19 ideas
| 23291 | Without truth, both language and thought are impossible [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Without a grasp of the concept of truth, not only language, but thought itself, is impossible. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.16) | |
| A reaction: Davidson never mentions animals, but I like this idea because it points to importance of truth for animals as well. I say that truth is relevant to any mind that makes judgements - and quite small animals (e.g. ants and spiders) make judgements. |
| 23284 | Plato's Forms confused truth with the most eminent truths, so only Truth itself is completely true [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Plato's conflation of abstract universals with entities of supreme value reinforced the confusion of truth with the most eminent truths. …The only perfect exemplar of a Form is the Form itself, …and only truth itself is completely true. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Even non-subscribers to Plato often talk as if there were some grand thing called the Truth with a capital T, quite often used in a religious context. Truth is the hallmark of successful (non-fanciful) thought. |
| 23286 | Truth can't be a goal, because we can neither recognise it nor confim it [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Since it is neither visible as a target, nor recognisable when achieved, there is no point in calling truth a goal. We should only aim at increasing confidence in our beliefs, by collecting further evidence or checking our calculations. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], P.6) | |
| A reaction: This is mainly aimed at pragmatists, but Davidson obviously subscribes (as do I) to their fallibilist view of knowledge. |
| 23292 | Correspondence can't be defined, but it shows how truth depends on the world [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Correspondence, while it is empty as a definition, does capture the thought that truth depends on how the world is. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.16) | |
| A reaction: Just don't try to give a precise account of the correspondence between two things (thoughts and facts) which are so utterly different in character. |
| 23288 | When Tarski defines truth for different languages, how do we know it is a single concept? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We have to wonder how we know that it is some single concept which Tarski indicates how to define for each of a number of well-behaved languages. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], P.11) | |
| A reaction: Davidson says that Tarski makes the assumption that it is a single concept, but fails to demonstrate the fact. This resembles Frege's Julius Caesar problem - of how you know whether your number definition has defined a number. |
| 23287 | Disquotation only accounts for truth if the metalanguage contains the object language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Disquotation cannot pretend to give a complete account of the concept of truth, since it works only in the special case where the metalanguage contains the object language. Neither can contain their own truth predicate. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.10) | |
| A reaction: Presumably more sophisticated and complete accounts would need a further account of translation between languages - which explains Quine's interest in that topic. […see this essay, p.12] |
| 8358 | There are no rules for the exact logic of ordinary language, because that doesn't exist [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950], §5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that it is impossible to find precise logical forms, because of the pragmatic element in language, but I don't see why. Even more extreme modern pragmatics (where meaning is shifted) doesn't rule out precise underlying propositions. |
| 6413 | 'The present King of France is bald' presupposes existence, rather than stating it [Strawson,P, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Strawson argues that in saying 'the present King of France is bald' one is not stating that a present King of France exists, but presupposing or assuming that it does. | |
| From: report of Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: We have the notion of a leading question, such as 'when did you stop beating your wife?' But is a presupposition not simply an implied claim, as Russell said it was? |
| 8354 | Russell asks when 'The King of France is wise' would be a true assertion [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: The way in which Russell arrived at his analysis was by asking himself what would be the circumstances in which we would say that anyone who uttered the sentence 'The King of France is wise' had made a true assertion. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950], §1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to connect Russell's theory of definite descriptions with the truth conditions theory of meaning which is associated (initially) with Frege. Truth will require some reference to what actually exists. |
| 23285 | If we try to identify facts precisely, they all melt into one (as the Slingshot Argument proves) [Davidson] |
| 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. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], 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. |
| 23289 | Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is clear that someone who knows under what conditions a sentence would be true understands that sentence, …and if someone does not know under what conditions it would be true then they do not understand it. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13) | |
| A reaction: I've always subscribed to this view. Langauge is meaningless if you can't relate it to reality, and I don't think there could be a language without an intuitive notion of truth. |
| 8356 | The meaning of an expression or sentence is general directions for its use, to refer or to assert [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: To give the meaning of an expression is to give general directions for its use to refer to or mention particular objects or persons; in like manner, sentences are for use to make true or false assertions. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950], §2) | |
| A reaction: The influence of Wittgenstein? I don't like it. The general idea that you can say what something is by giving directions for its use is what I think of as the Functional Fallacy: confusing the role of x with its inherent nature. Shirt as goalpost. |
| 23290 | It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It may be that sentences are used as they are because of their truth conditions, and they have the truth conditions they do because of how they are used. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13) | |
| A reaction: I've always taken the attempt to explain meaning by use as absurd. It is similar to trying to explain mind in terms of function. In each case, what is the intrinsic nature of the thing, which makes that use or that function possible? |
| 10430 | Reference is mainly a social phenomenon [Strawson,P, by Sainsbury] |
| Full Idea: Strawson's early work gave a new direction to the study of reference by stressing that it is a social phenomenon. | |
| From: report of Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950]) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2 | |
| A reaction: The question is whether speakers refer, or sentences, or expressions, or propositions. The modern consensus seems to be that some parts of language are inherently referring, but speakers combine such tools with context. Sounds right. |
| 10448 | If an expression can refer to anything, it may still instrinsically refer, but relative to a context [Bach on Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: Strawson claimed that virtually any expression that can be used to refer to one thing in one context can be used to refer to something else in another context. Maybe expressions still refer, but only relative to a context. | |
| From: comment on Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950]) by Kent Bach - What Does It Take to Refer? 22.2 | |
| A reaction: If there is complete freedom, then Bach's criticism doesn't sound plausible. If something is semantically referential, that should impose pretty tight restrictions on speakers. Why distinguish names as intrinsically referential, and descriptions as not? |
| 8355 | Expressions don't refer; people use expressions to refer [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: 'Mentioning', or 'referring', is not something an expression does; it is something that someone can use an expression to do. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950], §2) | |
| A reaction: That can't be whole story, because I might make a mistake when referring, so that I used the expression to refer to x, but unfortunately the words themselves referred to y. The power of language exceeds the intentions of speakers. |
| 8357 | If an utterance fails to refer then it is a pseudo-use, though a speaker may think they assert something [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: If an utterance is not talking about anything, then the speaker's use is not a genuine one, but a spurious or pseudo-use; he is not making either a true or a false assertion, though he may think he is. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is Strawson's verdict on 'The present King of France is bald'. His view puts speculative statements in no man's land. What do we make of 'Elvis lives' or 'phlogiston explains fire'? |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |