Eric: "How about "You do." as the only
satisfactory reply to the question
"What makes a statement true"? Insofar as we are
the local
representative of the world, that is."
Phil: Then there could be no meaning to the word
'true' since one could never
be wrong. Every bit of language use is about the
world and so it is the
world that makes possible all those instances
where we want to say
something true.
Eric: Not quite what I intended. "You make a
statement true" suggests that you are aware of the
truth proposition and can test it. You test it
against the world, granted, but as the local
representative of the world, "you" are the truth
proposition, the testing, and the internalized
version of the world (i.e., your brain takes sense
information and constructs the world so as to be
able, for example, to check measurement, look in a
telescope, do the math, et cetera).
What do we mean by the "world" and by "you"?
------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
