Talk:Truth/Archive 4

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Alas! I had thought this article a tolerable success. That equilibrium has now been shattered by changes that threaten to turn it into a cheerleading section for the correspondence theory.

Discussing the pros and cons of competing philosophical theories is important. In fact, it is hard to see what the point would be of an article on a philosphical topic that merely listed competing theories but said nothing about their strengths and weaknesses. If you'd like to add material on the weaknesses of the correspondence theory and/or the strengths of its competitors, please do.

Consider this: "Note that all of the theories, except the correspondence theory, imply that it is possible in principle for 'The interior of Venus is molten copper' to be true even if, in fact, the interior of Venus is not molten copper." [How would the deflationary theory carry that implication?]

My remark is oversimplified with respect to the Deflationary theories, but that is a side effect of the structure of the article. It lists deflationism as just one more competing theory of truth, but it really is a theory about truth ascriptions: about what we are saying when we SEEM to be predicating a property of truth to statements. Deflationism says there really is no such property as truth and hence that there cannot be a theory of truth. It is really a qualitatively different thing from the others, since they really are theories of truth. We need to make this distinction clear. I would suggest splitting off a new article on theories of truth ascriptions. Then the current article would mention deflationism only as the view that NO theory of truth is or could be correct because there is no such property of truth. It would then link to the the article on truth ascriptions.

"This is because only the correspondence theory makes reality the ultimate touchstone of truth. The others open at least the possibility that reality and truth might somehow diverge." [Do their advocates see it that way?]--Christofurio 12:23, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Yes they do see it this way, at least if when "reality" is used to refer to an objective thing that exists independently of anyone's mind, which is the way I was using it and the way any reader would take it unless they were specifically told to take it in another sense. Of course, many advocates of the non-correspondence theories would quickly add that reality, so defined, doesn't exist. They would say that the only world that really exists is one that we create with our minds. If you want to lengthen the paragraph with some debate on that, I would not object.

No, they don't see it that way. William James, for example, was very clear that in his view the difference between the correspondence theory and the pragmatic theory was the difference between a vague and abstract statement on the one hand and a more particular, concrete effort to fill in its blanks, on the other. He would not have said that "reality can diverge from truth," the sentiment you sweepingly attribute to pragmatists, coherentists, etc. For example, clearly the truth of the statement "there are tigers in India" consists of the reality of certain cat-like beasts near Calcutta. James not only didn't deny that, he insisted on it! See the second essay of his book "The Meaning of Truth."

James would indeed deny that reality can diverge from truth, but only because he believed that reality is itself mind-dependent thing. (See the Kirkham book in the References section.)

I'd rather get my idea of what James meant from James than from Kirkham. In terms of his eventuaL metaphysic, he believed that both mind and matter are constructions from a neutral substratum. The language you're apparently borrowing from Kirkham doesn't do justice to that view. Regardless, pragmatism as such doesn't require idealism, or neutral monism. The tigers which I believe to be in India clearly aren't in my head. The truth of my belief turns on the reality in India, a point on which James insisted. --Christofurio 22:08, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but for James, India, the tigers, and "the reality in India" are not things that exist independently of human minds. He has a non-realist ontology. (So there is a sense in which he thinks the tigers are in your head, whereas ontological realists believe there is no sense in which they are in your head.) And it is precisely because of that non-realist ontology he can largely escape the what would otherwise be the implausible implications of defining the truth of a belief in terms of its usefulness to the believer instead of in terms of its relation to the facts of the matter. Nathan Ladd 6/21/04 UTC

But if reality is being used to mean mind-independent reality, then he would agree that truth (beliefs that are successful) can diverge from reality. A belief can be successful even if it diverges from mind-independent reality. (E.g., if your watch has stopped at 2:45, but you, not knowing this, believe that it is working and you get to your appointment on time, then your belief "my watch is working" is successful and, hence, true (on the pragmatic theory) but the mind-independent fact is that it is stopped. This is all I said about him, that IF we use "reality" to mean something mind-independent, THEN James WOULD agree that reality can diverge from truth. I'm going to restore the remark, but I'll try to make this clearer. Nathan Ladd

Knowing, as James said, is "only one way of getting into fruitful relations with reality, whether copying be one of the relations or not." When confronted with such examples as your, he was inclined to say that if I wish to get into fruitful relations with watches, and the the other people with whom I have appointments, I had better not rely on such accidental convergence, and ought to seek a watch which is predictably successful in telling the time. He objected to the correspondence theory because in some forms it over-emphasized copying (I can use my watch correctly, truly, even if I have no image whatsoever of the gears), and in other forms it simply incarnated vagueness.--Christofurio 22:08, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

There you go! You've produced a Jamesian response to the an objection. Now why don't you add this to the article instead of complaining that the article is bias for correspondence theory? That's the idea. That's how to produce an article that is neither biased nor hides the fact that there are pros and and cons to competing philosophical theories. Nathan Ladd 6/21/04 UTC

But this truth is known as its workings, "actions of ours which may terminate in directly intuited tigers, as they would if we took a voyage to India for the purpose of tiger-hunting and brought back a lot of skins...." I agree entirely with wikiwiki - your interpolations aren't simply POV, they are simply false to the views you are supposed to be describing, except of course for the one you favor. --Christofurio 02:07, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

Once, again, the Wikipedia rules are quite clear that the NPOV rule is not meant to imply that an article cannot point out the pros and cons of competing theories. Indeed, an article on a philosophical topic would be of little use if it didn't do this. If you want to add remarks about the weaknesses of correspondence theory and/or the strengths of its competitors, please do so. That will improve the article. But it weakens the article to eliminate any hint that these matters are more than merely philosphers trading assertions. Argument is the heart of philosophy. Why hide that fact? Nathan Ladd

Because I prefer accuracy to utility? Hmmm. --Christofurio 22:08, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

Am I to understand that because you prefer accuracy to utility, you want to hide the fact that argument is the heart of philosphy? I can't make any sense of that. Nathan Ladd 6/21/04 UTC

I'm delighted that you've eliminated the language about the "chief weakness of these theories" etc., which raised my hackles in the first place. I still regard the discussion of realist/non-realist ontologies as less than satisfactory, but it'll stay in place until I formulate an alternative. My problem now is that the range of possibilities doesn't break down very neatly into realist/non-realist. (The law of the excluded middle requires an absense of ambiguity, which hardly describes the history of philosophy very well.) Anyway, I'll continue to mull it over. Thanks for the re-writes.

Note that all of the theories, except the correspondence theory, imply that it is possible in principle for "The interior of Venus is molten copper" to be true even if, in fact, the interior of Venus is not molten copper. This is because only the correspondence theory makes reality the ultimate touchstone of truth. The others open at least the possibility that reality and truth might somehow diverge. This, of course, is the chief weakness of these theories.

I've deleted this passage, because it is POV. You cannot say that "in fact" the interior of Venus is not molten copper, because what is 'fact' is by definition 'objectively true'. That is, the correspondence theory says that only what is true is what is true, only what is fact is what is fact. --Wikiwikifast 02:49, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've put it back. It is not POV in the sense proscribed by wiki policy. It is merely an attempt to note a weakness of a philosphical theory.

Ooops. There was a midair collision there: Someone was trying to add this:

Only in the correspondence theory of truth are 'truth' and 'reality' necessarily identical. The correspondence theory of truth is necessarily correct, but does not provide a useful account of truth other than stating that only what is true is what is true, or that truth is what is real.

If you still want it in there, you'll have to put in again. But personally, I think it is misleading, at best, to say that the correspondence theory is "necessarily correct", although I think I understand what you mean.

