References for discussion of truth as predication?

Quoting J

but did he also make the parallel with “Existence is not a predicate”?

I'm not sure if it predates Kant, but Kant is famous for making this assertion.

Thinking about a unicorn I know what properties it has, but thinking about a unicorn that includes existence as one of its properties adds nothing conceptually: the unicorn has to be "given", and so "existence" is not a predicate.

Reply to Moliere Thanks, we certainly find the existence question in Kant. (That's why I chose "a hundred thalers" as my example.) What I'm trying to pin down is whether anyone has addressed specifically the apparent parallel between "Existence is not a predicate" and "Truth is not a predication." Does it ring any bells?

Quoting J

I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

Basically, yes.

Quoting J

I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ?a hundred thalers’;

This is a bit different, as the latter possesses a conceptual existence which the former surpasses by asserting a super-conceptual existence, at least according to common language. As far as I can see things can only be true or false in one way, whereas things can exist in multiple ways. The domain of the former is propositions whereas the domain of the latter is ontological realities, and ontological realities are more variegated and complicated.

Quoting J

I’m looking for some source help

Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics that to speak truth is to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not is very close to the truth predication question. I think the existence predication question is much more controversial, for reasons just noted. Much of that literature seems to revolve around Anselm's ontological argument. It is also related to your thread on Sider and univocal vs. analogical conceptions of being.

Quoting Leontiskos

Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics that to speak truth is to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not is very close to the truth predication question.

Yes, quite close, and Kimhi is a hard-core Aristotelian if he's anything you could put a label on. But I assume Aristotle did not describe truth as a property that could or could not be predicated; that way of thinking wasn't available to him. Is there something he did say that would be more or less the equivalent of "To say of what is that it is, is not to provide additional knowledge about it"? Or maybe: "To assert of what is that it is, is the same act as identifying the being/existence of what is"? This is roughly what Kimhi wants to claim -- but again, I'm sure someone has done work on the "emptiness" question involved in predications of existence and truth, I just can't remember who.

Quoting J

But I assume Aristotle did not describe truth as a property that could or could not be predicated; that way of thinking wasn't available to him.

Intuitively, the reason I doubt this is because it seems that anyone involved in the analysis of arguments will need to wield truth and falsity as predicates. They will need to talk about propositions as being true or false. For example, if Plato and Aristotle differ with respect to the exact same proposition, won't this quickly lead to the recognition that one holds that it is true whereas the other holds that it is false? This ability to look at a proposition abstractly while prescinding from its truth value would seem to require the use of truth and falsity as predicates. Granted, this predication may still not mean much over and above simple affirmation and denial, but it does show that one can consider a proposition without assuming that it is true.

Quoting J

Is there something he did say that would be more or less the equivalent of "To say of what is that it is, is not to provide additional knowledge about it"? Or maybe: "To assert of what is that it is, is the same act as identifying the being/existence of what is"?

My hunch is that the answer to the two questions is no/yes, but I will do a bit of digging and come back to this. I also want to let the thread percolate a bit before posting overmuch.

Reply to J
In the Metaphysics, there is a lot of emphasis upon what can be isolated as a specific kind from what can only be only known by means of analogy. The difference between actuality and potentiality is placed firmly in the latter category. And yet that is where Aristotle rolled the dice on his theories.

Reply to J The difference is brought out nicely in predicate logic. Three differing uses of "is" are used.
1. The "is" of predication - "The ball is red" - f(a)
2. the "is of equivalence - "Two plus two is four" - a=b
3. The "is" of quantification - "There is a ball" - ?(x)f(x)

This last seems to be what you have in mind, where "existence" ranges over individuals, to whom it ascribes a predicate

Truth is treated somewhat differently. There's ?, a statement that is always true. But to get to what is going on with truth we need something like Tarski's T-statements, and talk in terms of metalanguages. That's because truth is a predicate, but of propositions. Here, truth ranges over propositions.

So generally, existence is not a first order predicate; nor is truth.

