult to detect, but towels are made of fabrics which correlate softness to non-wetness, and this is why it is very easy to detect not-wetness on towels. Yet what you find desirable about a "dry" towel may well be its softness rather than its not-wetness.

Beyond that, it seems to me that Consul's analytic philosophy is importing some subtle psychological theories about cognition and perception. Logically speaking an empty room is not something we experience, but is it not so clear that the human psyche or human cognition cannot positively identify an empty room. Logically we might explain this in terms of things like spatial awareness or air flow, but one must argue for the conclusion that the psychological perception is reducible or filtered through logical reasoning, rather than take it as an assumption. This is an example of one of the places where analytic philosophy becomes fraught, even in spite of its merits.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Peter Holmes »

Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pmThanks. I understand the logical sense of 'tautology'. And my point stands. The metalinguistic sentence is just a sentence, and its truth-predicate does nothing to disguise the fact that it's the same sentence either side of the biconditional, cited on the left and simply asserted on the right.
Yes, in "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white we have sentence-tokens of the same sentence-type on the left and on the right—so what? There is still a translinguistic reference on the right. Non-metalinguistic reference isn't a word-word relation but a word-world relation.
But the nature of 'translinguistic reference' is what we're arguing about - the nature of the relation between the assertion and what it asserts. And my point is there's absolutely no correspondence between them - in the sense of 'A close similarity, connection, or equivalence'. The 'relation', such as it is, is entirely one-way. And recognising that fact is crucial for understanding how signs mean things - what we do when we use signs.
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pmThe idea that we can use language to get outside language is a delusion. And logic deals with language, not the reality outside language. This is why I think we have to make a sharp distinction between features of reality and what we say about them. Muddling them up has led and leads to no end of philosophical confusion - witness correspondence and truth-maker/bearer theories.
Truth does deal with "the reality outside language"; and we can and do use linguistic entities to represent and refer to nonlinguistic entities.
Notice your substitution of 'truth' for 'logic' in my assertion. Truth and falsehood are values in classical binary logic. And any logic deals with what can be said consistently, without (defined) contradiction. Your claim, that 'Truth does deal with "the reality outside language" ' is incoherent. My point stands: logic deals with language, not the reality outside language. (Other discourses deal with reality, such as the natural sciences.)

Of course, there is a distinction between properties of (linguistic or nonlinguistic) representations and properties of what they represent. Snow is cold, the adjective "cold" isn't.
And why is 'snow is cold' true? Is it because what we call snow is what we call cold? (Hamstering in the wheel.)
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Consul »

Peter Holmes wrote: June 30th, 2022, 5:46 am
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmYes, in "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white we have sentence-tokens of the same sentence-type on the left and on the right—so what? There is still a translinguistic reference on the right. Non-metalinguistic reference isn't a word-word relation but a word-world relation.
But the nature of 'translinguistic reference' is what we're arguing about - the nature of the relation between the assertion and what it asserts. And my point is there's absolutely no correspondence between them - in the sense of 'A close similarity, connection, or equivalence'. The 'relation', such as it is, is entirely one-way. And recognising that fact is crucial for understanding how signs mean things - what we do when we use signs.
Charles Peirce famously distinguishes between three basic kinds of representation or signs:

1. iconic signs (icons), where there is some resemblance or similarity between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. a photography or a realistic painting.

2. indexical signs (indexes), where there is some physical (causal) connection between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. tree rings as indexes of a tree's age, weather vanes as indexes of the direction of the wind.

3. symbolic signs (symbols), where there is only a conventional relation between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. linguistic signs (words, sentences).

"A symbol is a sign which represents an object by virtue of having a character imputed to it by an operation of the interpreting mind."

"…Symbols, or those signs which represent their objects simply because they will be interpreted to refer to those objects…"

"The word “Symbol” will in this book be used as the common name for that class of Signs which represent, to those that can interpret them, the objects they do quite regardless of any resemblances to them (although such may have influenced the original choice of the signs), and equally so of any actual connexions therewith, (however close such connexions there may be,) but solely because those interpreters have habits of mind, whether inherited or acquired, that lead them whenever they perceive the signs straightway to think of those Objects."

Charles Peirce: http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/symbol

Although symbolic signs, especially linguistic ones, don't "correspond to/with" their (intentional) objects by virtue of similarity or a causal connection, they can still be used to represent and to refer to nonlinguistic entities.

