JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Terrapin Station
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Terrapin Station »

Consul wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 10:51 am For example, hypothesis testing as practiced by scientists is an empirical criterion for truth.
No, it isn't. It doesn't tell us anything at all about how to connect propositions to anything else.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Terrapin Station »

In any event, if you're going to keep claiming this nonsense, stop alluding to science telling us criteria for truth, and actually reference it or type it out. Show us the criteria.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Consul »

Terrapin Station wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 2:43 pm
Consul wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 10:51 am For example, hypothesis testing as practiced by scientists is an empirical criterion for truth.
No, it isn't. It doesn't tell us anything at all about how to connect propositions to anything else.
It doesn't have to, because finding out in practice through scientific testing or experimenting what's true and what's not doesn't require "connecting" truthbearers to truthmakers, especially as truthmaking is a noncausal relation and not a sort of action. Truth-making is not to be confused with truth-verifying (verification), which is a sort of action! A theory of truth and truthmaking is one thing, and a theory of verification (or confirmation) in terms of criteria of truth is another.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 8:35 am It doesn't have to, because finding out in practice through scientific testing or experimenting what's true and what's not doesn't require "connecting" truthbearers to truthmakers,
So a relationship between truthbearers and truthmakers isn't necessary on your view?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 10:09 amSo a relationship between truthbearers and truthmakers isn't necessary on your view?
Yes, it is. However, whether all truths require direct truthmakers or truthmakers at all is another question. (My answer is no.)

Anyway, we have truthbearers and truthmakers on the one hand, and truths and (trivial) truth-conditions of the form "p" is true <—> p on the other hand. A chemist wanting to know whether it is true that water is H2O will analyze a mass of water; and when he discovers that water is H2O, the truth-condition of "Water is H2O"—water's being H2O—is satisfied and the fact that water is H2O may be said to be the truthmaker of the true sentence "Water is H2O". However, there is no general 1:1 correspondence between (trivial) truth-conditions and truthmakers. Truth-conditions aren't necessarily the (real) truthmakers in the ontological sense. This is a complicated issue that's off-topic here.

QUOTE>
"Truthmaking and Serious Ontology:
…[T]ruthmaking is an internal relation that holds between a truth bearer—a judgement or representation—and a truthmaker—some way the universe is. Our recognizing truths as truths requires our recognizing that application conditions for particular judgements are satisfied. It is no part of our doing this that we grasp the nature of the deep story concerning, the truthmakers. Just as you can identify tomatoes, pick them up, sort them, and juggle them without any understanding at all as to their nature—without any understanding concerning what it is about the universe in virtue of which they answer to judgements pertaining to tomatoes—so you can entertain thoughts of such things without a grasp of what they are.
One way to put this point would be to say that you can appreciate the truth conditions for judgements about the universe without appreciating, without even having a capacity to appreciate, the nature of the truthmakers. Failure to recognize this simple idea has plagued recent philosophy (…). In particular, it has led to inflated ontologies that are thought, quite mistakenly, to be required by the various sciences."

(Heil, John. The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 178)
<QUOTE
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 11:39 am Anyway, we have truthbearers and truthmakers on the one hand, and truths and (trivial) truth-conditions of the form "p" is true <—> p on the other hand. A chemist wanting to know whether it is true that water is H2O will analyze a mass of water; and when he discovers that water is H2O, the truth-condition of "Water is H2O"—water's being H2O—is satisfied and the fact that water is H2O may be said to be the truthmaker of the true sentence "Water is H2O".
You'd need to be claiming that there are scientific critieria for connecting "p" with p. What are they?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Terrapin Station »

Just as a reminder, this is re my comment that:

"As indeed there is no epistemic objectivity. That's a category errors. Neither beliefs, justifications nor truth value judgments are objective."

So you're not only claiming that there are scientific criteria for connecting "p" with p, you're claiming that the relationship obtains via objective properties.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 4th, 2021, 7:02 am Just as a reminder, this is re my comment that:

"As indeed there is no epistemic objectivity. That's a category errors. Neither beliefs, justifications nor truth value judgments are objective."

