[lit-ideas] Re: The Vacuity of Knowledge and Truth

Thanks to R. Paul for the quote:
 
"to say 

'..."it is true that Caesar was murdered" means no more than that  Caesar was 
murdered, and "it is false that Caesar was murdered" means  that Caesar was 
not murdered.' 
[Symposium: Facts and Propositions, F. P. Ramsey; G. E. Moore,

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 7, Mind, 
Objectivity and Fact. (1927)*, pp. 153-206.] 
 
Exactly. I suppose that essay _was_ repr. in  "Philosophical Papers" and 
other essays, posthum. ed. by D. H. Mellor. (1900  repr. -- . Indeed from 
wikipedia, 
 
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_theory_of_truth_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_theory_of_truth) :
 
"The theory is commonly attributed to Frank P. Ramsey, who  argued that the 
use of words like fact and truth was nothing but a  roundabout way of asserting 
a proposition, and that treating these words as  separate problems in 
isolation from judgment was merely a "linguistic muddle",  though there remains 
some 
debate as to the correct interpretation of his  position (Le Morvan 2004)."
 
The wikipedia article goes on to quote some more passages  from Ramsey's 
seminal -- and largely ignored -- essay. It was revived by  Strawson/Grice and, 
in 
the USA, by pro-sententialism. 
 
"But before we proceed further with the analysis of judgment, it is necessary 
 to say something about truth and falsehood, in order to show that there is  
really no separate problem of truth but merely a linguistic muddle." (Ramsey,  
1990 reprint, p.38). 
Why Ramsey may not have said 'vacuous', he does say  "superfluous" -- hence 
_redundancy_.  
"This may perhaps be made clearer by  supposing for a moment that only one 
form of proposition is in question, say the  relational form aRb" 
or as I prefer, the S is P, or the alpha is beta. 
"then 'He is always right' could be expressed by 'For all  a, R, b, if he 
asserts aRb, then aRb  '" 
or, as I'd rewrite this: 
"For all S, P, and copula, if Tom says, The S is P, then the S  is P." 
Ramsey continues: 
"to which 'is true' would be an obviously superfluous addition.  When all 
forms of proposition are included the analysis is more complicated but  not 
essentially different; and it is clear that the problem is not as to the  
nature of 
truth and falsehood, but as to the nature of judgment or assertion,  for what 
is difficult to analyse in the above formulation is 'He asserts  aRb ' It is, 
perhaps, also immediately obvious that if we have analysed  judgment we have 
solved the problem of truth; for taking the mental factor in a  judgment 
(which is often itself called a judgment), the truth or falsity of this  
depends 
only on what proposition it is that is judged, and what we have to  explain is 
the meaning of saying that the judgment is a judgment that a  has R to b, i.e. 
is true if aRb, false if not. We can, if  we like, say that it is true if 
there exists a corresponding fact that a  has R to b, but this is essentially 
not 
an analysis but a  periphrasis, for 'The fact that a has R to b exists' is no  
different from ' a has R to b '. 
Morvan, "Ramsey on Truth and Truth on Ramsey", British Journal for the  
History of Philosophy 12(4), 705–718. 
John M. Vickers (2004), "Ramsey on Judgment: The Theory of 'Facts and  
Propositions'", Dialectica 58(4), 499. 
---- I disagree with Ramsey that bringing in _judge_ is  going to shed any 
light, but it's worth the try. 
Grice discusses his former student (Strawson)'s theory in  the "Truth" 
section in "Further notes on logic and conversation", now in WOW,  Studies in 
the 
Way of Words. He mentions a few cases that the 'performatory'  theory (as 
Strawson's is sometimes called) may find some difficulty in getting  rid of -- 
such 
as: 
"All that the policeman said was true" 
-- We see above that Ramsey did not find that  troublesome. 
Note that Ramsey is taking a relational form of propositions  R(a, b), which 
is perhaps just as well. My canonical proposition, though  is, 
iota operator x. alpha x & beta x 
-- the A is B, or the S is P -- but perhaps Ramsey is  _righter_. 
Redundantly yours, I remain your superfluous  servant. 
J. L.  




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