Sorry, but I find your edit to be simply an elaboration of the previous person's bias towards the correspondence theory. --Wikiwikifast 03:52, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm tempted to say I "find that" you are wrong, and leave it at that. But, unlike you, I will give a reason for my thinking: The passage in its latest version is not even an objection anymore to the non-correspondence theories. Accordingly, it cannot be "biased" against them. If you think the article as a whole is biased for the correspondence theory, then add some objections to it!!! Or add some arguments for one or more of the non-correspondence theories. Don't fight bias by taking away information about the weaknesses of a theory. Don't fight bias with ignorance: fight it with more information.

Okay, I don't find your latest edit to be biased. --Wikiwikifast 17:07, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ayer does not belong on the list. His ideas about truth were simply a copy of F.P. Ramsey (who is listed). Note that Ayer's book "Language, Truth, and Logic" does not even appear on the largest bibliography of philosophical writings on truth: the one at the end of the Kirkham book (see this articles References section).

In general, Ayer was an English-language popularizer of the mainly German/Austrian school of philosophy called Logical Positivism. But he had little original to add to their ideas. For that reason he was famous in his day, but is not retrospectively regarded as a "major" philosopher. He was an elegant writer, so for that reason his book, mentioned above, was still used for decades as an introduction to Logical Positivism. That fact may create the impression that he "major" in the eyes of those who never do get into the original (mainly German) language stuff.

Someone is trying to add this paragraph:

Only in the correspondence theory of truth are 'truth' and 'reality' necessarily identical. The correspondence theory of truth is necessarily correct, but does not provide a useful account of truth other than stating that only what is true is what is true, or that truth is what is real.

Correspondence theory is not a necessary truth. A necessary truth is one which is true by virture of the meanings of the words. E.g. "All bachelors are unmarried." But it is not built into the very meaning of the word "true" that true propositions are those that correspond with reality. Not even a correspondence theorist would claim that. If correspondence theory were necessarily true, then no one would ever have come up with competing theories of truth. (Just as there are no competing theories of "bachelor"!) What the author of the paragraph might mean is that the sentence "truth is correspondence with the facts" is so innocuous sounding and common-sensical that any theorist about truth would be hesitant not to endorse it. Indeed, some non-correspondence theorist do sometimes claim that their theories merely fill out details of the claim that truth is correspondence with reality. Since "the facts" can be given a realist or non-realist meaning, the sentence "truth is correspondence with the facts" might very well be something pretty much everyone could endorse. But that is still a very different thing from saying that it is a necessary truth.

I think you understood what I meant quite well. In the article, the correspondence theory defines truth to be correspondence with objective reality. However, the definition of reality is often based on the concept of truth. What is the correspondence theorist's definition of reality, without relying on the idea of truth? It's because of this that I think the correspondence theory is necessarily true. --Wikiwikifast 17:07, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I reverted to an earlier version of this section because the latest version equated ontological realism with physicalism. And consequently it equated non-realism with what the writer called "mentalist ontology" which seems to be terminology he invented. I tried to just rewrite it slightly to correct these mistakes but I found it impossible especially with the last paragraph about pragmatism, which, frankly, made no sense. If the author of the version I've replace would like to tell us what he was trying to accomplish with his version in this discussion page, I'm sure his ideas can be integrated into this thing.

I don't know why it 'frankly made no sense' but I'll try to explain myself. The context was the familiar post-cartesian one about how minds know truths about physical stuff of the world, such as the make-up of the core of Venus, and answers to this question generally do imply metaphysics. The most tempting approach to giving context to truth across the mental/physical gap is to dissolve the gap. That can be done in either of three ways. (1) For some philosophers, part of the answer is that minds are the properties of physical organisms, and the relation of knowledge is itself one entirely within the physical world.

(2) For others, part of the answer is the the core of Venus, like the sound of a tree falling in a forest etc., is itself a mental fact, so the relation of knowledge is intra-mental. These are metaphysical hypotheses that naturally accompany correspondence and/or coherentist views of truth, respectively.

(3)But for still other philosophers, part of the answer is that the core of Venue (or the reality of a knowing mind) is in itself neither physical nor mental, but is a neutral stuff that becomes physical or mental depending upon the construction put upon it. This is what James called "radical empiricism" and he called the neutral stuff "pure experience." Bertrand Russell picked up on the idea and called it "neutral monism," although I forget what he called the stuff. This "third way" if you will, is the metaphysics that most naturally accompanies the pragmatic view of truth, although Russell's attraction toit had other bases. --Christofurio 12:57, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

Note: Physicalism is the doctrine that only physical objects exist. It is to be contrasted with the belief that abtract as well as physical objects exist. But both of these doctrines are independent of one's ideas about what existence itself consists of. Non-realism is the belief that to exist is simply to be an idea in some mind. Realism is the belief that some things -- things that aren't patently mental like dreams or ideas -- exist independently of any mind. That is, they exist regardless of whether any mind is perceiving them, imagining them, or thinking them; and they would continue to exist even if all minds in the universe dropped dead. Thus, one can be a realist and also believe in abstract objects. Such a person believes that abstractions like democracy and the perfect chair really exist, and they would continue to exist even if no mind were thinking about them and, indeed, even if all minds were to drop dead. Similarly, one can be a physicalist non-realist: You can believe that there really aren't any abstract objects, only physical ones; but you can also believe that the universe, physical though it may be, exists only in the sense that the things in it are ideas in some mind; perhaps the mind of God. (You might be tempted to say that such a person isn't really a physicalist after all, but that would be presupposing that The Mind he believes in is an abstract entity.) Nathan Ladd 7/3/04

---

I don?t see lumping the non-correspondence theories together, as is done in the first paragraph of this section, as useful. I also disagree with much of the paragraph. It is not true, for instance, that Quine rejected realism, yet he developed an extensive version of the coherence theory. Pierce also was no idealist. The effect of this paragraph is to distort and over-simplify a complex issue. Nor is the argument against these views sincere, since simply applying correspondence to the other theories simply begs the question by assuming the truth of the correspondence theory. Banno 02:19, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with "lumping" together several things if the purpose is precisely to talk about something they all have in common? Coherence theories of truth aren't the only theories that make the truth of a proposition a matter of something other than a propositions relations to mind-independent facts. Pragmatic theories do so as well.

Quine's coherence theory is a theory of justfication, not truth; so it does not conflict with realism.

Pierce was not a classical idealist, but he was a non-realist in his ontology.

The paragraph you object to doesn't contain any "argument against these views".

--Nate Ladd 02:38, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

I agreed with what I suspect is the thrust of the section ? that the correspondence theory has a special place. But the way in which the paragraph was phrased was simply untrue. It is not true that 'virtually all non-correspondence theorists of truth reject ontological realism'. Quine did not; Pierce insisted on realism in his later writings. Pragmatism is not necessarily anti-realist. You have perhaps hit the nail on the head by singling out the justification of a true statement. But the article, and the theories themselves, do not differentiate between what makes a statement true and how we know it to be true.Banno 09:06, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

In the previous version of the article, such questions were, after an edit war, left to the articles on the individual theories. Perhaps we should return to that strategy.Banno 09:06, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the section: If one were to conjoin one of these non-correspondence theories of truth to a realist ontology; that is, if we assume for the sake of argument that reality is mind-independent, then all of the non-correspondence theories would open at least the possibility that reality and truth might somehow diverge. They imply that it is possible in principle for "The interior of Venus is molten copper" to be true even if (as a matter of mind-independent fact) the interior of Venus is not molten copper. if not an (invalid) argument against the non-correspondence theories? Banno 09:21, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

The purpose is to describe a feature of non-correspondence theories that is not often recognized by beginners to the subject (i.e. people likely to read an encyclopedia article). There are no "because"s or "therefore"s or other explicit indicators of an argument, so the only way you could see an argument here would be if you see an entailment relation between some premise(s) and a conclusion. But, on the other hand, you say it is invalid, meaning there is no such relationship. So which is it? Is there an entailment relation there or not? (By the way, if it is an argument, what is the conclusion?)

