Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value

jason <jasonkstevens@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

The dictionary shows that knowledge has two meanings. One implies
truth, but the other simply cognition. My point presumed the latter
definition, but perhaps you assumed the first.

Dictionaries aren't great for things like this, but yes I assumed
truth. The conventional theory is that knowledge is justified true
belief.

Yes. I only referred to the dictionary to capture the consensus over the
meanings of the word in daily life.

So let me rephrase my point in terms of both meanings. Taking
knowledge as being mere cognition, my point would be that knowledge
(cognizance) of the world is a precondition of intentional action
upon it. Note that I slipped in the word intentional here (your
"vector"), for there are certainly unintentional actions, such as
instinct or accident, but these exceptions are trivial, for I'm not
trying to formulate a universal law.

So to re-cap, the problem of not believing in "consciousness" is that
it's a precondition of intentional action. The problem here is that
if I pressed you about the meaning of "intention", I'm sure it would
include the idea of consciousness. (For example, can robots have
intentional action?) If so it's a circular argument.

I don't see where we disagree. I don't doubt the existence of
consciousness, and since I do believe its existence, it would certainly
be a precondition of intentional action.

Perhaps what distinguishes human consciousness from that of a robot is
that humans are conscious of their consciousness and so can make it an
object of critical thought. A bird is conscious of the worm, but
presumably not conscious of his consciousness of it. Does intention
presume this self-consciousness? I'm not sure. The bird intentionally
pecks at the ground to get the worm. But I'm not sure how these
speculations are relevant.

But more interesting is taking knowledge to imply truth value, in
which case the truth is not the condition of action per se, but of
effective action. Of course, an effective action can be based on a
misapprehension of the world, and a relatively true knowledge can
nevertheless result in failure. But can't we say that the more
truthful our knowledge, the more likely we are to be effective? If I
wish to drive a nail, I must apply a skill, and if I entirely lack
that skill, I will not have much luck. In the absence of any true
knowledge I will not know that hammers are used to drive nails or
even what a nail is.

I'm happy to accept utility in the place of truth. That is, we use
words because they are useful not because they are true. The more
useful they are the more value we place on them and the more we trade
them.

That is correct. Truth is not a quality of words, but of the relation of
sentences to what they refer. But I'd not accept your criterion of
utility. History is littered with theories that were useful, but in
retrospect fundamentally untrue. To some extent we have theories that
may be true without there being test of utility. Historiography and
cosmology for example. Besides, is not a utility theory of truth OT in
the point under discussion?

Note that this doesn't mean that the sentence "there is beer in the
fridge" is now "useful" instead of "true". It means that we find the
use of the statement to be, occasionally, a means to an end.

You seem to discount any truth about situations in which we don't
intervene. I read about world affairs in my newspaper and form opinions
about what is going on, and these opinions have truth value (even if
they happen to be entirely wrong, for error implies true value). There's
not a ghost of a chance I'll be able to intervene in world affairs, and
so my knowledge of the greater world has no obvious utility, but it is
still important that I have it and that be as truthful as
possible. Utility is limited to my time, place and circumstance, but
surely I have truthful knowledge beyond those limitations.

I suppose I've lost faith in the idea that theories represent nature
and that theories can be metaphysically true by virtue of there being
something out there called "truth".

But no one suggests that. Theories only represent nature in thought, and
while they have truth value, are not mirrors of nature, but models or
analogs having some truth value. Of course there's nothing out there
called "truth", for truth is a relation. But are we to conclude from
this false proposition that no one seriously holds, that our statements
have no truth value either?

I don't think there is such a thing called "blue" either, I'm a bit of
a nominalist, but it doesn't mean I deny that there are causes of our
seeing blue. It's the same with consciousness really.

