Talk:Truth/Archive 5

edits by 67.182.157.6
I removed:

"The term, 'truth' refers to a statement that is factual. For example, the statement, 'God exists' is true if it is a fact that God exists."

In attempting to achieve clarity, .6 has provided no clarification; A fact is a true statement, so the definition is quite circular. The previous introduction (to which I reverted) does not attempt to define truth, since the body of the article is precisely a discussion of the various definitions, and to place one in the intro would be POV. Instead, this intro sets out that the article is going to discuss a particular use of true. Banno 00:52, July 13, 2005 (UTC) Archiving the diff here as Troll insurance Ancheta Wis 14:27, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Deflation and Redundancy
I've removed:

"One important question in this regard is whether asserting that a statement is true is any different from just asserting the statement itself. (See below)"

Because it is misleading - it is the redundancy theory, in particular, that makes this assertion, not the various deflationary theories. But does the point Jim makes still hold?

The only advocate of this sort of redundancy I am aware of is Frank Ramsey; From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/#Utility :

"On the contrary, however, advocates of the deflationary theory (particularly those influenced by Ramsey) are at pains to point out that anyone who has the concept of truth in this sense is in possession of a very useful concept indeed (Banno's emphasis)"

and goes on to show that Ramsey indeed held that "truth" was a useful notion, because it allowed users of ordinary language to avoid infinite conjunctions. In other words, Ramsey argued that "P" and "P is true" are equivalent; he did not argue that to assert "P" is not to evaluate it; rather that to assert "P" was to evaluate it in the same way as one does when one asserts "P is true".

Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone arguing that to assert some proposition is not to evaluate it. What sense could one make of that?

So while there is a superficial disparity between the first paragraph and the redundancy theory, I think it disappears when one looks more closely at Ramsey's work. Banno


 * I think to understand "P is true" we need to understand "P is false" --JimWae 04:23, 2005 July 15 (UTC)
 * But to understand "P is true" is not to assent to "P is true". Banno 05:05, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, Banno, if you can edit out the second paragraph, then to be fair, in the interest of preserving the neutral point of view, the first paragraph is now edited out too. Aside from that first paragraph being reduntant, it really contributed nothing to the article, and only served to violate the neutral point of view requirement right at the start of the article. -- 67.182.157.6 07:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't like leaving the first para out, but I'll leave reinserting it to others. I have presented, above, an extensive argument as to why the first Para is not POV, but 67.182.157.6 has insisted, without comment, on removing that para. Given that .6 has removed the part he/she found problematic, why re-inserted the NPOV banner? What is POV about the present version? Banno 20:53, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * This isn't a tit-for-tat negotiation here. The first paragraph is useful, but the paragraph which 67.182 repeatedly adds does not appear to be correct. There is nothing wrong with removing invalid information. Wikipedia doesn't work on the "I get to do this since you did that" principle. Rhobite 21:06, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * I didn't say it was "tit for tat." I said to be fair, in the interest of preserving the neutral point of view, the first paragraph is now edited out too. Aside from that first paragraph being reduntant, it really contributed nothing to the article, and only served to violate the neutral point of view requirement right at the start of the article, in that "'3 is less than 4' is true" is redundant. It is perfectly sufficient to simply say 3 is less than 4. See the section of the article on redundancy. -- 67.182.157.6 21:45, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * .6, you have still not provided a reply to my post re: Ramsey. I maintain that the first paragraph sets up the context for the remainder of the article. Others apparently agree, since you have now had to revert three times. Take care, less you draw the wrath of the admins. Banno 22:13, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Principled Negotiation is a cooperative process whereby participants try to find a solution which meets the legitimate interests of both parties, which in the context of Wikipedia usually involves appropriate mention of all points of view in an article thus improving the quality of the article. Explanation of all points of view is done throughout the body of the article, so your POV concerning "'3 is less than 4' is true", and my POV that it is redundant, in that it is perfectly sufficient to say simply "3 is less than four" are both covered in the body of the article, Truth, so there is no need for either of them in the header. So neither my POV nor yours need appear in the header of the article. Okay sir? Peace? -- 67.182.157.6 22:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * There are more parties here than you and I, my friend. As I said above, I will not revert your edit. I'm doing this so that the other parties can express their view. Your edit has been reverted by those other users - it seems that it is you alone who think the first paragraph unnecessary. If there ever was an absence of peace, it was the result of your editing. Also, you have still not provided a reply to my post re: Ramsey. Banno 23:25, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

So what are you saying, that you will ignore my offer of a peaceful negotatiated settlement (see above), and lead your side away from any consideration of a principled negotiation, in effect condoning an endless revert battle between your side and mine?