The item:

(The semantic theory) can only be applied to languages with a finite number of sentences because it actually defines truth individually for every sentence. For example, if "Snow is white" is one of the finite number of sentences in a particular language, then one clause of the semantic theory would read "Snow is white" is true, if and only if, snow is white. Since natural languages, such as English, have an infinite number of sentences, the semantic theory cannot be used to define truth for them

is incorrect. Given the general form of t-sentences they can be applied recursively to any denumerable set of sentences (at the least). If this was not the case, it would be of no interest to logicians, since predicate and propositional calculus contain a denumerable infinite number of sentences. Banno 07:50, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Banno, I think the quotations, which you removed, were fine and interesting. An encyclopedia article on philosophy needn't be only philosophy. Wikiwikifast 05:22, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don’t like the idea, but many other articles have a similar list, so put it back if you like. Banno 08:45, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

"Third, 'true' can be used as a verb meaning 'to straighten the spokes of a bicycle wheel.'"

This particular definition, in an otherwise philosophically weighted article, reminds me of the Monty Python skit involving the heroic "Bicycle Repairman" who proves so indispensable in the town full of Supermen. --Christofurio 15:10, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

The first sentence is no good. "It is true that the world is round" does not assess the truth of the proposition, sentence or utterance "The world is round." This is because it is not about any sentence, proposition, or utterance; it is about the world. This is because it uses the sentential connective "It is true that", rather than the predicate (of sentences) "x is true". I am changing it to "'The world is round' is true." Though there are probably better fixes.

is in fact, not a sphere...

I removed the following:

As its inventor, philosopher-logician Alfred Tarski, acknowledged, the semantic theory cannot be applied to any natural language, such as English. One reason for this is that, when accurately and fully expressed, the semantic theory requires that each predicate in a language must have its satisfaction conditions specified separately. Since natural languages have an infinite number of predicates, a semantic theory of truth can never be actually expressed for a natural language.

The claim that it cannot be applied to natural language is POV, since Davidson does so, or at least thought he did so. Also, the reason given, if it were valid, would also rule out its application to formal languages. There is a distinction between the theory being true and its being implementable. This seems to be a re-interpretation of the argument discussed above.

I'm going to put it back because the objection is based on a misunderstanding of what Davidson does with Tarski's theory. Tarski wanted to define all semantic concepts including truth. A side effect of this goal was that each predicate in a language must have its satisfaction conditions specified separately. And this in turn means that the definition is not applicable to natural languages, since they have an infinite number of sentences. (The formal language (or set theory) for which Tarski actually defined truth, has a finite number of predicates, so the objection does not apply to it.) Davidson, however, wanted to create a theory of meaning which took for granted that the concept of "truth" is aleady understood. He thought that such a theory of meaning would take the form of a Tarski-like theory of truth, but it would not actually be a theory about truth. Davidson conceded that, strictly speaking, no such theory could ever be expressed (because it would be infinitely long). See the sections on Davidson in the Kirkham book for details. There are references to the relevant Davidson passages there.

None of the above is a matter of opinion. Tarski himself asserted that his theory is not applicable to natural languages (and not just for the reason above). Davidson agrees with him. --Nate Ladd 09:49, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

The formal language for which Tarski defined truth was first-order predicate calculus, which does contain an infinite number of predicates. Also, the present version puts this article at odds with the article semantic theory of truth. Banno 11:31, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC) Nat, you may be right, but your explanation of why is inadequate. Banno 11:34, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Tarski did NOT define truth for first-order predicate calculus. Other people have done this using roughly the FORM of Tarski's theory, but they allow themselves to use semantic terms in the definition of truth. Hence they can say things like "Fx is true iff the thing named by x satisfies the predicate named by F". But Tarski could not allow the concept of "nameing" in his definition of truth. His purpose was to define all semantic concepts including truth in terms of "satisfaction" and then define satisfaction in terms of non-semantic concepts. Thus, he could not make use of the kind of clause his successors used to define truth for all predicates in one fell swoop. He had to define satisfaction individually for each predicate in the language. This fact is not immediately apparent because he only produced a definition of truth for one language: a set theory that had just a single predicate "is included in". (See page 159 of Kirkham.) I see nothing in the article on the semantic theory of truth that contradicts any of this. Note that that article's definition of truth for atomic sentences uses "expresses". (It's been changed from "denote", but either way, a semantic term is being used.) Hence, Tarski would have found this definition of truth useless for his purposes. That doesn't mean it can't be the standard way of giving the truth conditions for predicate calculus. But either those truth conditions are not properly called a "semantic theory of truth" or they are a different kind of semantic theory from Tarski's. --Nate Ladd 08:16, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Nathan.

The point of the argument in the article appears to be that Tarski’s definition can be applied only to finite sets of sentences, and that some how this follows from having to explicitly state the satisfaction conditions of each sentence, is that so? But it is possible to provide a recursive definition of satisfaction for formal languages, as Tarski himself did for the first-order language of the field of real numbers.

It is not the case, then, as the article states, that the semantic theory cannot be applied to natural languages because they have an infinite number of predicates , but because they cannot be provided with a recursive definition of satisfaction. You are strictly correct, that he did not use first-order predicate calculus in his original writings, but my understanding is that the extension of his work in his 1956 paper applied it to first-order model theory; the number of elements in the domain being infinite, but the satisfaction conditions being defined recursively. at the least, it is true that semantic theories of truth are now applied to infinatary logics

That they do not apply to natural languages is arguably a result of their not being a recursive definition of satisfaction for natural languages, not a result of the size of the domain. Is that not so? Banno 22:17, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

The point of the argument was that Tarski's definition can be applied to only languages with finite sets of PREDICATES (they can have infinite sets of SENTENCES).

Where did Tarski provide this recursive definition of satisfaction for a first-order language? Also, could you provide the bibliographical data for this 1956 paper? I've never heard of it.

Tarski, A. and Vaught, R. 1956, "Arithmetical extensions of relational systems", Compositio Mathematica 13, 81-102(Banno 19:41, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC))

I'm not clear on the distinction you make in your final paragraph. If natural languages had a finite list of predicates, then there would be no need for a recursive definition of satisfaction: each predicate could have its own definition of satisfaction.

On the other hand, it now seems to me that I'm being foolish to try to distinguish Tarski's semantic theory from other semantic theories in an overview article on theories of truth. Beginners don't need such fine distinctions. So I'm going to change the passage and make it vaguer. Tarski had a second reason for believing that the semantic theory isn't applicable to natural languages: they can predicate falsity of their own sentences, hence, they are subject to the Liar paradox. --Nate Ladd 04:16, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

I deleted a parenthetical remark that "some" philosphers think that teddy bears can be truth bearers. This is a big issue and if you want to add a whole section on it, please do. But the brief remark will make no sense to any reader who hasn't recently read the Kirkham book. And it only alludes to Kirkham's view of truth bearers rather than explaining it.--Nate Ladd 08:47, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Can someone comment the statement that truth cannot be described with words, because every time we use words, we leave something out of our description. Thanks. --Eleassar777 18:49, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

it's not true. Banno 09:33, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

The map is not the landscape. But I don't know that such observations belong here. Zen anyone? --Christofurio 15:13, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

• What is truth? Because we use the word truth as a noun, is it the name of a thing? Is it some monolithic ontological entity? Or is truth shorthand way to refer to a collection of true statements?--JimWae 17:59, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

1. It was too short to make much sense. 2. No one disputes that natural languages have their own truth predicate. (Some, like Tarski, would say that this generates paradox, but they would not deny that the language has a truth predicate.) 3. If you want to add a discussion of Kripke, add the article to the References section at the same time. 4. I think you may have misused "recursively" but I'm not sure because I can't tell what you mean. (too brief) 5. "subset" is not hyphenated.

