Timeline for By what generic method do we correctly determine that an analytical expression of language is true?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 1 at 18:38 | comment | added | polcott | Expressions of language that are {true on the basis of their verbal meaning} either have a link by truth preserving operations to this {verbal meaning} or they are not {true on the basis of their verbal meaning}. This new analytical framework that I created quickly dispatches all paradoxical expressions as not bearers of truth. | |
| Jun 17 at 16:22 | comment | added | polcott | Once the terms: {adult} {male} {human} {Married} have been fully specified (as predicates) by as many as a googolplex of Rudolf Carnap meaning postulates liarparadox.org/Meaning_Postulates_Rudolf_Carnap_1952.pdf then the otherwise totally meaningless predicate Bachelor(x) is defined to mean Adult(x) ∧ Male(x) and ∧ Human(x) ∧ ~Married(x). | |
| Jan 30 at 15:28 | comment | added | polcott | @abcga It seems that the entire body of analytic truth is merely a connected set of semantic tautologies. | |
| Jan 30 at 7:02 | comment | added | user71009 | @polcott I am unsure what are you talking about at this point. | |
| Jan 30 at 6:12 | comment | added | polcott | @abcga I can see how it all fits together as a single tree of knowledge as a mutually interlocking semantic tautology. | |
| Jan 30 at 6:03 | comment | added | user71009 | @polcott I don't think so. I don't believe in any suitable criterion of analyticity. | |
| Jan 30 at 6:00 | comment | added | polcott | @abcga Do we seem to have the (underlying infrastructure) framework to propose an answer? | |
| Jan 30 at 5:55 | comment | added | user71009 | @polcott Yes, if you have a totality of "meaning postulates", then any sentence that can be derived from them is analytic (the way you encode these doesn't seem very important). But then I don't understand the point of your question. I thought you were asking about a criterion applicable seamlessly to natural languages. | |
| Jan 30 at 5:19 | comment | added | polcott | @abcga "purely a matter of definition" When we hypothesize that the complete model of the world is encoded in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CycL that can encode Rudolf Carnap Meaning Postulates. Thus creating an inheritance hierarchy tree of knowledge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) The Cyc project uses 128-bit GUIDs for each unique sense meaning. Thus we hypothesize that the complete body of human general knowledge of "humans" and "animals" is already available. The above article is implying such a system. | |
| Jan 30 at 5:09 | comment | added | user71009 | @polcott Which definition? I can define "human" in many different ways. That's exactly Quine's point - there are no "meanings". Saying that it is "how <<human>> and <<mammal>> are used" doesn't explain anything, because they're correctly used whenever a true sentence is asserted. And not every true sentence is analytic. Saying that they don't depend on matters of facts also doesn't explain anything, because in conjunction with other sentences it has observational consequences etc. | |
| Jan 30 at 4:39 | comment | added | polcott | @abcga "Thus, “All humans are mammals” is held to assert with regard to anything whatsoever that either it is not a human or it is a mammal. But that universal “truth” follows not from any facts noted about real humans but only from the actual use of human and mammal and is thus purely a matter of definition." britannica.com/topic/tautology | |
| Jan 30 at 3:43 | comment | added | user71009 | @polcott Indeed, but tautologies (like A = A) are distinct from full-blown analytic statements (like "All bachelors are unmarried"). | |
| Jan 29 at 23:22 | comment | added | polcott | @PhilipKlöcking Evidence is on the other side of the analytic/synthetic divide, I am referring to tautologies. Tautology, in logic, a statement so framed that it cannot be denied without inconsistency. britannica.com/topic/tautology This is deductive rather than inductive inference, thus the coherence rather than correspondence theory of truth applies. | |
| Jan 29 at 22:50 | comment | added | Philip Klöcking♦ | @polcott That is not what either of these men meant. Evidence is never purely semantical since without practical implications, language is hollow, thin, nothing but smoke and mirrors. Meaning is holistic, yes, but it is also malleable as our practical relations to one another and the world change. | |
| Jan 29 at 22:05 | comment | added | polcott | Maybe this addresses the issues that you raised: Every truth that can be expressed using language and verified as completely true entirely on the basis of other expressions of language <is> a truth verified as true entirely on the basis of its meaning. | |
| Jan 29 at 6:55 | history | answered | user71009 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |