val wrote:John Jones
Quote:I only wish to comment on the above. I think you mis-portray the statements in question. When you say 'saying "it is raining" is not the same as "it is raining", you ought to say:
The statement "saying it is raining" is not the same as the statement "it is raining". And then it is plainly evident.
Sorry, but I didn't say exactly that. I said that the statement "it's raining" is not the same thing as "to be raining". The first has to do with language. Imagine that I don't know what rain is. But I know that "rain" is something that usually occurs in Winter. I know it is January. So, I say: it is raining. Or: probably it is raining.
But, "to be raining", although expressed in words, refers to a different situation, a situation of experience. It is a fact, as I understand facts: a sensorial experience. "To be raining" is an expression that describes an event external to me, but not external to my experience. On the other hand the statement "it's raining" is a proposition about that fact: and here, and only here, can we speak about truth.
We can't rack up the reality of the statement 'it is raining' by basing it on experience. All we get is a different statement - 'I experience it raining', or some such.
JLNobody wrote:Val, I tend to describe correct (purely logical) analytical statements as VALID statements; I tend to describe correct (empirically falsifiable) synthetic statements as TRUE statements. But I do agree with what you have said here. See?
That truth is applied to the particular case, I have no argument against that, but whether propositions can be valid or not is up for grabs. To be valid the proposition must have at least some meaning. Yet to have a meaning pre-supposes the particular case, and then we are back to judgements of truth. This blurs the distinction between truth and validity. How would you answer that?
John Jones
Quote:We can't rack up the reality of the statement 'it is raining' by basing it on experience. All we get is a different statement - 'I experience it raining', or some such.
Right. And that is reality. "I experience it's raining" is all the reality we can reach.
Val, you show another point of agreement between us:
You say: "To be raining" is an expression that describes an event external to me, but not external to my experience. On the other hand the statement "it's raining" is a proposition about that fact: and here, and only here, can we speak about truth."
I say: To be raining, or as a zen haiku is likely to express it, "raining". pertains to, or points to, REALITY, and the falsifiable proposition "it's raining" pertains to TRUTH--at least as I prefer to use the terms.
John Jones, for me, the term "valid" refers to the logical viability of a statement. It may have little or nothing to do with reality. For example, my premise may be about an empirically unreal unicorn (or X), but if my conclusion is consistent with that premise, it is valid yet not (empiricallyl) true.
"John Jones, you say "That truth is applied to the particular case, I have no argument against that, but whether propositions can be valid or not is up for grabs. To be valid the proposition must have at least some meaning. Yet to have a meaning pre-supposes the particular case, and then we are back to judgements of truth. This blurs the distinction between truth and validity. How would you answer that?"
I was not arguing that truth pertains to A particular case; it DOES pertain to CONCRETE (not purely abstract) cases. A truth statement can apply to all instances of identical (or sufficiently similar) concrete cases.
And propositions are valid when they conform to logical rules. This is not "up for grabs", if I understand you correctly.
John Jones, I grant that the boundary between truth and validity can be blurry. They are formal distinctions, good to think with but not necessarily descriptive of the world. Most of our examples have been extreme illustrations of valid and true propositions. But actual propositions about the world (truth statements) are usually also judged for their logical validity.
By the way, folks, I place little confidence in my judgements here. This is clearly not a field in which I have much sophistication.
Truth requires both empirical and rational ability working simultaneously.
Quote:Right. And that is reality. "I experience it's raining" is all the reality we can reach.
I disagree since I think you're confusing a knowledge with an experience.
val wrote:John Jones
Quote:We can't rack up the reality of the statement 'it is raining' by basing it on experience. All we get is a different statement - 'I experience it raining', or some such.
Right. And that is reality. "I experience it's raining" is all the reality we can reach.
But 'I experience it raining' is not any more or less real than 'it is raining' because what is real is to introduce a third consideration not included in either of these two statements; and truth or falsity could be mapped to either statement with equal justification.
The need to propose a 'reality', which we approximate to more or less succesfully through our statements, is not necessary.
Interesting comment, John Jones. If you ignore some presumption of a reality (whether objective or subjective), on what basis do you designate either "I experience it raining" or "It is raining" as true or false?
The psychological behaviorist argued that "consciousness" was not necessary for the understanding of behavior in the same spirit, I think, as your ignor-ance of reality. To me, right or wrong, "Reality" is the backdrop to everything, a hypothetical foundation, as it were.
JLNobody wrote:Val, you show another point of agreement between us:
You say: "To be raining" is an expression that describes an event external to me, but not external to my experience. On the other hand the statement "it's raining" is a proposition about that fact: and here, and only here, can we speak about truth."
I say: To be raining, or as a zen haiku is likely to express it, "raining". pertains to, or points to, REALITY, and the falsifiable proposition "it's raining" pertains to TRUTH--at least as I prefer to use the terms.
John Jones, for me, the term "valid" refers to the logical viability of a statement. It may have little or nothing to do with reality. For example, my premise may be about an empirically unreal unicorn (or X), but if my conclusion is consistent with that premise, it is valid yet not (empiricallyl) true.
"John Jones, you say "That truth is applied to the particular case, I have no argument against that, but whether propositions can be valid or not is up for grabs. To be valid the proposition must have at least some meaning. Yet to have a meaning pre-supposes the particular case, and then we are back to judgements of truth. This blurs the distinction between truth and validity. How would you answer that?"
I was not arguing that truth pertains to A particular case; it DOES pertain to CONCRETE (not purely abstract) cases. A truth statement can apply to all instances of identical (or sufficiently similar) concrete cases.
And propositions are valid when they conform to logical rules. This is not "up for grabs", if I understand you correctly.