Why restored

1. It's longer now

2. Kripke's point was (should have read, and now does read) that a langauge can consistently contain its own truth predicate. Also, obviously no one would deny that a natural language can contain a truth predicate. but some people really have taken it to be a consequence of Tarski's work that no langauge does (really) contain its truth predicte.

3. Kripke's work is widely considered one of the most important works on truth in the last half-century or more. It is not out of place here. (Editorial: It's a hell of a lot more important than pragmatic theories, anti-realism, the pointless and confused coherence-correspdence debate, which ought to've ended centuries ago)

4. The construction is recursive, in the sense in which recursive means roughly the same as mathematically-inductive, which might not be the technical sense of "recursive". but it's gone now anyhow.

5. It indeed is not.

Thank you to the author of the Kripke paragraph. Banno 21:47, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

I think that many Peirceans, including Joseph Ransdell, Thomas L. Short, Kenneth Ketner, Jon Awbrey, and Gary Richmond, would disagree that "Charles Sanders Peirce [held] that the truth is whatever is (or will come to be) agreed upon by some specified group, such as all competent investigators, or the best scientists of the future." Particularly wrong there is the word "specified." To summarize: the Peircean or Pragmaticist (Peirce's coinage) view is that truth is a sign's correspondence to its object, is independent of any finite community's opinion, and would be reached by research adequately prolonged.

Peirce held that that which is true is true independently of that which, in his recurrent words, "you or I" think about it, and this independence of truth from the opinion of any finite community of investigators was an important part of his philosophy. The only opinion on which truth depends was, in Peirce's view, the final opinion which would be (not "will be" or "has been") reached by investigation adequately prolonged. This is to say that investigation is part of reality and will finally be reflected by it as well as reflect it, in a sufficiently long run, though to conceive this in a way that doesn't make truth the property of a particular specified community of investigators, one must suppose it a question of what would be the final findings of an infinite community of investigators. Peirce also said that truth is the correspondence of a sign to its object, and also held to a kind of partial coherentism in terms of the deductive, inductive, or hypothesis-formative validity of an interpretation, a partial coherentism insofar as the interpretant sign produced by interpretation also is held to a correspondence standard. Anyway, both the correspondence and coherence aspects are ultimately undergirded by the conception of research adequately prolonged -- even in the case of deduction, since the deduction, too, must be inspected as a logical diagram and its premisses and results checked as well. So, for Peirce, correspondence and coherence are aspects or moments in a bigger picture, that of research adequately prolonged. As regards the conceptions of independence and of research adquately prolonged, Peirce discusses reality in similar terms as he discusses truth. See for instance the discussion beginning at CP5.405 here in Peirce's "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" at the Arisbe Website.

I'll post this to the peirce-l e-forum where the above-mentioned scholars will see it. Best regards, Ben Udell, May 4, 2005

The interpretation of Peirce in this article pretty much coincides with the interpretation in the Kirkham book mentioned in the References. Kirkham backs up his interpretation with many quotations from Peirce. Moreover, I don't think Peirce anywhere says that the community of investigators is infinite.

It is true that one can find Peircean quotations in which he seems to endorse correspondence or coherence theory, but you can't make these inconsistent remarks consistent by saying "the correspondence and coherence aspects are ultimately undergirded by the conception of research adequately prolonged". "Aspects" is an empty word and "undergrided" is a metaphor (for what, I wonder). The fact is that if the correspondence, coherence, and concensus theories are specific enough to actually say something, then they are mutually incompatible. One has to dismiss some Peircean remarks to get a consistent theory out of him and the fact is that he places overwhelming emphasis on truth as consensus. Indeed, this articles suggestion that Peirce means "competent investigators" is itself a gloss on his work. Taken literally, he refers to "all" investigators, which would include the retarded.

From Peirce's own article "How To Make Our Ideas Clear," which I already cited and linked, and which Ransdell characterizes as "The 'classic' statement of pragmatism, as conceived by Peirce: an experimentalist conception of symbolic meaning. The second of the six papers of the 'Illustrations of the Logic of Science' series of 1877-78, regarded by Peirce as inseparable from 'The Fixation of Belief'. Paragraph 408: "But the answer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it; and that, on the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks. Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last." There Peirce says that reality is independent of the opinion of any finite number of people. I never said that Peirce says that the community of investigators "is" infinite. In that quote Peirce also makes clear that his is not a consensus theory in any normal sense of the word. If Kirkham disputes this, then Kirkham is wrong. Anyway you seem to be arguing that you are justified in revising Peirce in order to make sense of him. I'm not entirely Peircean myself. But this is supposed to be a neutral presentation. And simply "dismissing" some of Peirce's statements which you don't understand how to reconcile is unjustified without scholarly argument.

As to correspondence and coherence theories, of course Peirce didn't have full-blown such theories built into his theory to the extent that they'd have to be incompatible. I meant that while Peirce's is plainly not a consensus theory in the sense here, it is not a correspondence theory or coherence theory either, though a sign's correspondence to its object and an interpretant sign's inferential validity or cogency as a conclusion are crucial elements in the structure of his theory. And again, that was all just part of the background discussion.

At this point, I've now heard from some of the scholars whom I mentioned.

Thomas L. Short said (Wed. May 4, 2005):

Dear Ben, I agree with your correction and am grateful that you made it. More than any of the names you mentioned, including mine, however, I would have cited, on this question of truth, Cheryl Misak's Truth and the End of Inquiry (Oxford 1991), Misak, ed., Pragmatism (1999 Supplementary Volume of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy), half the papers in which are about CSP's theory of truth, Christopher Hookway, "Truth, Reality, and Convergence" in Misak, ed., Cambridge Companion to Peirce (2004), Peter Skagestad, The Road of Inquiry (Columbia 1981), among many others. .... -- Tom

Joseph Ransdell said (Wed. May 4, 2005): "Good work, Ben! I have no special comment to make at this time. ...."

Gary Richmond said (Wed. May 4, 2005): "Ben, I found nothing to disagree with and very much to approve of in your Wikipost on Peircean truth."

What I am arguing is not that my whole earlier background discussion be put onto the truth page, but that this formulation be put in about Peirce: the Peircean or Pragmaticist view is that truth is a sign's correspondence to its object, is independent of any finite community's opinion, and would be reached by research adequately prolonged. I don't know to whom to attribute the origin of consensus theory of truth in your sense, so I have no positive revision to offer in that regard.

Update: Peter Skagestad (one of those cited above by Thomas L. Short) said (Thu. May 5, 2005): "I certainly agree with Ben's Wikipedia correction, and am grateful to see the correction made."

1. I believe the discussion of Peirce is neutral (and accurate) as it is. Your proposed change, which you justify with just a single quotation from Peirce, would present an inaccurate picture of him. He is not only an advocate of a consensus theory of truth, he is famous for advocating it. An encyclopedia article that didn't attribute the consensus theory of truth to Peirce would be as silly as an encyclopedia article that didn't attribute dualism to Descartes (or Platonism to Plato).

2. The quotation isn't relevant anyway. In it, Peirce says that reality is independent of opinion, not that truth is.

3. The quotation is atypical. Elsewhere Peirce says "My social theory of reality, namely, that the real is the idea in which the community ulitimately settles down." (Collected Papers, vol. 6, section 610) And: "Everything, therefore which will be thought to exist in the final opinion is real, and nothing else." (Col Pap v. 8 sec. 12)

4. When Peirce talks about truth, not reality, he says "The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by truth." (See the Kirkham book for more along the same lines.)

5. It isn't just me who can't resolve the contradictions in Peirce. No one can, including the people you cite. When someone says P and not-P and neither P nor not-P, then you can't reconcile him by saying that P and not-P are "aspects" of a theory that is "undergrided" by neither P nor not-P. One has to dismiss some of Peirce's remarks to get any kind of consistency out him. The people you cite are doing so as well. They are dismissing the places, such as the one I just quoted, where he endorses a concensus theory of truth.