Of course, The "blue" is our mental sign for a sense impression
resulting from light of a certain frequency entering our eyes. But
nevertheless it is a fact that light of a certain frequency is being
reflected from the object of observation. In other words, the properties
of this object constrain our sense impressions and the sign we might
assign to that impression. That is, to say that the object is blue is a
statement that has truth value, and to say that the blue bird is orange
would have less truth value. I am conscious of the bird being blue
whether or not I'm also self-conscious about it. I stop for the red stop
light without consciously thinking about it. If I reduce the truth of
that light to nothing but mental operations, I'll soon be arrested. If
I'm frequently arrested it may be pragmatic evidence that I'm color
blind or indifferent to the law, but not evidence that the red light was
actually green.

There are a lot of different issues here. One is the very
conventional notion that the truth of a statement consists in its
relation (correspondence in some sense) with the world. Why should
one abandon that view? Nearly everyone has always assumed it, and so
justification must be offered if you intend to jettison it. You
express your position, but seem to deny any need to justify it except
for weak moral grounds at the end.

There is no non-circular argument I can offer that will support an
alternative view, but I believe that this is the same with any view.
There is any number of criticisms I could throw at the correspondence
theory, but again this can be done to any theory.

Well, I just gave you an example. If I go through red lights, I'll
probably be arrested. What is circular about this? Does not my
assessment of the dangers of running the light correspond to the
probability of being arrested? True, a crude and simplistic example, but
doesn't it warrant some kind of correspondence theory? My understanding
is that the problems lie with specific correspondence theories, not
correspondence in general, and that the only alternative to
correspondence in general is solipsism.

Why should someone abandon the view? I'd have to answer that the
reason would depend on the situation. Maybe they shouldn't. There
isn't a great reason to drop the theory in general terms aside from
the fact that it's useless to have a general theory of truth - unless
one was looking for religion. I would recommend an alternative view
because I've found it useful, but that's not to say other people will.

I can't make much out of this. You prefer a historicist theory of truth
to a general theory of truth, and I'm not sure I'd entirely
disagree. But I don't see that a general correspondence theory falls
under the aegis of one or the other. Doubts about particular
correspondence theories don't discredit all possible correspondence
theories; that our concepts are mental constructions does not reduce
them to nothing but mental constructions; that they are in part mental
constructions does not imply they have no determinant relation to the
world. If you advocate solipsism, it falls to you to show that
intentional action or moral responsibility is at all possible without
some kind of correspondence between our conceptions of the world and the
world.

It's our common sense view that the truth of a statement lies in its
relations to the world. However, beneath our common sense views lie
are our most hidden and entrenched assumptions. Unpacking these
assumptions can give us a sense of our historical positioning. It's
not a way to get your head above water, or a way to realise that there
is, in fact, water; but a place to find our hidden dogmas.

Yes. A logical or semantic analysis does this, but there are other ways
to find hidden dogmas. Why does your remark cast any doubt on some kind
of correspondence between our views and the world? Also, how does a
discovery that we carry some hidden dogma get us any closer to the
truth? Its exposure does not in itself generate better axioms.

Doing this can be praised for all sorts of reasons like allowing us to
create one's self rather than being a replica of past lives, etc. But
I think these ideas are bogus. At the end of the day, by the theory's
own rubric, it is either useful or it isn't.

I don't quite follow. I don't see how the discovery of some hidden dogma
implies a creation of ourselves. I don't know that there's a
contradiction between the burden of history (constraints upon us imposed
by traces of the past) and creative action (constructing ourselves as
unique individuals). There may be a positivist assumption that there is,
but it is obsolete. Not sure exactly what idea you consider bogus, and
and you don't seem to offer any justification for assuming any to be
such. To my justification for accepting some kind of correspondence
theory (effective action, moral responsibility, and, I add the
accumulation of knowledge), all you do is to deny it.

As I suggested before, not all true theory is utilitarian. I may have a
theory about the fall of the Roman Empire, and it is not useful in any
substantial, direct and unambiguous way. Students are dismayed by the
study of history because there seem so many theories that can
accommodate the empirical evidence, and they infer that none of them
have any truth value. This issue is much discussed in the philosophy of
science, and the consensus is that there's no warrant for such a
conclusion.