But also, there is the predicate ?!, that does range over individuals... as used in free logic.

This doesn't answer your question, but might hint at why there may not be a literature of the sort you seek.

Quoting Banno

truth is a predicate, but of propositions

Staying within the Tarskian framework for the moment: If we say 'p is true in language L', are we ascribing a property to p? If not, exactly what are we predicating?

Quoting Leontiskos

This ability to look at a proposition abstractly while prescinding from its truth value would seem to require the use of truth and falsity as predicates.

Peeking at Kimhi's book at the library, this is very close to the same idea:

Kimhi, Thinking and Being, page 39:In other words, [for Frege and Geach] a propositional sign manifests, through its symbolic composition, the semantical character of each actual occurrence of the proposition, but not the force character of any [of] those occurrences.

In a recent thread I was trying to get people to consider the difference between the "force character" of an assertion vs. the "force character" of a reductio's supposition, but everyone in the thread proved incapable of these metalogical distinctions. As Kimhi points out through Geach on p. 38, the context of a proposition has implications for its meaning (see my post here).

But again, I have not found anyone on this forum who is interested in or even open to discussing the metalogical issues that Kimhi is interested in. Given the subtlety of such a topic, that's not surprising. Deep dives into the basis for Aristotelian realism (which necessarily involves the realism of propositions and assertions) produce the same incomprehension on this forum. The logicians on TPF tend to be what I would term 'logical pragmatists', and they have little interest in the inner workings and meta-workings of logic itself. In some places it is even assumed that some sort of isomorphic mapping between logic and language obtains.

Quoting J

are we ascribing a property to p?

Yep.

Reply to Banno That's what I thought. Now, returning to the "is" of quantification, when we say "?(x)f(x)" we are not ascribing a property to f, namely the property of existing, correct? It's the reverse -- we're saying of some putatively existing individual that it has the property of f. (Bear with me, this is going somewhere, I hope. :smile: )

Quoting J

It's the reverse -- we're saying of some putatively existing individual that it has the property of f.

"putatively existing"?

"?(x)f(x)" says something in the domain of discourse is f. Does that thing exist? Well, "Frodo has hairy feet" predicates hairy feet to Frodo - does that mean he exists?

Trouble is, "exists" is used in various and incompatible ways.

But ok, with "?(x)f(x)" we are not ascribing a (first order) property to f.

Understanding Truth by Scott Soames

Reply to J

Quoting J

I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

Quoting Leontiskos

Basically, yes.

Quoting J

I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ?a hundred thalers’;

Quoting Leontiskos

This is a bit different, as the latter possesses a conceptual existence which the former surpasses by asserting a super-conceptual existence, at least according to common language. As far as I can see things can only be true or false in one way, whereas things can exist in multiple ways. The domain of the former is propositions whereas the domain of the latter is ontological realities, and ontological realities are more variegated and complicated.

Maybe QM can tell us something pertinent herein: When that tree falls in the forest without a witness, does it make a sound? No. It makes a potential sound, and in so doing, it takes its place among all of sound in its potentiality.

Quoting J

“Truth is not a predication.” That is, neither existence nor truth add anything, conceptually, to what they appear to be predicating ?existence’ and ?truth’ of.

Quoting J

I suppose Frege was the first to have pointed out the “emptiness” of the “It is true that . . .” prefix, but did he also make the parallel with “Existence is not a predicate”?

Quoting Leontiskos

Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics that to speak truth is to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not is very close to the truth predication question.

Truth/existence predication adds something conceptually entangled: the existential_cognitive entanglement of superposition resolved, or, to put it another way: decidedness.

In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment concerning quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead, while it is unobserved in a closed box, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. This experiment viewed this way is described as a paradox. This thought experiment was devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935[1] in a discussion with Albert Einstein[2] to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In Schrödinger's original formulation, a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal radiation monitor (e.g. a Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that, after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.

Schrödinger's Cat

A thing is potential and undecided until it is witnessed by a sentient. Therefore, when a sentient says: It is true of what is that it is or, it is existential of what exists that it exists, s/he adds the decidedness of witnessing the [s]super[/s]position of the cognitively decided thing.