6. You are inconsistent in your attitude toward authority. You think e-mail from unknown philosophers who agree with you is evidence in your favor; but confronted with an MIT book that you disagree with and your attitude is "If Kirkham disputes this, then Kirkham is wrong."

7. Your secondary sources are entitled to their opinion, but not attributing a concensus theory of truth to Peirce is a non-standard intepretation and, hence, it does not belong in a brief discussion of Peirce in the middle of an article on truth. It belongs in an article devoted entirely to Peirce.

--Nate Ladd 10:31, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

If it's quotes you want, then here, you will find adequate accounts where Peirce relates truth to reality in such a way that it is clear that he talks of them in the same terms with regard to indefinitely prolonged research and to independence from what you or I or any finite number think, though all this would have been clear enough if you had actually read "How To Make Our Ideas Clear," but evidently it's not enough for me to link to an article, I have to actually reproduce quotations here. From these below, you may judge the worth of MIT and of its "standard interpretation," as you paint it, as authoritative. Generally, as shown by your denial that the conceptions of reality and truth are discussed in much the same terms in Peirce's philosophy, and by your indifference to the importance of "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" to Peirce's Pragmatism (which he later renamed Pragmaticism), you seem unfamiliar with and uninterested in Peirce; moreover, you admit that the Peirce scholars are "unknown" to you. Therefore it's strange that you are involving yourself in this discussion. You don't know what Peirce means by words like "final" and "truth" and "reality." I am sorry if what they are teaching you in your survey classes is mistaken or if they have failed in an effort to make you aware of Peirce's technical vocabulary, or if you have peculiar feelings of loyalty to MIT, but none of it is relevant here. And again, your inability to reconcile Peirce's various statements and your awareness of a distant rumble among Peirce scholars (who are, nevertheless, "unknown" to you) do not entitle you to revise Peirce according to arbitrary notions of "final," "reality," etc. Peirce may not make sense to you, but he said what he said; there is no methodological principle according to which we should construe Peirce as having said that which he would have had to say in order to make sense to you, least of all because of your sweeping claim that everybody (most of whom you say are "unknown" to you) does that to Peirce. It is very clear that Peirce rejects the notion that truth is the consensus of a "specified" group of experts or of future scientists and it is a baseless misrepresentation, pulled out of a hat, of Peirce to say that he did, though the claim may arise from difficulties with the English language and the meaning of the word "specified." Are there any people at Wikipedia who are (A) familiar with this subject matter and (B) interested in it? At the Commens Dictionary of Peirce, there are numerous quotes from Peirce on the subject of truth. Quotes:

Ben,

You obviously have no tolerance for the fact that not everyone in the world is going to agree with you. Your ad hominem attacks are a disgrace to you and to philosophical scholarship.

Kirkham made a reasoned interpretation of Peirce backed up by extensive quotations from Peirce's work. Your response was to ignore his arguments and simply declare that if Kirkham disagreed with your favored interpretaton, then Kirkham must be wrong.

Despite this, I granted you enough respect to write a seven point response. You have completely ignored those seven points. Instead you simply attack me and my education.

In short, you have behaved like a child.

Your bizarre references to MIT illustrate the point. Since I have never had any connection with the place or even met anyone who has, why would you think I have? Answer: because you cannot concieve of, or cope with, reasoned disagreement, you must cast about for some other explanation for why I won't kowtow to your august opinion.

By the way your quotations, which are mutually inconsistent as is usual for Peirce, do not as a whole support your interpretation of him. The second one, for example, equates truth with the opinion of each individual. You cna't get much more finite that "one" can you? --Nate Ladd 15:49, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

"To say that a thing is Real is merely to say that such predicates as are true of it, or some of them, are true of it regardless of whatever any actual person or persons might think concerning that truth. Unconditionality in that single respect constitutes what we call Reality.[---] I call "truth" the predestinate opinion, by which I ought to have meant that which would ultimately prevail if investigation were carried sufficiently far in that particular direction." ('A Sketch of Logical Critics', EP 2.457-458, 1911)

"Unless truth be recognized as public, - as that of which any person would come to be convinced if he carried his inquiry, his sincere search for immovable belief, far enough, - then there will be nothing to prevent each one of us from adopting an utterly futile belief of his own which all the rest will disbelieve. Each one will set himself up as a little prophet; that is, a little "crank," a half-witted victim of his own narrowness.

But if Truth be something public, it must mean that to the acceptance of which as a basis of conduct any person you please would ultimately come if he pursued his inquiries far enough; - yes, every rational being, however prejudiced he might be at the outset. For Truth has that compulsive nature which Pope well expressed:

The eternal years of God are her's.

But, you will say, I am setting up this very proposition as infallible truth. Not at all; it is a mere definition. I do not say that it is infallibly true that there is any belief to which a person would come if he were to carry his inquiries far enough. I only say that that alone is what I call Truth. I cannot infallibly know that there is any Truth." (Letter to Lady Welby, SS 73, 1908)

"The purpose of every sign is to express "fact," and by being joined with other signs, to approach as nearly as possible to determining an interpretant which would be the perfect Truth, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may use this language) would be the very Universe. Aristotle gropes for a conception of perfection or entelechy, which he never succeeds in making clear. We may adopt the word to mean the very fact, that is, the ideal sign which should be quite perfect, and so identical, - in such identity as a sign may have, with the very matter denoted united with the very form signified by it. The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact, will be that Universe in its aspect as a sign, the "Truth" of being. The "Truth," the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the ultimate interpretant of every sign." ('New Elements', EP 2:304, c. 1904)

"... to believe the absolute truth would be to have such a belief that under no circumstances, such as actually occur, should we find ourselves surprised." ('Reason's Conscience: A Practical Treatise on the Theory of Discovery; Wherein Logic Is Conceived as Semeiotic', MS 693: 166, 1904)

"Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question. That truth consists in a conformity to something independent of his thinking it to be so, or of any man's opinion on that subject. But for the man who holds this second opinion, the only reality, there could be, would be conformity to the ultimate result of inquiry. But there would not be any course of inquiry possible except in the sense that it would be easier for him to interpret the phenomenon; and ultimately he would be forced to say that there was no reality at all except that he now at this instant finds a certain way of thinking easier than any other. But that violates the very idea of reality and of truth." (Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, CP 5.211, 1903)

"Truth is a character which attaches to an abstract proposition, such as a person might utter. It essentially depends upon that proposition's not professing to be exactly true. But we hope that in the progress of science its error will indefinitely diminish, just as the error of 3.14159, the value given for π, will indefinitely diminish as the calculation is carried to more and more places of decimals. What we call π is an ideal limit to which no numerical expression can be perfectly true. If our hope is vain; if in respect to some question - say that of the freedom of the will - no matter how long the discussion goes on, no matter how scientific our methods may become, there never will be a time when we can fully satisfy ourselves either that the question has no meaning, or that one answer or the other explains the facts, then in regard to that question there certainly is no truth. But whether or not there would be perhaps any reality is a question for the metaphysician, not the logician. Even if the metaphysician decides that where there is no truth there is no reality, still the distinction between the character of truth and the character of reality is plain and definable. Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth. [---]

In the above we have considered positive scientific truth. But the same definitions equally hold in the normative sciences. If a moralist describes an ideal as the summum bonum, in the first place, the perfect truth of his statement requires that it should involve the confession that the perfect doctrine can neither be stated nor conceived. If, with that allowance, the future development of man's moral nature will only lead to a firmer satisfaction with the described ideal, the doctrine is true." ('Truth and Falsity and Error', DPP 2 / CP 5.565-566, 1902)