So you're not only claiming that there are scientific criteria for connecting "p" with p, you're claiming that the relationship obtains via objective properties.
The words "objective" and "subjective" have several meanings. In one sense, to call beliefs/judgments/opinions/assertions (epistemically) objective is to say there are discoverable facts determining their truth-value which obtain independently of personal attitudes, desires, preferences, and tastes. According to John Searle, epistemic objectivity is a matter of degree, so a judgment can be more or less (epistemically) objective. For example, aesthetic judgments about who is the best writer, painter, or composer are more or less (epistemically) subjective, whereas scientific judgments about how many chemical elements there are are highly (epistemically) objective.

The criteria of truth embodied by the methods of science are (epistemically) objective in the sense of being free from personal bias and prejudice, and of being conducive to an increase of knowledge.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul wrote: July 4th, 2021, 11:27 am The criteria of truth embodied by the methods of science are (epistemically) objective
Is it not possible for you to list the criteria? I mean, how many times do I have to ask before you finally pony up?

Can't you not be like the typical person who posts on these boards who just keeps avoiding a request like this?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 4th, 2021, 12:11 pm
Consul wrote: July 4th, 2021, 11:27 am The criteria of truth embodied by the methods of science are (epistemically) objective
Is it not possible for you to list the criteria? I mean, how many times do I have to ask before you finally pony up?
The central criterion of truth in (empirical) science is confirmability by observational or experimental data.

QUOTE>
"Besides the test of observation, theories are also judged on other criteria: simplicity, economy, explanatory unification, precision in prediction, and consistency with other already adopted theories. In theory choice we are not limited merely to the derivation of predictions for observations that we can test. When observations disconfirm a body of hypotheses, there are methodological guidelines that enable us to design new experiments and tests, which may enable us to point the finger more precisely at one or another of the components of our original package of hypotheses. And here too considerations of simplicity, explanatory unification, precision of prediction, amount of allowable experimental error, and consistency with other established theories again apply. Theory choice is a continual process of iterative application of this same toolbox of considerations in order to assess the implications of empirical observation in making theory choices."

(Rosenberg, Alex, and Lee McIntyre. Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2020. pp. 202-3)
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul wrote: July 4th, 2021, 3:33 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: July 4th, 2021, 12:11 pm
Consul wrote: July 4th, 2021, 11:27 am The criteria of truth embodied by the methods of science are (epistemically) objective
Is it not possible for you to list the criteria? I mean, how many times do I have to ask before you finally pony up?
The central criterion of truth in (empirical) science is confirmability by observational or experimental data.

QUOTE>
"Besides the test of observation, theories are also judged on other criteria: simplicity, economy, explanatory unification, precision in prediction, and consistency with other already adopted theories. In theory choice we are not limited merely to the derivation of predictions for observations that we can test. When observations disconfirm a body of hypotheses, there are methodological guidelines that enable us to design new experiments and tests, which may enable us to point the finger more precisely at one or another of the components of our original package of hypotheses. And here too considerations of simplicity, explanatory unification, precision of prediction, amount of allowable experimental error, and consistency with other established theories again apply. Theory choice is a continual process of iterative application of this same toolbox of considerations in order to assess the implications of empirical observation in making theory choices."

(Rosenberg, Alex, and Lee McIntyre. Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2020. pp. 202-3)
<QUOTE
Let's look more closely at those, especially re supposed scientific and/or objective criteria. What are the scientific and/or objective criteria of simplicity?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Also, how did we scientifically or objectively discover the criterion of simplicity?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 4th, 2021, 6:05 pmLet's look more closely at those, especially re supposed scientific and/or objective criteria. What are the scientific and/or objective criteria of simplicity?
You're asking for criteria of a criterion?

Anyway, it must be said that if there is no objective logical or probabilistic relationship between simplicity and truth, such that a scientific theory's simplicity entails or at least probabilifies its truth, then simplicity is not an objective criterion of truth, because it isn't conducive to truth. The same is true of all the other theoretical criteria aka theoretical virtues.