Truth according to the so-called correspondence theory of truth is to be understood as true (correct, accurate) representation, which doesn't require a similarity or causal connection to what is represented by the representation. Symbolic representations such as declarative sentences are true iff things are as they represent them to be, and they don't depend for their truth on resembling or being causally connected to what they represent.
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pm
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmTruth does deal with "the reality outside language"; and we can and do use linguistic entities to represent and refer to nonlinguistic entities.
Notice your substitution of 'truth' for 'logic' in my assertion. Truth and falsehood are values in classical binary logic. And any logic deals with what can be said consistently, without (defined) contradiction. Your claim, that 'Truth does deal with "the reality outside language" ' is incoherent. My point stands: logic deals with language, not the reality outside language. (Other discourses deal with reality, such as the natural sciences.)
Frege defines logic as "the science of the most general laws of truth", and Lukasiewicz defines it as "the science of logical values" (i.e. truth-values); but are logical truths really about nothing but formal relations between sentences (propositions)? For example, isn't the logical law of non-contradiction also about nonlinguistic reality, in the sense that a worldly state of affairs cannot both obtain and not obtain at the same time. That is, isn't the law of non-contradiction also an ontological law concerning reality as a whole?

QUOTE>
"Like ethics, logic can also be called a normative science. How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth? We expect logic to give us the answer to this question, but we do not demand of it that it should go into what is peculiar to each branch of knowledge and its subject matter. On the contrary, the task we assign logic is only that of saying what holds with the utmost generality for all thinking, whatever its subject matter. We must assume that the rules for our thinking and for our holding something to be true are prescribed by the laws of truth. The former are given along with the latter. Consequently we can also say: logic is the science of the most general laws of truth."

(Frege, Gottlob. "Logic." 1897. In The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney, 227-250. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. p. 228)

"Ontologically, truth has its analogue in being, and falsehood, in non-being. The objects denoted by propositions are called logical values. Truth is the positive, and falsehood is the negative logical value. Truth is represented by 1, falsehood by 0. These symbols are also read as propositions “truth is”, “falsehood is”.

By logic I mean the science of logical values. Conceived in this way, logic has its own subject-matter of research, with which no other discipline is concerned. Logic is not a science of propositions, since that belongs to grammar; it is not a science of judgements or convictions, since that belongs to psychology; it is not a science of contents expressed by propositions, since that, according to the content involved, is the concern of the various detailed disciplines; it is not a science of “objects in general”, since that belongs to ontology. Logic is the science of objects of a specific kind, namely a science of logical values."

(Łukasiewicz, Jan. "Two-Valued Logic." [1921.] In Selected Works, edited by L. Borkowski, 89-109. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1970. p. 90)
<QUOTE
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pm
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmOf course, there is a distinction between properties of (linguistic or nonlinguistic) representations and properties of what they represent. Snow is cold, the adjective "cold" isn't.
And why is 'snow is cold' true? Is it because what we call snow is what we call cold? (Hamstering in the wheel.)
It is true that snow is cold because snow is cold; and snow is cold because its has certain physical properties which dispose it to appear cold to those touching or tasting it.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
Peter Holmes
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Peter Holmes »

Consul wrote: June 30th, 2022, 6:39 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: June 30th, 2022, 5:46 am
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmYes, in "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white we have sentence-tokens of the same sentence-type on the left and on the right—so what? There is still a translinguistic reference on the right. Non-metalinguistic reference isn't a word-word relation but a word-world relation.
But the nature of 'translinguistic reference' is what we're arguing about - the nature of the relation between the assertion and what it asserts. And my point is there's absolutely no correspondence between them - in the sense of 'A close similarity, connection, or equivalence'. The 'relation', such as it is, is entirely one-way. And recognising that fact is crucial for understanding how signs mean things - what we do when we use signs.
Charles Peirce famously distinguishes between three basic kinds of representation or signs:

1. iconic signs (icons), where there is some resemblance or similarity between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. a photography or a realistic painting.

2. indexical signs (indexes), where there is some physical (causal) connection between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. tree rings as indexes of a tree's age, weather vanes as indexes of the direction of the wind.

3. symbolic signs (symbols), where there is only a conventional relation between the sign and its object (referent), e.g. linguistic signs (words, sentences).

"A symbol is a sign which represents an object by virtue of having a character imputed to it by an operation of the interpreting mind."