"These characters equally apply to pure mathematics. [---] A proposition is not a statement of perfectly pure mathematics until it is devoid of all definite meaning, and comes to this -- that a property of a certain icon is pointed out and is declared to belong to anything like it, of which instances are given. The perfect truth cannot be stated, except in the sense that it confesses its imperfection. The pure mathematician deals exclusively with hypotheses. Whether or not there is any corresponding real thing, he does not care. [---] But whether there is any reality or not, the truth of the pure mathematical proposition is constituted by the impossibility of ever finding a case in which it fails. This, however, is only possible if we confess the impossibility of precisely defining it." ('Truth and Falsity and Error', DPP 2 / CP 5.567, 1902)

"But even if it were impossible to distinguish between truth and reality, that would not in the least prevent our defining what it is that truth consists in. Truth and falsity are characters confined to propositions. A proposition is a sign which separately indicates its object. Thus, a portrait with the name of the original below it is a proposition. It asserts that if anybody looks at it, he can form a reasonably correct idea of how the original looked. A sign is only a sign in actu by virtue of its receiving an interpretation, that is, by virtue of its determining another sign of the same object. This is as true of mental judgments as it is of external signs. To say that a proposition is true is to say that every interpretation of it is true. [---]

Thus, a false proposition is a proposition of which some interpretant represents that, on an occasion which it indicates, a percept will have a certain character, while the immediate perceptual judgment on that occasion is that the percept has not that character. A true proposition is a proposition belief in which would never lead to such disappointment so long as the proposition is not understood otherwise than it was intended." ('Truth and Falsity and Error', DPP 2 / CP 5.569, 1902)

"All the above relates to complex truth, or the truth of propositions. This is divided into many varieties, among which may be mentioned ethical truth, or the conformity of an assertion to the speaker's or writer's belief, otherwise called veracity, and logical truth, that is, the concordance of a proposition with reality, in such way as is above defined.

(2) The word truth has also had great importance in philosophy in widely different senses, in which it is distinguished as simple truth, which is that truth which inheres in other subjects than propositions.

Plato in the Cratylus (385B) maintains that words have truth; and some of the scholastics admitted that an incomplex sign, such as a picture, may have truth.

But truth is also used in senses in which it is not an affection of a sign, but of things as things. Such truth is called transcendental truth. The scholastic maxim was Ens est unum, verum, bonum. Among the senses in which transcendental truth was spoken of was that in which it was said that all science has for its object the investigation of truth, that is to say, of the real characters of things. It was, in other senses, regarded as a subject of metaphysics exclusively. It is sometimes defined so as to be indistinguishable from reality, or real existence. Another common definition is that truth is the conformity, or conformability, of things to reason. Another definition is that truth is the conformity of things to their essential principles.

(3) Truth is also used in logic in a sense in which it inheres only in subjects more complex than propositions. Such is formal truth, which belongs to an argumentation which conforms to logical laws." ('Truth and Falsity and Error', DPP 2 / CP 5.570-573, 1902)

"By a true proposition (if there be any such thing) I mean a proposition which at some time, past or future, emerges into thought, and has the following three characters:

1st, no direct effort of yours, mine, or anybody's, can reverse it permanently, or even permanently prevent its asserting itself;

2nd, no reasoning or discussion can permanently prevent its asserting itself;

3rd, any prediction based on the proposition, as to what ought to present itself in experience under certain conditions, will be fulfilled when those conditions are satisfied.

By a reality, I mean anything represented in a true proposition.

By a positive reality or truth, I mean one to which all three of the above criteria can be applied, - of course imperfectly, since we can never carry them out to the end.

By an ideal reality or truth, I mean one to which the first two criteria can be applied imperfectly, but the third not at all, since the proposition does not imply that any particular state of things will ever appear in experience. Such is a truth of pure mathematics.

By an ultimate reality or truth, I mean one to which the first criterion can be in some measure applied, but which can never be overthrown or rendered clearer by any reasoning, and upon which alone no predictions can be based. Thus, if you are kicked by a horse, the fact of the pain is beyond all discussion and far less can it be shaken or established by any experimentation." (Letter to Georg Cantor, NEM 3:773, 1900)

"The question therefore is, how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (or belief in fiction). Now, as we have seen in the former paper, the ideas of truth and falsehood, in their full development, appertain exclusively to the experiential method of settling opinion. [---]

On the other hand, all the followers of science are animated by a cheerful hope that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to each question to which they apply it. [---] This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinate opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. (' How to Make Our Ideas Clear', CP 5.406-407, 1878)

Gentlemen, this is not really the place for this discussion, interesting as it may be to scholars of Pierce. Let's keep to the content of the article. At present it reads:

1. • The consensus theory, invented by Charles Sanders Peirce holds that the truth is whatever is (or will come to be) agreed upon by some specified group, such as all competent investigators, or the best scientists of the future.

Now, how would each of you write this particular sentence in the context of the article, bearing in mind that exegesis on Peirce has no place there? Banno 21:45, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for stepping in, Banno. Eliminating ALL exegesis of Peirce would be worse than simply leaving him unmentioned, because he contradicts himself. If the article is to attribute something non-contradicatory to him, then we will have to pick some of his remarks as expressing what he really meant and ignore those that contradict what we have chosen. Since we already have examples of correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories, I suggest we ignore the places were Peirce seems to endorse these. That leaves us with his proposal that truth is a consensus opinion. Taken literally, he says that truth or falsity of any proposition is the opinion that all people will eventually have. But since "all" includes people who are insane and retarded, a sympathetic exegesis of Peirce is that he meant all people who of a certain class, such as say competent scientists. But if exegesis is not allowed, then the sentence should read:

1. • The consensus theory, invented by Charles Sanders Peirce holds that the truth is whatever is (or will come to be) agreed upon by all people.

Thanks. I note that none of the other "robust" theories is attributed to an individual, so I am puzzled. there does not seem to me to be a pressing need to attribute the consensus theory to anyone in particular. Give this very discussion, ipso facto that attribution is controversial. The simples solution for this particular article would seem to be not to attribute these theories to anyone. The controversy can then be move to its rightful place, as a part of Consensus theory of truth. Banno 09:57, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

The law of the Excluded Middle is that for any predicate P,

Either x is P or x is not-P.

The Principle of Bivalence is not just an instance of this. E.g., it is not just:

1. For any sentence s, s is true or s is not true.

The Principle of Bivalence says something even stronger. It says:

2. For any sentence s, s is true or s is false.

Notice that 1 leaves open the possibility that a sentence could be neither true nor false. Since such a sentence would be "not-true", it's existence would not be a violation of 1 (but it would be a violation of 2).

Maybe. If you could give a source clearly indicating that this distinction in usage exists, I'd be much happier. I'm kind of unconvinced. I've routinely heard intuitionism described as not accepting the principle of excluded middle. I've also routinely heard that (or bivalence) described so: For any proposition (or sentence) p, (p or ~p). Note that the disjunction is stated without actually averting to predicating truth or falsehood of anything. Again, any of these usages might be mistaken, but I'd like to see a definite source.

I googled "principle of bivalence" and "excluded middle" and I could not find any source that does not make a distinction between the two. Here's one example:

http://www.philosophos.com/knowledge_base/archives_18/philosophy_questions_18101.html

All of these sources call

For any proposition p, (p or ~p)

the law of the Excluded Middle. I'm old enough to remember when it was called the "Modern Law of the Excluded Middle". What I gave above is the original Aristotelian version in which the "not" is an adverb, not a sentential operator. At any rate, anyone who uses this to express bivalence is indeed making a mistake. Also, the distinction between the Liar and the Strengthened Liar in the Wikipedia's article on the Liar paradox makes no sense if there is no distinction between bivalence and excluded middle. --Nate Ladd 01:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, this might be slightly beside the point. Kripke's weak Kleene valuation scheme is, I understand, the same as that normally used in intuitionistic logic. There it comes about that no instance of a denial of bivalence can be assigned truth. That is, for no p is it the case that ~(p or ~p). The reason is that (in weak Kleene), if a part of a sentence gets no assignment, neither does the whole sentence (It is non-monotonic). The upshot of all this is that there really is a difference between denying Bivalence--that is, endorsing the claim (For some p)(~(p or ~p))--and merely not endorsing bivalence--that is, not endorsing every possible claim of the form (p or ~p). kripke does the latter.

