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Full Idea
If we try to provide a serious semantics for reference to facts, we discover that they melt into one; there is no telling them apart. The relevant argument (the 'Slingshot') was credited to Frege by Alonso Church.
Gist of Idea
If we try to identify facts precisely, they all melt into one (as the Slingshot Argument proves)
Source
Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.5)
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Truth, Language and History' [OUP 2005], p.5
A Reaction
This sounds like good grounds for not attempting to be too precise. 'There are bluebells in my local wood' identifies a fact by words, but even an animal can distinguish this fact. Only a logician dreams of making its content precise.
| 23287 | Disquotation only accounts for truth if the metalanguage contains the object language [Davidson] |
| 23288 | When Tarski defines truth for different languages, how do we know it is a single concept? [Davidson] |
| 23289 | Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson] |
| 23290 | It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions [Davidson] |
| 23292 | Correspondence can't be defined, but it shows how truth depends on the world [Davidson] |
| 23291 | Without truth, both language and thought are impossible [Davidson] |
| 23284 | Plato's Forms confused truth with the most eminent truths, so only Truth itself is completely true [Davidson] |
| 23285 | If we try to identify facts precisely, they all melt into one (as the Slingshot Argument proves) [Davidson] |
| 23286 | Truth can't be a goal, because we can neither recognise it nor confim it [Davidson] |