Reply to ucarr - Yes, and this is a good demonstration of how the propositions, assertions, and knowledge of intellectual agents are not ontologically neutral, even though they are stipulated to be ontologically neutral within the logical frame. @J could easily respond by restricting his sphere of discourse to the logical frame and asking something like, "But do they add anything as far as the logic is concerned?" But this raises the fraught question of where the logical ends and the metalogical begins, or else where the metalogical ends and the ontological begins, in any given system.

Reply to Leontiskos

Quoting Leontiskos

J could easily respond by restricting his sphere of discourse to the logical frame and asking something like, "But do they add anything as far as the logic is concerned?" But this raises the fraught question of where the logical ends and the metalogical begins, or else where the metalogical ends and the ontological begins, in any given system.

Yeah. Theoreticians are still scratching their heads over the question of an inflection point linking metalogical with ontological.

Quoting J

What I'm trying to pin down is whether anyone has addressed specifically the apparent parallel between "Existence is not a predicate" and "Truth is not a predication." Does it ring any bells?

I agree that the following doesn't help in knowing which philosophers addressed the problem, but is just a couple of random thoughts.

"A hundred thalers exist"
In the expression "A hundred thalers are heavy", what is the predicate "are heavy" referring to?

The predicate "are heavy" cannot be referring to the expression in language "A hundred thalers", as an expression cannot be heavy. The predicate "are heavy" must be referring to a hundred thalers in the world.

"A hundred thalers are heavy" is true IFF a hundred thalers are heavy.

Similarly, in the expression in language "A hundred thalers exist", the predicate "exist" is not referring to the expression in language "A hundred thalers", which would be a redundancy, but is referring to a hundred thalers in the world.

"A hundred thalers exist" is true IFF a hundred thalers exist.

IE, the expression "a hundred thalers exist" is a valid statement.

"It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table"
If I told someone that "there are a hundred thalers on the table", they may not believe me. This forces me to say "it is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table".

But in language as we don't normally use quotation marks, what I am actually saying is ""it is true that "there are a hundred thalers on the table""

IE, I am not saying "it is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table", but rather ""it is true that "there are a hundred thalers on the table"".

This is certainly relevant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theorem
In scholastic metaphysics truth is convertible with being. Truth is jsut a property of a being and only derivatively it's a property of judgements (and even more remotely a property of sentences). Truth, just like being is undefinable, because there's nothing untrue to differentiate it. Wrt to predication of existence look up free logics and Abstract Object Theory of Zalta where existence is a predicate, look up Meinongianism, pluralism and neo-fregeanism in metaontology.

Reply to Leontiskos
I think you’d get a lot out of Kimhi’s book – I certainly have. It’s the most interesting work of contemporary philosophy I’ve read since Ted Sider’s Writing the Book of the World. But it’s hard going, even if you have a taste for “metalogical” issues. This current OP is an attempt to start some sharing of Kimhi’s ideas, and I hope to continue in future threads.

Minor point: The passage you quote from p. 39 isn’t actually about Frege and Geach. Kimhi is talking here about what he later labels “Wittgenstein’s point,” which is contrasted with Frege and Geach’s (incorrect, according to Kimhi) understanding of what it means for a proposition to occur in a context. Shortly after the quoted passage, he writes “I shall call the conclusion Geach and Frege draw from [Wittgenstein’s point] – that assertoric force must be dissociated from a proposition’s semantical significance – Frege’s point. We shall see that Frege’s point is mistaken. It only seems necessary if we accept certain functionalist (and more generally, compositionalist) assumptions about logical complexity.” I don’t want to take us too far into the weeds on this, so I’ll stop, and anyway it doesn’t affect the point you’re making in your post.