Intuitionism does indeed deny bivalence (because that follows from its denial of the Law of the Excluded Middle). But Kripke does more than merely not endorse the claim that "This sentence is false" is either true or false. He actually rejects that claim, does he not? He says the sentence gets no truth value even in the fixed point. Hence, he must regard the sentence as a counterexample to bivalence. --Nate Ladd 01:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

You could put it this way: If you use a bivalent metalanguage to give a semantics for Kripke's system, you will indeed, correctly, describe it as "denying" bivalence, in that you have to assign three semantic values (Bivalent means two-valued) to its sentences. But the system itself contains no denial of bivalence, because the sentences that would express any such denial do not themselves receive a truth-value. There's a real difference here, and one I believe Kripke has insisted on in the past. (I may be misremembering).

Again, here, it looks to me like what you are saying about bivalence might be true of the excluded middle, but is not true of bivalence. Keeping in mind, now, that for intuitionists, truth=proved and false=disproved, intuitionists would insist that it is true (=proved) that "some sentences are neither true (proved) nor false (disproved)". --Nate Ladd 01:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I also disagree with your removal of a variety of remarks on the grounds that they were too technical. You did, in most of those cases, make the exposition clearer. But there is no reason for this article to be so non-technical as to exclude any of what you removed (let alone this whole encyclopedia). Witness any number of the articles in math, physics, and logic. If you want to move the more technical details to a separate article on logical theories of truth, or some such, I'm not averse to that. but the math of Kripke's theory isn't out of place here.

Oh, yes, there is a reason: Some readers who can understand my exposition will not be able to understand yours, while anyone who understands yours will also be able to understand mine. Hence, my exposition will be informative to more people.

But if it provides less information to more people, it is not necessarily better. Still, I'll rest content with it. --.97

As for math, physics, and logic, it is impossible to discuss these without a fair measure of technical paraphernalia. And, sometimes that is necessary in philosophy too. But, a survey article of theories of truth is not one of the places where highly technical talk is sensible. This kind of article is not meant to be a summary to PhDs of what they know. It is meant to be informative to people who may very little about philosophy and logic. (That does not mean that technical talk would be out place in an article about Kripke or his theory of truth. You'll notice the links in this article to other articles devoted to particular theories of truth. Why not start one about Kripke's theory and put in all the technical detail you want? Or add to the Truth section of the article on Kripke that already exists. At present it is way to brief to make much sense. Go to it!)--Nate Ladd 01:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Possibly I'm largely wrong. I'll wait for a reply before I revert anything.

I think .97 has the better case here. That the system denies bivalence is a mater of contention, and should be set out as such in the article - as it stands, I think the section POV. I also thought .97's exposition very clear, and not too technical - one of the very few readable accounts of Kripke's work on the net. Banno 21:08, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no one else in the world, besides .97 who does not believe that Kripke denies the principle of bivalence. As for clarity, .97 himself/herself seems to think my exposition is clearer. At any rate, whether you found his exposition clear is not the test. You, afterall, are an expert on the subject and, thus, not representative of someone who would read this article seeking enlightenment. We have to be clear to that someone, not to ourselves. We won't achieve that goal if we use, without explanation, terms like "iteration," "fixed point," "sentence-hood," "three-valued logic" and "partial definition." --Nate Ladd 01:08, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Folks, could you please sign your comments? Banno

Yes, Bivalence is not the same as excluded middle. But which is it that Kripke makes use of? Now, I do not unfortunately have access to his article. But my recollection and understanding is that the controversial part is that he defines, in effect, three values for sentences. So for instance ~p will be true in the case that p is false; it will be false in the case that p is true; and that it will have no truth-value in the case that p has no truth-value. He uses a similar definition for "or"; and so he makes use of the notion of a sentence not having a truth-value. Is this correct?

If so, there are two ways to read his argument. One is that he makes use of only two truth-values, true and false, but that he excludes certain sentences from having a truth value at all (I think this the better interpretation, but that is just my POV). In this case, he does not deny the law of excluded middle, but does deny bivalence.

The other is that he makes use of three truth-values, true, false and indeterminate. In this interpretation, he might be thought to deny excluded middle, as well as bivalence. Or he might be thought to be denying excluded middle, and by implication saying that the truth-value of bivalence is either false or indeterminate. It is something like this that I think .97 has in mind - but I could be worng... Banno 09:52, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

That is in fact the distinction I was aiming at. It's been a while since I read it, by I vaguely recall Kripke being insistent that using two-values, but only partially defining their assignment, was genuinely different from using three values, and that therefore his weak Kleene scheme didn't amount to denying either bivalence or EM. You can in fact go on to define a third truth-value to cover the undefined regions, and get the same results--but you don't have to. But then, I may be conflating it with a professor's comments on the text. --.97

It seems to me that if he allows for statements that do not have a truth value, he is dropping the law of excluded middle. Banno 23:11, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

This is not meant as a philosophical discussion, just as a (possible) improvement to the article.

Is 'I like broccoli' really a subjective statement? If I like brocolli, then I don't see anyone disputing it - "well, I personally think you *don't* like broccoli", etc. Wouldn't 'Broccoli is tasty' be a better example? Any comments, gratefully received!

I guess that the point is how one decides that one likes broccoli - not in the same way that one finds out that "broccoli is green". A statement is not subjective just in virtue of no-one disputing its truth; rather it is subjective in virtue of the way in which we determine that truth. Banno 21:25, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I take your point, and you are right. However, if I want to know whether broccoli is green, I go and look at it. And if I want to know if you like broccoli, I go and ask you, or watch your expression as you eat. If I want to know if broccoli is tasty though... well, I have to look inside myself for that one. Surely, the truth of a statement is subjective if it depends on who is asking. Whether you like broccoli doesn't depend on whose asking - whether broccoli is tasty does.

I can't see how, in this regard, "I like broccoli" differs from "broccoli is tasty", since they both express the same preference, and the truth value of both (in so far as they have a truth value - some philosophers dispute this) is determined by introspection, not observation. Perhaps the problem is with "I" and "you" rather than "taste" and "like"? Banno 21:12, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess you might be right. Perhaps it should be changed anyway to avoid confusion/making any implicit philosophical assumptions about reference. "broccoli is tasty" and "I like broccoli" might be equally subjective, but the first seems to carry less baggage. What do you think? I'm not trying to be stubborn in getting it changed, I just still think, in the light of your comments, that a change would be worthwhile (though perhaps not as much as I first did). Grayum 30 June 2005 08:23 (UTC)

Well, this seems to me to be very close to Wittgenstein's beetle, a typically brilliant but subtle argument to the effect that such statements do not express truths as such. That argument is probably too difficult to include here, so perhaps I;ll leave the change inthe article to you. Banno July 3, 2005 00:07 (UTC)

Markus has deleted science as not needing truth. Here is a justification for the reliance of scientific findings on truth:

1. The reasoning of a scientific finding must be cogent.
2. The cogency of an argument relies on the truth of its parts.
3. The reasoning behind an argument must be valid.
4. When a scientific finding is reliable, then that finding can be applied to situations, when it is useful and cogent.
5. Ultimately a scientific finding must be reproducible in order for the knowledge to be reliable.

All these factors in a scientific finding are glossed by the scientific community as the truth of a finding. This is what is typically meant by the truth. Perhaps there is so much piled on top of true statements, that the five parts above fail to hang together. But that would be the fault of the thinker, and not the fault of any of the components above.