Note that I'm talking about theories which are both self-consistent (free from internal inconsistencies or contradictions) and consistent with all empirical facts! If a simple theory is logically or/and empirically inconsistent, its simplicity is irrelevant as a theoretical criterion of truth.

Simplicity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/

QUOTE>
"Theoretical virtues are 'good-making' properties of theories, features such that a theory which has them is in some sense thereby better off, perhaps because the fact that a theory has those features gives us some reason to believe that that theory is true. Correspondingly, theoretical vices are 'bad-making' properties of theories, features such that a theory which has them is in some sense worse off, perhaps because the fact that a theory has those features gives us some reason to believe that that theory is false. Much of metaphysics is taken up with trying to assess and balance the theoretical virtues and vices of various theories; this is one of the main ways in which metaphysicians try to work out what theory they ought to believe in (this process is sometimes known as 'cost-benefit analysis'). In this respect, metaphysical enquiry resembles scientific practice, for scientists also take theoretical virtues into consideration when choosing between theories.
Which features of theories count as theoretical virtues, and which theoretical vices, are—like most things in philosophy—highly contentious."

("Theoretical Virtues." In: Helen Beebee, Nikk Effingham and Philip Goff, Metaphysics: The Key Concepts, 248-248. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011.)
<QUOTE
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul wrote: July 4th, 2021, 7:06 pmNote that I'm talking about theories which are both self-consistent (free from internal inconsistencies or contradictions) and consistent with all empirical facts! If a simple theory is logically or/and empirically inconsistent, its simplicity is irrelevant as a theoretical criterion of truth.
Theoretical virtues as non-empirical criteria of truth become relevant only when there are two or more competing theories on the same subject matter which are logically and empirically consistent, yet underdetermined by the empirical data, such that it cannot be decided on the basis of observation or experimentation alone which one (if any) of the theories in question is (probably) true.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Here's somebody who argues for simplicity (parsimony) as an epistemic criterion rather than just as a pragmatic one:

QUOTE>
"[A] good account of simplicity considerations in science is one that allows for the context sensitivity of such considerations. That is, in some contexts, one form of simplicity might be deemed as most relevant by the scientific community when it comes to choosing a theory, and in other contexts, others. The guiding principle for all these forms of simplicity considerations is plausibly what I have called the evidential-explanatory rationale (…): an entity or principle postulated by a theory can receive empirical support only insofar as it is required to explain the evidence. If a theory could explain the same set of data without the entity or principle in question, that entity or principle should count as unsupported by the data. Accordingly, one ought to postulate only as many entities or principles as are supported by the evidence when explaining the relevant set of data. Simplicity considerations thus come down to explanatory-evidential considerations. What does that mean for the realism debate?

Take again two theories T1 and T2 and suppose that they both save the phenomena. Suppose further that T1 is simpler in that it postulates fewer entities or principles than T2 (for simplicity’s sake, I’ll focus on entities in what follows, but my point applies equally to principles). Since for the antirealist simplicity is merely a pragmatic virtue, this difference is epistemically insubstantial. The evidential-explanatory rationale, however, tells us that the difference is epistemically significant indeed: since T1 accomplishes the same explanatory task as T2, the extra entities postulated by T2 are empirically unsupported. The evidential-explanatory rationale thus compels us to choose T1 over T2, despite their empirical equivalence. By virtue of simplicity considerations, we have better reasons to believe in T1 than in T2. But if a theory’s degree of confirmation depends in this way on whether or not a theory is simpler with regard to the theoretical entities it postulates, then simplicity is clearly an epistemic concern. This is bad news for the antirealist, who has it that a theory’s saving of the phenomena is our only reason for belief in the theory. This is my first argument for realism, namely the argument from simplicity ."

(Schindler, Samuel. Theoretical Virtues in Science: Uncovering Reality through Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. pp. 35-6)
<QUOTE
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