Reply to Leontiskos Reply to ucarr Good insights, thanks. I could indeed try to limit the question to one about formal logic, and it may turn out that the isomorphism between existence and truth breaks down in formal logic. But as the QM example suggests, what's really interesting is that borderline between what is "strictly logical" and what is ontological. Stipulating something as ontologically neutral doesn't make it so; stipulating a "law of logic" doesn't show why it would obtain in the world of being. These deep borderline questions are exactly what Kimhi is chasing down, just as you'd expect from a book called Thinking and Being.

Quoting RussellA

I am not saying "it is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table", but rather ""it is true that "there are a hundred thalers on the table"".

Right, it's predicating truth of "there are a hundred thalers on the table." This doesn't have to come up only in cases of questioning or doubt. It's the difference between 'There are a hundred thalers on the table' understood as the occurrence of a proposition, supposedly without assertoric force, and the same statement given as an assertion (maybe using Frege's assertion symbol). That said, I think all sorts of questions remain about exactly what "is true" predicates.

Reply to frank Reply to Johnnie Appreciate the references, many thanks.

Quoting Johnnie

Truth is just a property of a being and only derivatively it's a property of judgements

Not to turn this into a Kimhi seminar, but he devotes an entire chapter of his book to this point. The chapter is called "The Dominant Sense of Being," and takes off from Aristotle's claim [Metaphysics Theta 10] that being-true exists in things, and that this sense of "being" is kuriotata, which evidently can be translated as "proper, dominant, or governing."

Reply to J
I guess there's a sense of truth where it's a matter of apprehending the existence of something or some situation (state of affairs). Sometimes "true" is synonymous with "real."

There are other senses, like Heidegger's phenomenology of truth: that it's about revelation, like something was hidden or obscured, and now it's uncovered.

The analytical approach is to see it as a predicate, even in the case of truth skepticism, where truth is just a facet of speech.

Quoting J

I think you’d get a lot out of Kimhi’s book – I certainly have.

Okay, thanks for the recommendation. I will consider it.

Quoting J

Minor point: The passage you quote from p. 39 isn’t actually about Frege and Geach.

Thanks for the correction. It resolves the question I had after skimming that passage, as I had added "[Frege and Geach]" in an edit.

Quoting J

These deep borderline questions are exactly what Kimhi is chasing down, just as you'd expect from a book called Thinking and Being.

:up:

Quoting J

?Johnnie Appreciate the references

I would say that Scholasticism does not make truth a property of being when it calls them convertible. "Truth is convertible with being," does not mean, "Truth is a property of being." It means that everything which has being has truth qua intellect. Truth is being under the aspect of being-known (Aquinas). The trick is that this is not limited to the discursive intellect, and for theists all being simultaneously has truth through being known by God (or thought by God). Modern philosophers would see this as substantial insofar as it commits itself to the position that all being is knowable.

The corollary is that all truth has being. All knowledge and acts of knowing also have being. I.e. thought is not ontologically neutral. Further, to know a proposition and to know that proposition is true are two different acts of knowledge, two different truths with two different kinds of being.

Reply to J
wow I didn't know this guy will certainly check out because arguing this point is hard (which is why I limited myself to stating what scholastics thought)

Reply to Banno “Putatively existing” is indeed awkward, but – as you and Frodo explicated – it’s hard to find the right language in these situations. I meant what you mean: We’re talking about something in a given domain, and whether it “exists” depends on other linguistic and metaphysical commitments.

So, granted all that, here’s the concern I want to raise. We agree that in the case of ?p is true’, we’re ascribing a property to p; we’re predicating something of p, namely its truth. But in the case of E(x)f(x), we are not ascribing a property to f. This would seem to show that “truth” and “existence” don’t share an isomorphism at this level.

And yet . . . I’m going to “tell a story” using the simplest language I can, which means I have to ignore a dozen subtleties and exceptions. But I want to capture what seems wrong with this picture. Here’s the story: Both “truth” and “existence” – especially when used in more or less ordinary discourse, about the most common topics – have the characteristic of “promoting” or “ratifying” something otherwise hypothetical. If I say of p that it is true, I’ve inducted it into the Hall of Fame of propositions that state what is the case, which is precisely what we want our propositions to do. In the same way, if I say of X that it exists, I’ve raised it out of the limbo of possibility and awarded it actuality, or being. I’m being deliberately gaudy with my terms here because I want to capture the flavor of improvement, even teleology, that is part of the story I’m telling.