Interested parties, please join in. It certainly is provocative to maintain that truth is not needed in Science. Ancheta Wis 30 June 2005 02:10 (UTC)

Perhaps a definition of truth is in order. I could skew the subject by defining truth to be the 5 components above. But that would be a little self-serving.

Perhaps the operational need is the point. Perhaps "useful" is the operational word here, rather than true, as the gist of the need in science. But at the very least we need cogency, validity, and perhaps soundness. The properties of reliablity, reproducibility ought to be consequences of basing the prerequisites on something "true".

Ancheta Wis 30 June 2005 02:52 (UTC)

I'm somewhat bemused by the idea that science does not seek to find the truth. Do you really what to give that much ground to the social Constructivists? I recommend reverting. Banno

Ancheta, please, before attempting to define truth, take a look at the archive here. You will gain an insight into the difficulties involved, and the reasons for the present introduction. Besides, the pragmatic theory of truth is already mentioned in the article. Banno June 30, 2005 11:48 (UTC)

I've just reverted Markus' edit. The claim is not that scientific statements are true, but that science seeks to discover the truth. Does anyone wish to claim otherwise? Banno June 30, 2005 11:52 (UTC)

Science seeks to predict. It might be, that this is the same as seeking the truth for some definitions of "truth". But it is not the same for many definitions.

It is not the same for the correspondence theory of truth, as general relativity and quantum mechanics, do not correspond to each other, so at least one of them does not correspond to reality, yet both make valid predictions. Heisenberg picture and Schrödinger picture describe reality differently but both are equally valid, as they make the same predictions.

It is not the same for the coherence theory of truth, as theories might be coherent but yet fail to make correct predictions.

It is not the same for the consensus theory, as theories might be agreed upon, such as luminiferous aether, yet their predictions fail.

According to at least three important definitions of "thruth" science does not seek truth. But according to the initial paragraph science seeks truth, no matter how "truth" is defined. Markus Schmaus 30 June 2005 16:13 (UTC)

But in order to understand what "truth" means for each theory, you must take is seriously. For example, if "truth" is "coherence", then if a theory fails to succeed in predicting, it would make predictions that where incompatible with observations, yet these observations form a part of the coherent web. The theory would be incoherent. Similarly, if "truth" is "consensus", then by definition if some people think the predictions of a theory are false, then there is no consensus. So both definitions are compatible with the idea that science seeks to make predictions. (Not sure about your representation of correspondence theory. for correspondence, it is not important that relativity and quantum mechanics "correspond" to each other, but that they correspond to what is the case.)

Take another look at the introductory paragraph. It partially defines truth as a type of evaluation of a statement, leaving the details for the main discussion,. This is done so as to avoid a POV war at the start of the article. The main topic of the article is a comparison of the various definitions of truth. Now, I think it true that scientists do indeed seek to evaluate statements as either true or false; Scientists may differ amongst themselves and with others as to whether some statement is indeed true or false, or even as to what it means for that statement to be true or false, but I think that they nevertheless quite commonly make claims as to the truth or falsehood of their statements, and that making such evaluations if fundamental to the nature of science. Furthermore, this is so regardless of the particular theory of truth held by any particular scientist.

It seems to me that claiming that science seeks predictive power rather than truth is simply to claim that for them, truth is predictive power, and so to take sides with one particular definition - and not a very good one at that. It is to restrict scientists to the pragmatic theory of truth. Again, do you really want to do that? I hope not. I don't see any need to link science to any particular definition of truth. Leave such pedantry to the philosophers. Banno June 30, 2005 19:37 (UTC)

I do not claim that truth is the same as predictive power, but I claim that science seeks the later. I don't like defining "truth" as predictive power either, that's one reason I don't like the current initial paragraph.

As you just described the coherence and consensus theories, they might be compatible. Is anything true according to coherence theory, as there's allways someone objecting? Is math a science according to coherence theory?

If quantum mechanics corresponds to what is the case, then "time and space are distinct" coresponds to what is the case. General relativity claims, that time and space are the same, and could not correspond to what is the case simultainiously.

When the pope states "God exists" and a scientist states "quantum mechanics is correct", they claim different things. The pope claims to express unchanging and absolute Truth, but the scientist knows, that general relativity, which is also "correct", contradicts quantum mechanics and he expects a new theory to replace them sooner or later. He also does not attribute the elements of quantum mechanics, such as the density matrix, the same amount of existence as the pope attributes to God, they are just means for calculation and finally prediction.

There's a popular misperception of science, assuming science claim the same for of truth as religion, ignoring the provisional character of scientific theories. And I fear, "Science, law, religion [...] are seeking to discover things which are true" promotes this misperception.Markus Schmaus

Banno, as a user/consumer of the article on truth, I much appreciate your last edit. Psychologically, the article reads much more cleanly. By not stating the applications or uses in the intro, the article seems to have a more mathematical feel. Ancheta Wis 1 July 2005 08:17 (UTC)

Banno, Thank you.

P.S.:The way you described coherence theory, is not obvious from coherentism and I believe many people misunderstand it the way I did. Stating pretty much what you said in the article might help.

P.P.S.: My question on consensus theory of truth was a real question, is there anything true according to this theory? Markus Schmaus 2 July 2005 02:24 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I am loath to edit the coherence definition in truth, because in previous discussion an agreement was reached to leave most of the text to the relevant articles so as to avoid any perception of bias in truth. But I will have a play with Coherentism. Your point, Marcus, has arisen before, and I had attempted to avoid that misapprehension. I'll try again.

Consensus theories are not uncommon, but are seldom called by that name. I'm far from knowledgeable about Charles Sanders Peirce but my understanding is that he was selective about whom it was that belonged to the group of investigators who had the privilege of deciding what was true and what not, at least at one stage restricting it to appropriately trained scientists. Even then, there was a sense of asyntopicaly approaching truth, rather than presenting it. Given that, the answer is yes, a variety of things can be held to be true, depending on who's consensus one uses. Banno July 2, 2005 07:51 (UTC)

From the article:

Some variations of the pragmatic theory are classed here, and even many correspondence theorists can be interpreted as (meaning to be) in this camp as well.

Who? This sentence does not add anything to the discussion without explaining who and how, and serves only to blur the distinction between Robust and Deflationary theories. Banno July 2, 2005 21:53 (UTC)

See the disimbiguation page for the term, true which points out that the derivative term, 'truth' can mean, in simplest terms, "A statement that is in accord with the actual state of affairs in any particular case." -- 67.182.157.6 16:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

So what? What do you think is the significance of this vague definition? Why are you quoting it here? --Nate Ladd 04:16, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

1. What's vague about it? It is one of the things truth can mean isn't it

It is vague because "in accord with" is vague. Does it mean "coheres with"? does it mean "corresponds to"? It sounds like it might be an endorsement of the correspondence theory, in which case your definition is POV. At any rate, whether or not it is "one of the things truth can mean" is precisely the question at issue in this article. You can't just presuppose an affirmative answer to that question within the very article which is meant to investigate the answer.

2. It is quoted here to show that truth is a derivative term of the term, true, which has a disambiguation page (if those of you who are obscurantist would stop vandalizing it), and to show why some aspects of this article truth are disputed.

The definition does not show that "truth" is derived from "true". You would need a history of the two words to show that, not a definition of either of them. At any rate, if "truth" is derived from "true," what would be the significance of that? Why do you think it needs to be said in this article? Finally, I can't tell what you mean when you say "some aspects of the this article truth are disputed." The subject matter of the article is hotly disputed in philosophy. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean you dispute some part of it? If the latter, then please quote the passage you dispute in this talk page and tell us what you think is wrong with it.

One more thing: would you stop accusing people of vandalism or obscurantism? You are the one who has been making changes without explaining them. If you want to be respected, you have to act respectably: bring up your issues here in Talk BEFORE you make changes.

--Nate Ladd 04:54, July 13, 2005 (UTC)