Of course truth is also subjective (there's no necessary
contradiction between its being simultaneously objective and
subjective), but you apparently suggest it reduces to
subjectivity. If so, it seems you logically walk away from having to
justify the truth of your position or entering into social
discourse. That is, it seems pathological (no insult intended).

I'm more than happy to enter into social discourse. I don't think
truth reduces to anything particularly. We all use the term in
different ways and any theory of what truth really is, is not my
argument. Suggesting that my view is the "truth" is to miss the point
altogether. I don't believe in truth and I assert that a notion of
truth isn't required to hold a position.

I realize you don't believe that we should assert "truth" as a property
of our statements, but so far I don't see why unless you bring in
Occam's Razor, which you really have not implemented.

I don't understand how we can enter into discourse without our
statements having no relation to the world. I use the word here
"discourse" and you know what I mean, and if doubt you look it up in the
dictionary to see what the consensus meaning is. It refers to a dialog
between people, which presumes a dialog takes place and there are
people, and these are truthful statements. If dialog or people were only
figments of your imagination, then my sentence would necessarily be
meaningless to you, and there would be no dialog. Or the presumption of
their meaning has some utilitarian value, then I'd ask what obvious
substantial utility lies in our discourse unless we work together to
arrive at some shared insight.

Dialectics is a broad term that can mean quite different things, and
I'm not clear about your objection. Dialectics can refer to a
pedagogical method (the original meaning), a discourse, looking at
things in systemic terms or a presumption that systems are
emergent. Off hand, none of these seem objectionable. I believe you
have to indicate which meaning you prefer and what your objection to
it is.

Dialectics from material dialectics as you mentioned, from Marx's
twist on Hegel. My objection to it is that Hegel's "dialectic logic"
is confused. There are interpretations of Hegel that do make sense in
my opinion, but this tradition with statements like "negating negative
negation" etc are either confused of confusing. They have nothing to
say that can't be said in more sensible terms.

It is your opinion that Hegel's logic is "confused", but that's surely
not everyone's opinion. Why you associate all kinds of dialectics to
Hegel, escapes me, and surely Marx's dialectical materialism (a term of
Engels') is not the same as Hegel's objective idealism.

Contradiction is also an ambivalent term, for it sometimes refers to
a basic principle of abstract logic, to a Kantian real opposition (as
I used the term above), and sometimes used in the Marxian sense of
contradictory processes (which can be stated in thermodynamic terms
that an emergent system depends on and is driven by its opposite, a
dissipation of its surroundings). But since these all except the
first speak of the world and are meant as truthful statements about
the world, I suppose you reject them all out of hand.

Well, I reject propositions that rely on metaphysical assumptions. Of
course I assume there is a table in front of me, but I don't assume
"there is a table in front of me" has an actual relation somewhere out
there in the universe to the thing in front of me which gives it a
special status over "there isn't a table in front of me".

Some of my examples of contradiction may be metaphysical, but surely
some are not. Why tar them all with a metaphysical brush, and what's to
object to in metaphysics?

I don't understand your table example. If there's a table in front of
you, by convention it is assume that your statement that there's a table
in front of your because there's some kind of correspondence between the
fact and your statement. What does the universe have to do with
this. What "special status"? The assertion that there's a table in front
of you would be true; a contrary statement would be false. Neither has
"special status". If you place your cup of coffee on it, you assume that
your notion that a table is there is true, and it is not a presumption
based on utility if you have not been in the habit of using that table
to rest your coffee cup. You have in mind the conceptual categories of
tables and cups which are based on culture and ultimately the
persistence of certain of their qualities, and you know from experience
that you can place your cup on flat surfaces such as the table. Wherein
lies the metaphysical problem here? In fact, how is my description of
your action problematic?

I use the idea that words refer to things in the world, but I don't
use the idea that there is a reified relationship between words and
their referents.

