Hugo Holbling

No; the point is that your argument is a re-hashing of Parmenides, doesn't avoid the contingency of language (and hence the antifoundationalist critique...) and doesn't address the principal difficulties associated with the correspondence theory of
truth.

Bill Snedden

:banghead: ...the point is that my argument has nothing whatever to do with Parmenides monism or "theories" of truth. While there are both epistemological and ontological ramifications inherent in the language I'm using, I don't believe that anything I'm saying depends upon accepting any particular type of metaphysical viewpoint. My argument is dealing with existential facts and whether or not they exist.

I've been saying all along that contingency of language is not an issue here. Regardless of what language we use or the epistemic problems inherent in language (IOW, regardless of our ability to know or define), can we say that it is a fact that something exists?

It is nothing more or less than the claim that some actual state of affairs is instantiated in reality regardless of our ability to know or describe it. It seems to me that any attempt to argue against propositions of this nature would be necessarily self-contradictory (since it amounts to a denial of one's own existence).

Perhaps it would help if we stopped using the word "true" and spoke only of "fact?" Would it make more sense to anyone if the OP were re-worded "Do facts exist?"

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Hugo Holbling

No. Take a look at the comment from Rorty which i posted above:

Your argument gets you no further than "the world is out there". Perhaps a little less banging of heads and a little more homework is called for?

Bill Snedden

I see almost nothing in there with which I am prepared to disagree, but it is irrelevant to the question I'm asking...

What homework?!? "The world is out there" is absolutely all that I'm talking about!!!!!

Can this question (is the world out there?) be answered "yes" or "no"? If either, then my point is made.

I honestly feel that both you and John are reading way too much into this issue. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.......

Regards,

Bill Snedden

__________________
"The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is nothing but a short circuit, destroying the mind." Ayn Rand

John Page

Jolly good!
I am not sure what "I" am or what it means to exist, I can remember my name but that is an arbitrary label and of no other significance,2+2 does not equal four in binary.

Cheers, John

John Page

Hold it right there! Unknown (existential) facts cannot count of truths of any sort. A truth is a product of a mind and therefore does not exist if the mind (in question) cannot know it!!
What epistemic confusion?
You seem to have defined "something" as "something that must exist" and "nothing" as "something that doesn't exist". With these assumptions it is hardly surprising that you conclude "something exists".

Furthermore, I cannot see any clues as to how one might go about proving your assertions as absolutely true over time and space. I think it quite conceivable that "nothing", defined by you as the "complete absence of everything" might exist in certain parts of the universe - although it may be beyond our ability to know it.

In the case that we were able to agree otherwise, we would still have arrived at an intersubjective truth (i.e. non-absolute). So, I can cave and agree that under our commonly held understandings of "something" and "exist" that something exists, however, our thinking so does not make it so.

Cheers, John

John Page

Perhaps to human minds they do, but then again so do delusions.
Physicists tell us anti-matter exists - go figure. Part of the problem is that we don't know the actual state of affairs in reality. A short while ago, people actually used to think there was a god that had caused them to exist (difficult to believe, I know).
No. How does a fact come into being? How can we have different versions of the same facts? What, therefore, is a fact beyond a well researched observation? Observations are subjective etc.

Cheers, John

Thomas Ash

John, I think Rorty in the passage you quoted is getting caught up in claims about truth and human perceptions of truth. He's attacking something no one on this thread is claiming:

What I'm saying (and I think what Bill is saying, though I can't speak for him of course) is about the existence of external reality, which you acceped a few posts back. For a second, ignore humans and human perceptions of truth (and therefore sentences.) Now we're just talking about "unknown (existential) facts", a you phrased it. All I'm claiming when I say absolute truth exists is that there are certain existential facts, regardless of whether they're known or not.
See, Rorty says this himself ! He's just asserted a fact and a truth, so there must be some things which are true 'out there' in the realm of external reality and facts, regardless of our ability to know them.
Well, this is heading into postmodernist territory, with Rorty talking about how truth (and its only postmodernists who claim anyone ever capitalizes truth - I certainly necer have) is only a human-creating thing. But if he accepts that certain descriptions of the world (eg. 'there is a squirrel on my tree') can be true or false, then I don't see how he doesn't accept absolute truth as defined by the people who advocate it, not its critics.

Hugo Holbling

Not so. The antifoundationalist project in epistemology is decidedly relevant to any questioning of facts or truth.

A myriad of thinkers are involved in said project. Perhaps they have deluded themselves where you see clearly, but surely it couldn't hurt to hit the books for a time and learn to understand their critiques?

And what if i can't be answered? Please indulge me by taking another look at that quote; maybe replacing "truth" with "fact" will help you appreciate what Rorty and i are saying. The world does not split itself into facts and truths; our descriptions of it are our own.

I've sent you a PM.

Hugo Holbling

Since it was i who quoted said passage, Thomas, will you permit me to answer?

Too late!

But as i said to Bill, the world does not oblige you by splitting itself into facts and truths that lay in wait for brave epistemologists, such as yourself. It is we that give birth to such creatures.

I somewhat suspected this interpretation. Rorty has done no such thing (which would be plain if anyone here had actually read him, or proposed to make the effort); take a look at some of the essays available online, or else try his books. Even a charitable viewing of your conclusion couldn't avoid the "fact" that Rorty gives his opinion of facts and truth only a few sentences later.

Sometimes i wonder if only postmodernists have a sense of humour...

Rorty is a pragmatist; ergo, he is using a different truth than you, following his own criticisms and those of the long list i have given previously. Please think about what pragmatists mean by truth before operating anyone's petard.