John Jones, I grant that the boundary between truth and validity can be blurry. They are formal distinctions, good to think with but not necessarily descriptive of the world. Most of our examples have been extreme illustrations of valid and true propositions. But actual propositions about the world (truth statements) are usually also judged for their logical validity.
By the way, folks, I place little confidence in my judgements here. This is clearly not a field in which I have much sophistication.
Don't you find it odd that propositions of logic can, through its term 'validity' actually make reference to 'truth', the concrete? How can logic make a distinction in this way between what is 'real' (or true/false), and what is simply valid (not true/false)?
John Jones asks: "Don't you find it odd that propositions of logic can, through its term 'validity' actually make reference to 'truth', the concrete? How can logic make a distinction in this way between what is 'real' (or true/false), and what is simply valid (not true/false)?"
I answer: Not too odd. I'm no rationalist. I do not see a logic as addressing "truth." I do not see the structure of thought, as ruled by "Western" logic, as necessarily isomorphic with the structure of reality. There are, after all, other logics (witness the anthropological journal, Ethnologic). But, of course, logic serves us in our efforts to make sensible empirical generalizations about the world. To me, logic, by itself, only provides a means to see if our statements do not cancel themselves out (if they are not in-valid), not if they are true (if they describe how the world works).
Zen statements about Reality are often expressed paradoxically, i.e, in ways that would seem contradictory to one who's life world is structured in terms of objects and their relations rather than processes and their confluences. Yet if they are correct, they are making TRUE statements.
Peter Berger plays this tune well but then, so does Alan Watts.
Ray
Quote:I disagree since I think you're confusing a knowledge with an experience
Does that mean that you believe in a knowledge external to experience?
John Jones
Quote:But 'I experience it raining' is not any more or less real than 'it is raining' because what is real is to introduce a third consideration not included in either of these two statements; and truth or falsity could be mapped to either statement with equal justification.
No, it isn't. If I say "it is raining" and go to the window and see the sun without a single cloud, my statement is false. If I see rain, if I feel it in my skin, the statement "I experience it raining" is true and so is the statement "it's raining".
Quote:The need to propose a 'reality', which we approximate to more or less succesfully through our statements, is not necessary.
Then, why speak of raining? Raining is not only a concept, is a sensorial experience. It is true that when I speak of raining I am referring to a general concept of rain and not the experience in my skin or my eyes. In Husserl's phenomenology, I start with the idea of "rain" and only then I go, intentionally, to the single rain as phenomena.
I believe Husserl was wrong, but in order to understand better your position, can you explain more clearly your point of view?
Quote:If I say "it is raining" and go to the window and see the sun without a single cloud, my statement is false. If I see rain, if I feel it in my skin, the statement "I experience it raining" is true and so is the statement "it's raining".
You are changing the statements. For example, the statement 'it is raining' now becomes 'I have checked whether it is raining and it is raining'.
If I say 'it is raining' both I, and the person I say it to, understand that 'it is raining'. The only way to introduce doubt or the demands of evidence is to change the statement. For example, the statement will become 'it might be raining', or the statement might become: 'the person who says "it is raining" may be lying'.
We do not need to invoke general cases or Platonic Forms and the like. A statement like 'it is raining' that is made within the scenario of its particular case, is complete. It is only when I change the scenario, such as by changing the way the statement operates by making it a proposition of logic, or by introducing doubt into the particular case where the statement is uttered, that the statement appears incomplete and subject to 'truth'.
You realize that the "later" Wittgenstein disagreed with what he had written earlier concerning these logic games about how language is internally structured rather than what it is intended to mean... because as far as I can tell this is largely where you're taking these ideas from, although I honestly haven't read any of his work myself. I have read about him though, and Hegel's discussion of language in the Phenomenology (which I've read) anticipated Wittgenstein's later work.
Thalion wrote:You realize that the "later" Wittgenstein disagreed with what he had written earlier concerning these logic games about how language is internally structured rather than what it is intended to mean... because as far as I can tell this is largely where you're taking these ideas from, although I honestly haven't read any of his work myself. I have read about him though, and Hegel's discussion of language in the Phenomenology (which I've read) anticipated Wittgenstein's later work.
These are my ideas, and I continue them on from Wittgenstein because I am him. When you speak to me, you speak to Wittgenstein.
Not sure what your problem is. I was just saying that he disagreed with what he had said, which sounds similar to what you're saying, even though it was "logical."
John Jones, when you speak to me you speak to Brahmin. But, then, you are also Brahmin speaking to Brahmin.
Can philosophy not be subjective?
Thalion, I too have mainly read about Wittgenstein, but I have the impression that the later Wittgenstein argued that logic, like language was about itself, not consisting of pictures of the world.
If language is about language, then its usage and not its strictly logical construction is the main point, which is what I thought that he had shifted to as opposed to his concluding statement to Tractitus (I don't remember it exactly: "About that which we do not know we must remain silent" ?)
Hegel said that language is inherently universal, meaning that if I say "It is raining", I am attempting to convey the meaning of this particular sitation but I suceed only in conveying a universal; what I mean is lost. This is essentially a shift away from the strictly logical analysis of the structure of the sentence towards the a theory about the usage of language. The debate over the fact that "It is raining" does not imply that one has looked to see if it is raining falls under analysis of the structure, rather than regarding the use of the language and its intended meaning. If something isn't lieing when they say "It is raining", it's obvious that they have checked that it is. That's why I said it seemed like Jones was arguing from Wittgenstein's earlier perspective, which he later abandoned. He disproved the idea of a "private language" (Cartesian) that would fall under pure logic as he had earlier thought and shifted towards social convention.
Yes, shifted toward language and meaning as social conventions.