Like your problem with universality, this seems an imaginary
problem. The issue is not reified relationships, but the realist
assumption that _causal_ relationships are ontologically real. One might
make an argument that formal relationships are based on truths, but I
don't know of anyone who suggests that the formal relationship itself
can be reified as an ontologically independent thing. A formal
relationship is a statement about the things that we assert stand in
that relationship, not about any relation that is independent of those
things. I fear you may be shooting at a straw-man.

This doesn't meant there aren't things out there in the world or that
we're swimming in around in a semantic dream world. Reality can be
said to reach all the way into us and we reach all the way into the
world. Language can be seen as a tool rather than a medium on which
the world is represented.

Your point obscure. Your statement that we are as real as the world
about us must point to some non-obvious truth, but I don't get it. That
language is a tool, no doubt, but it is also just as obviously a
medium. After all, what do we mean by the word "medium"? I in fact do
represent the world in words, such as by saying that you exist, and I'm
using the medium of the written word to convey that belief to you. Does
that belief happen to be true? Well, my basic point is that the
statement has truth value in that it is either false or at least
somewhat true. If its truth value lacked any warrant whatsoever, your
existence would only be in my mind, and I'd be wasting my time by
talking to myself.

I found it a difficult position to understand because so much of the
way we talk assumes a mind-reality gap.

Why do you say this? In daily life, I constantly use language that I
assume has truth value, and more specifically I assume that on the
whole, most of my statements have some truth in relation to the
world. While alternative beliefs are certainly possible, I know of no
one who presumes there's any kind of gap between what they say and the
world. This possibility is raised only by only philosophers, and their
doing so makes me think more about just what the relation is between my
words and the world, but in no way does a subcategory of philosophers
cause me or nearly anyone else to doubt that statements about the world
lack truth value.

Science has found a system of symbols that allow us to predict the
world. Mostly we think that science has got it right, that these
systems have captured the truth about the world. I follow the idea
that science finds these systems useful, full stop.

But if the findings of science are useful (a contentious point, but I'll
let it go), does that not imply that the findings of science contain
some truth? Why would the knowledge of science be cumulative unless it
had some truth value? Utility may imply some kind of truth is involved,
but certainly truth does not reduce to utility, for much much truth does
not entail purposeful intervention in the world. I belief in the
existence of atoms, because in this respect I see no reason to question
the content of my cultural heritage, but surely I can't warrant the
truth of my belief on any grounds that are utilitarian.

I meant that our reasons for suspecting that consciousness exists is
an argumentum ad ignorantiam. We think it exists but have no non-
fallacious reason for it. We might appeal to common sense, but there
in lies lots of fallacious assumptions. I don't really have any
reasons /for/ its inexistence sorry, at least none that aren't half-
formed.

There are many things that we believe without appeal to truthful
reasons. I just gave an example of my belief in the existence of
atoms. I believe I exist, but don't need any kind of argument to support
that belief. I believe in being kind to others, and am not aware of any
pragmatic or utilitarian reason for such behavior. I believe it is sunny
outside, not because of a reasoned argument, but because from where I
sit I can see the sunshine and know from the phenomena, without
conscious inductive reasoning that it is so.

The thread has to do with a warrant for belief in relative truth value
of our statements. You clearly don't agree, but I don't see why other
than that it might unnecessarily complicate our mental life. But you
offer no reason for a conclusion that runs counter to common sense, for
most people naturally assume that their statements have truth value. And
your suggestion of a utilitarian test for the truth of a statement
hardly counters the presumption that statements have truth value, but in
fact presumes that they do. That we can dispose of the word "truth" by
conveying the same thing in other ways is possible, but certainly
comments life, for "truth" means several things, and some of them seem
very useful, and you'd be throwing the baby out with the bath and force
people to abandon language with which they have been comfortable for
millennia.

"I", "self-aware" and "consciousness of the world" can easily smuggle
in the assumption that consciousness exists. I doubt there is any
special difference between a robot replica and a human.

