Marchesk

I guess I don't understand what role truth is playing in Davidson's argument. We can be pragmatic and agree that snow is white and the sun sets. But t...

it doesn't though, it only appears to. Just like the Earth appears to be stationary, and to some deluded or ignorant folk, flat. We don't need a theor...

Okay, so Norse conceptual schema: The stars are heaven's light peaking through the head of giant's skull. So if a Norseman made some statement about t...

Well, the truth of propositions got brought up in this discussion. So, if we're talking about truth, then pragmatic everyday talk isn't good enough.

However, that was the astronomical view at one time, and there other things in ordinary language that people do believe which are scientifically incor...

if there is no reference to snow, then what does it mean to say snow is white?

Which world(s) do the others live in? Is that a support for conceptual schemas?

Yeah, he's arguing against incommensurability and that people can have these fundamentally different conceptual schemas that can't be translated. Whic...

Because although it works in everyday life, it doesn't survive philosophical scrutiny. In this case, what does it mean for a statement to be true?

So he means coherence among existing beliefs? A web of belief kind of view of truth? The sun's setting is coherent if it adheres with other beliefs ab...

And what does it mean for a statement to be true? Is it enough to say, yep looks like the sun is setting!

But I think it illustrates why the truth of a statement is not quite so simple.

It's a fact that the sun does not set. The reason we have that as part of our language is because of an outdated astronomy where the word usage origin...

We have an appearance of a setting sun. The actual fact of the matter is the Earth's rotation. Why is being pedantic about this important? Because we'...

Particularly since it's not true that the sun does set when speaking of the actual sun.

Because maybe as Socrates demonstrated, people don't really know what they're talking about.

Unless the sun doesn't set, but rather only appears to do so. Then it's not true on a literal reading of the statement, which people used to believe. ...

It's not the being rich part, it's the allowing people to attempt to become rich. Some of it is luck and who you know. Some of it is starting out with...

I'm not making blanket statements. But also, what's wrong with the Darwinian part when it comes to being rich? Now note I'm not saying that's good for...

Is there something wrong with that? It can be.

So let's restrict the domain to sports. If you want to become a rich athlete (starting off as a youth), it's certainly possible. But it takes a tremen...

To an extent. You also don't get to be lucky if you don't try. But I'm not against increasing taxes on the wealthy. I'm against the idea of equal outc...

Sometimes, but also it's being able to pursue an idea at the right time, and being willing to risk failing. And then succeeding enough to garner recog...

Some would end up poor or rich like they were before, because they have/don't have the habits, skills and connections to do so. It's not all luck or b...

I don't really know what "consists of" means here. Do you mean the nature of thought and belief? Because I would say mental since it hasn't been succe...

Are you talking about what thought and belief refer to? Or are you talking about the nature of thought and belief?

Where else would they be? On paper? In the cloud?

The mental?

A realist about mathematics is a Platonist. You can be a nominalist or a quietest about such matters and still be a realist about the world. Realism a...

Yeah, but that doesn't apply to the macroscale.

Well, that depends on whether knowledge requires certainty.

But that external world might be a brain in a vat, a simulation, a dream in God's mind, etc. if we take into account skeptical possibilities. The prob...

That makes sense. But then when the individual wants to know what the world's like independent of anyone perceiving it, questions about realism, epist...

Also between our perception of the world and how it is. Science tells us this in a thousand ways.

Well, with vision we see solid objects and not the mostly empty space they're made of, or all the EM radiation passing through them. We see them as co...

Our experience of the world including perceptions and thoughts. That wasn't my metaphor, but visual perception is part of it.

Sometimes the ordinary language approach seems to be defending a version of naive realism. The point is that we can't just say the world is how we per...

It's obviously somewhat different than the appearance, or naive realism would have gone unquestioned. The "appearance" also includes our conceptualiza...

Yes, basically that's it, although the visual metaphor bothers me a little, because one might argue we're being fooled by thinking only in terms of vi...

Ask Pfhorrest

The problem with ordinary objects isn't that we name them, it's that they don't map neatly onto our scientific understanding of the world.

I'm a scientific realist, so I'm going to have to draw the line there. We don't understand electrons in terms of something more fundamental, unless st...

You mean don't use mountains when doing philosophy?

Yes, but I was focusing on mountains. We could just say only the fundamental physics stuff exists and the interesting patterns it makes. A chair is ju...

One way would be to stop using the word mountain. But that process might result in a radical revision of language.

Yeah, like how we all know ordinary matter is mostly empty space with electromagnetic bonds holding molecules together tightly enough so that we can't...

What's the solution? Analysis of how the word mountain is used?

Nietzsche would be an alt-right troll and Putin supporter?

This reminds me of some of Stanislaw Lem's science fiction work where there is a total failure to communicate. In the Solaris novel, which has been ma...

I recall reading that was the Greeks conception of how vision worked. But maybe it varied across cultures and philosophical schools. We do experience ...