JLNobody wrote:John Jones, it seems so clear to me that "truth" is an evaluation we make of statements that meet certain criteria: logical consistency, canons of evidence, etc.. I grant that a truth proposition that has no connection with "reality" is not likely to meet ANY "truth critera" except, perhaps, those of theology (e.g., the criterion of faith). But I am not saying, of course, that all statements are, by virtue of being statements, true. You say that what is true is that "it is raining"; I say that what is true is the proposition that "it is raining." But that is only a statement of what what is happening at a trivial level. The term, "truth" is more applicable to an "as-if" statement such as: If certain conditions occur then it will rain. Truth is about prediction and control, not just the accuracy of trivial description. It is obvious that we do not resonate here because your perspective skews toward objectivism (materialism?) and mine toward subjectivism idealism. But I am not a 100% idealist. Both extremes are misguided, as far as I am concerned because they tend to depart from reality which is best characterized by statements of the middle range. Here you see that I am not in total disagreement with your position.
I apologise in advance for what I now write. It is compressed but only apparantly difficult, rushed and written in one sitting. It is original material. It is the only way I can see of getting an overview of the issues we are discussing.
Logical propositions assume the particular case but do not portray the particular case or convey meaning. For example, the proposition 'the cat sat on the mat' could be a password between spies as a particular case. A logical proposition references a set of 'the cat sat on the mat' statements, but cannot say what their meanings are. These statements are not like the statements that are used when we talk about the particular case, even though they look exactly the same. Now in order for logical propositions to make sense of their statements they have to invoke a tool. The tool is called truth and falsehood. Truth pertains to a mapping and matching of the particular case to a proposition, and falsehood where there is no match. This technique has been in use for as long as there have been logical propositions, but its flaws soon become evident, if we are prepared to acknowledge them. The problem is that it is not clear what it is we are matching. For example, we might say that 'truth pertains to statements'. But now we cannot define a statement without stripping it of its sense, which also points to or defines a statement of logic. However, we ignore this difficulty that could otherwise show us the peculiar status of a statement of logic. So truth is of no use to us, unless we wish to compare the particular case with statements of logic. And I repeat, even though the statements of propositional logic and the particular case may look the same they are quite different. We need not use this tool called truth, that belongs to the pecular world of logical propositions.