Ego is self-consciousness; my seeing the sunlight outside is
consciousness per se. I don't think we should confuse the two.

That I have self-consciousness seems a prima facie case for the
existence of consciousness. That is, the old (and discredited)
empiricism loved "brute facts". Our doubts about brute facts does not
imply there are no facts. My consciousness of myself as a conscious
being is close to being a brute fact. That is, any suggestion to the
contrary was to be powerfully supported. One can't just express
skepticism about what everyone else believes to be true and expect that
one's sceptical attitude will be persuasive or not ridiculed unless it
is accompanied by powerful justifications. It's interesting you don't
belief in truth, for I know no one else who feels that way, but so what?
How does one make that statement interesting or important without a
reliance on some kind of truth?

We all get along very well with the existential presumption that we
have consciousness. True, it, like many other things, is very
difficult for philosophers and scientists to explain and there's no
consensus over what it is, but what should we make of this

We shouldn't abandon the idea. We should look at why we started using
the term in the first place and see if there are other ways of talking
that dispense with the problem of consciousness altogether. We might
find that the problem is created by the way we talk rather than it
being a "real" problem.

But there is no "problem". People seem to have had self-consciousness
right from the beginning (and perhaps even Neanderthal), and it seems
part and parcel of what we mean by being human. I see no way that we can
get along without using the word consciousness or self-consciousness,
and in any case, you don't propose any alternatives. What is the problem
to which you refer?

There is a difference between believing there is a cup of coffee
beside you and believing in the truth of the statement "there is a cup
of coffee beside me". The former is the casual way we speak which no
one will sensibly deny. The latter assumes that there is such a thing
as truth. Now if you think that the truth of the statement is a
special relationship between the sentence and the cup of coffee, and
that this truth exists outside of human discourse,

You are not making sense. Everyone, including you, seem to agree that
the word "truth" has to do with the relation of our sentences and what
the sentence refers to. No one today would dream of suggesting that
truth is independent of our works and of the world. You set up a
staw-man.

then to believe the truth of the statement is known, is to believe is
having a access to that which lies outside of human discourse and our
experience of the world in general. The ability to see noumena is
god-like.

Yes, our experience of the world is always mediated, and our notions of
the world are one-sided, partial, approximations, analogs, etc. No one
believes today that our ideas of the world are simple reflections of the
world, and so why bring it up?

I hope you could by now hazard what I would answer to that question.
I admit that it has taken me quite some time to get to grips with the
idea - that there is no such thing as truth.

But are you not arguing here against the notion of absolute or universal
Truth? This is not the issue under discussion.

I'm not sure I can explain things further, I run out of words, but if
you're interested I can point you at some references. About their
being no such thing as consciousness too, although I'm much less
familiar with that. These people can present a much more coherent and
appealing argument I'm sure.

OK, since I'm having difficulty getting a clear idea of where you stand,
such references would be very helpful. Name a few books or authors that
you believe represent a position with which you are largely in
agreement.

Logic and reason are seen as unquestioned authorities dictating legal
steps in thought but when they're examined more closely, they are seen
to be hand-waved terms used to persuade.

Well, logic and reason may not cover all situations, may lead to
falsehood, or be inadequate to arrive at truth, but isn't logical
coherence and semantic adequacy one reason we prefer one explanation of
things over others? "Unquestioned authorities." This may be a paper
tiger, for I know of no one who now holds that position. Surely the
reasonableness of an argument is not primarily a rhetorical device, but
a way to justify a claim a relative truthfulness of an argument. To
perceive that some logic choppers are using their skills to cover the
truth or to generate a simulacrum of truth for non-truths, does not mean
that being reasonable is always empty rhetoric. You can't infer a
universal from a number of particular instances, but I suppose that if
you deny the truth value of reason, you actually could do that. So you
might be right that there's no truth value in ratiocination, but by
definition you can't support that contention.


--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value
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