(Number on each side should not matter in a PRINCIPLED negotiation, should it, sir, since Wikipedia is governed by principles, by consensus, and certainly not by tyrany of the majority, don't you agree? This is strictly a matter of the Wikipedia principle that a neutral point of view should be maintained, not favoring one side or the other, don't you agree? ) -- 67.182.157.6 23:55, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not leading anyone. NPOV does not mean "not favouring one side or the other". See Neutral point of view - yours is a minority view. Nor have I a knighthood, so please don't call me "Sir". Also, you have still not provided a reply to my post re: Ramsey. Frankly, I don't see a point to this discussion. Banno 00:08, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with Banno - from what I can tell, the other guy's main objection is that there is even an article on truth --JimWae 00:56, 2005 July 16 (UTC) Folks,

Actually, the more I think about it, 67.182.157.6 may have a point about that first paragraph, even though I think he is ... well, I won't throw gas on the flames by saying what I think of him.


 * Argument _ad hominem_ wouldn't help matters in any case, would it sir, since it is logical fallacy? 8^)
 * Exactly why I did not make an ad hominen attack, although you do when you call people who disagree with you obscurantists.

Although Ramsey, and other Deflationists, do see the word "truth" as useful, they don't believe that it is used to evaluate statements. This is an example of the kind of knots one can get tied up in when writing about philosophy: the issues are so disputed in so many ways, its hard to write even a single sentence that doesn't conflict with somebody's opinion. I'd vote to just get rid of that first paragraph. --Nate Ladd 06:07, July 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd vote to just get rid of that first paragraph too, if edits were decided in Wikipedia by straight majority vote, but they are not, the policy as I understand it is principled negotiation. Principled negotiation is a cooperative process whereby participants try to find a solution which meets the legitimate interests of both parties, which in the context of Wikipedia usually involves appropriate mention of all points of view in an article thus improving the quality of the article. Both points of view need to be included to achieve Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. And both points of view are included in the body of the article, it is the bit that Banno and company insist on adding to the header, the redundant bit about '3 is less than 4' being true, that is objectionable to those with the point of view that is redundant, and it is perfectly sufficient to say simply, '3 is less than 4'.


 * So, to preserve NPOV it is better to avoid placing the point of view of only one side as an introduction to the article.


 * "Wikipedia policy is that all articles should be written from a neutral point of view: without bias, representing all views fairly. According to Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable". " -- NPOV

-- 67.182.157.6 16:07, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Ancheta Wis posting somebody else's email address here for the spam bots to pick up is a breach of netiquette
Shame on you sir!! -- 67.182.157.6 16:07, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Limit edits to one per day?
Folks, we are best off with one-per-day edits, per editor, for the forseeable future on this article. Ancheta Wis 02:46, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll agree to that - I'd like to gauge others opinions. Banno 05:11, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Is limiting the number of edits per day set as Wikipedia policy somewhere you can point out, or do you boys like to just make things up as you go along?? What do you think this is, Calvinball? -- 67.182.157.6 15:33, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In the message, We did not refer to you. I apologize for not including you in the circle (viz. us). You, of course, are free to act in accord with your natural values, come what may. Those actions are then a reflection of what will be seen as your character, to us. Ancheta Wis 16:57, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There is time. Join us, with what that implies.

Dealing with Ramsey
The "controversial" first para is:

This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in the evaluation of propositions, sentences, and similar items. For example, the sentence "3 is less than 4 is true" is an evaluation of the sentence "3 is less than 4".