"…Symbols, or those signs which represent their objects simply because they will be interpreted to refer to those objects…"

"The word “Symbol” will in this book be used as the common name for that class of Signs which represent, to those that can interpret them, the objects they do quite regardless of any resemblances to them (although such may have influenced the original choice of the signs), and equally so of any actual connexions therewith, (however close such connexions there may be,) but solely because those interpreters have habits of mind, whether inherited or acquired, that lead them whenever they perceive the signs straightway to think of those Objects."

Charles Peirce: http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/symbol

Although symbolic signs, especially linguistic ones, don't "correspond to/with" their (intentional) objects by virtue of similarity or a causal connection, they can still be used to represent and to refer to nonlinguistic entities.

Truth according to the so-called correspondence theory of truth is to be understood as true (correct, accurate) representation, which doesn't require a similarity or causal connection to what is represented by the representation. Symbolic representations such as declarative sentences are true iff things are as they represent them to be, and they don't depend for their truth on resembling or being causally connected to what they represent.
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pm
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmTruth does deal with "the reality outside language"; and we can and do use linguistic entities to represent and refer to nonlinguistic entities.
Notice your substitution of 'truth' for 'logic' in my assertion. Truth and falsehood are values in classical binary logic. And any logic deals with what can be said consistently, without (defined) contradiction. Your claim, that 'Truth does deal with "the reality outside language" ' is incoherent. My point stands: logic deals with language, not the reality outside language. (Other discourses deal with reality, such as the natural sciences.)
Frege defines logic as "the science of the most general laws of truth", and Lukasiewicz defines it as "the science of logical values" (i.e. truth-values); but are logical truths really about nothing but formal relations between sentences (propositions)? For example, isn't the logical law of non-contradiction also about nonlinguistic reality, in the sense that a worldly state of affairs cannot both obtain and not obtain at the same time. That is, isn't the law of non-contradiction also an ontological law concerning reality as a whole?

QUOTE>
"Like ethics, logic can also be called a normative science. How must I think in order to reach the goal, truth? We expect logic to give us the answer to this question, but we do not demand of it that it should go into what is peculiar to each branch of knowledge and its subject matter. On the contrary, the task we assign logic is only that of saying what holds with the utmost generality for all thinking, whatever its subject matter. We must assume that the rules for our thinking and for our holding something to be true are prescribed by the laws of truth. The former are given along with the latter. Consequently we can also say: logic is the science of the most general laws of truth."

(Frege, Gottlob. "Logic." 1897. In The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney, 227-250. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. p. 228)

"Ontologically, truth has its analogue in being, and falsehood, in non-being. The objects denoted by propositions are called logical values. Truth is the positive, and falsehood is the negative logical value. Truth is represented by 1, falsehood by 0. These symbols are also read as propositions “truth is”, “falsehood is”.

By logic I mean the science of logical values. Conceived in this way, logic has its own subject-matter of research, with which no other discipline is concerned. Logic is not a science of propositions, since that belongs to grammar; it is not a science of judgements or convictions, since that belongs to psychology; it is not a science of contents expressed by propositions, since that, according to the content involved, is the concern of the various detailed disciplines; it is not a science of “objects in general”, since that belongs to ontology. Logic is the science of objects of a specific kind, namely a science of logical values."

(Łukasiewicz, Jan. "Two-Valued Logic." [1921.] In Selected Works, edited by L. Borkowski, 89-109. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1970. p. 90)
<QUOTE
Peter Holmes wrote: June 28th, 2022, 3:28 pm
Consul wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:13 pmOf course, there is a distinction between properties of (linguistic or nonlinguistic) representations and properties of what they represent. Snow is cold, the adjective "cold" isn't.
And why is 'snow is cold' true? Is it because what we call snow is what we call cold? (Hamstering in the wheel.)
It is true that snow is cold because snow is cold; and snow is cold because its has certain physical properties which dispose it to appear cold to those touching or tasting it.
Thanks for all this - and it may be useful for some people.

But it's like an apologist quoting the buybull by way of justification: it says so here, so it must be true.

The first principle of rational skepticism is: separate the evidence for a claim from the claim itself. And a great deal of what you've quoted is assertion without evidence.

Any things we call the same by one criterion, by another criterion we can call different. So what price classical identity? Why is a thing what it is, and not another thing?

Logic deals with language, not the reality outside language, and not 'thought' or 'reasoning'.
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