 * Not everyone agrees that paragraph is in accord with NPOV, on grounds that saying, for example, "'Snow is white' is true" is redundant, and it is sufficient to say simply "Snow is white." So, to preserve a neutral point of view, that paragraph should be deleted, or additional material added to show the other points of view, the one in section 2.2 of the article for example.
 * (this doggerel by .6 - unsigned - Banno)

Nathan suggests that Ramsey and perhaps other deflationary theorists (in particular, I guess, those that call themselves redundancy theorists) do not think that "P is true" is an evaluation of P. This is interesting. I had thought of Ramsey as differentiating two uses of "true": The first that "P is true" is logically equivalent to "P", and therefore redundant in all cases, except for the second, where it is used as a predicate over the content of someone's beliefs, as in "Everything Banno says is true".

Now I should make it clear that I do not have a copy of "Facts and Propositions". I cannot find one on-line. So I;m making use of secondary sources. In particular, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2004.tb00321.x

It is pretty clear from that article that Ramsey denied the existence of facts, replacing them with "judgements", and making judgements the bearers of truth. This fits with the main body of his work, on probability and belief. So, for him, the equivalence of "P" and "P is true" arises because they express the very same judgement. Now, it seems to me that he is here in precise agreement with the first paragraph - to put my words into his mouth, "the judgement that three is less than four is equivalent to the judgement that ''it is true that: 3 is less than four, and so the latter is redundant".

I hope that it is clear from this that Ramsey thought "P is true" to be a judgement, and so an evaluation of P; one that he held to be the same as the judgement that "P"; and that he would therefore not have a problem with the introductory paragraph. He would simply have added: "and the is true is unnecessary".

Nathan, is my analysis satisfactory? What do you think? Banno 23:19, July 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * We are having a discussion of how to preserve a neutral point of view in the introductory material over in the "NPOV in Introduction" section. Care to join that discussion? -- 67.182.157.6 01:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * "We"? .6, you have still not provided a reply to my post re: Ramsey. Oh, I mentioned that before, didn't I? Banno 06:19, July 17, 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't pretend to understand 67.182.157.6's problem with the established para, which seems good, but the current (as of 01:32 17 July 2005) intro seems to me to be unhelpful. IMO, the best solutions would be to either simply to take the term 'truth' as given, and then to debate it, or to adopt a more "dictionary" definition to start with, and then address the philosophical problems associated with the term. Paul B 01:41, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Some people think the word "truth" has a referent, some think it a collection of true statements, while some think that all true statements have some single property in common (or 2 if you call truth a property) --JimWae 02:16, 2005 July 17 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with Banno's analysis of Ramsey. It seems to me that Ramsey would say that P is a judgement about some state of affairs, not about itself. So if "P is true" is equivalent to P, then "P is true" is also about that same state of affairs. It, too, is NOT about P. So it isn't an evaluation of P. The essence of all deflationary theories is that "is true" only looks like a predicate; but it really isn't. It isn't really predicating a property of P or attributing a value to P. So it is not evaluating P.


 * One source of the trouble this article will always have with any introduction is that it is really trying to cover two different kinds of theories: (1) theories of truth and (2) theories about what people are doing when they make what APPEAR TO BE truth-ascribing utterance like "snow is white" is true. Deflationist theories are all really theories of the second kind. Theories of turth, the first kind, simply take for granted that what people are doing when they make those utterances is that they are evaluating the statement in question. (The utterances are doing exactly what they appear to be doing.) This is precisely what Deflationist theories reject. The latter all claim that the surface grammar of such utterances is misleading. --Nate Ladd 04:28, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I disagree; but given that I have considerable respect for your understanding of philosophical issues, I'll concede to the following modification:

This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in discussing propositions, sentences, and similar items. For example, the sentence "3 is less than 4 is true" is about the sentence "3 is less than 4".

This at least points to the nature of the discussion in the article, without, saying anything about truth. I don't think this modification as good as the original, but I do think, and I guess that others here agree with me, that something is needed to point to the basic content of the article. Banno 06:16, July 17, 2005 (UTC)