So this seems like quite a parallel between “truth” and “existence,” but there’s more. We can also say (as Peter Geach does, I believe, concerning the “is” of predication) that the same state of affairs makes X exist and p true. If I discover that there is something that is a ball, whatever reasons I give to support that discovery will be the same reasons needed to show that ?There is a ball’ is true. There is no further fact I need to learn in order to affirm the truth of the proposition about the ball’s existence. This takes “parallel” extremely close to “identity,” and at this point I could import Kimhi’s jargon for all this but I won’t. Suffice it to say that he is indeed a monist on this issue, in a way that I find confusing, annoying, but impossible to dismiss out of hand.

What’s going on here? Again, this is a very rough-grained account, especially in its cavalier separation of “truth” from any language. But still. Is this a pseudo-problem, or do we need a deeper understanding of predication from the get-go?

Quoting J

If I discover that there is something that is a ball, whatever reasons I give to support that discovery will be the same reasons needed to show that ?There is a ball’ is true. There is no further fact I need to learn in order to affirm the truth of the proposition about the ball’s existence. This takes “parallel” extremely close to “identity,”...

Bringing in Aquinas:

Quoting Leontiskos

Truth is being under the aspect of being-known (Aquinas).

Quoting Aquinas, ST Ia.16.3.ad3 - Whether the true and being are convertible terms?

Objection 3. Further, things which stand to each other in order of priority and posteriority seem not to be convertible. But the true appears to be prior to being; for being is not understood except under the aspect of the true. Therefore it seems they are not convertible.

Reply to Objection 3. When it is said that being cannot be apprehended except under the notion of the true, this can be understood in two ways. In the one way so as to mean that being is not apprehended, unless the idea of the true follows apprehension of being; and this is true. In the other way, so as to mean that being cannot be apprehended unless the idea of the true be apprehended also; and this is false. But the true cannot be apprehended unless the idea of being be apprehended also; since being is included in the idea of the true. The case is the same if we compare the intelligible object with being. For being cannot be understood, unless being is intelligible. Yet being can be understood while its intelligibility is not understood. Similarly, being when understood is true, yet the true is not understood by understanding being.

Freddoso's alternative translation:

Quoting Aquinas, ST Ia.16.3.ad3 - Is 'true' convertible with 'being'?

Objection 3: Things that are related as prior and posterior do not seem to be convertible. But true
seems to be prior to being, since a being is understood only under the notion of the true (sub ratione
veri). Therefore, it seems that they are not convertible.

Reply to objection 3: There are two ways to interpret the claim that a being cannot be
apprehended without the notion of the true (sine ratione veri).
In the first way, it has this sense: ‘A being is not apprehended unless the notion of the true follows
upon the apprehension of the being’. So interpreted, the claim is true.
In the second way, it can be interpreted as follows: ‘A being could not be apprehended unless the
notion of the true were apprehended’. And this is false.
It is the case, however, that something true cannot be apprehended unless the notion of being is
apprehended. For being enters into the definition of true.
It is the same as comparing intelligible to being. For a being cannot be understood unless that
being is intelligible, and yet a being can be understood without its intelligibility being understood.
Similarly, a being as understood is true, but it is not the case that in understanding being, one understands true.

Perhaps Kimhi recognizes this, but the idea is that to recognize the notion of the true requires a second act of the intellect, a kind of back-folding of the intellect, or the trough and the crest of the selfsame wave of apprehension. This second act is what I was pointing to above dialogically with the interaction between Plato and Aristotle. Aquinas would presumably say that the apprehension of being is in some sense prior to the apprehension of the notion of (its) truth.

Quoting J

it’s hard to find the right language in these situations.

Indeed, and I think that making use of the grammar of first order logic helps here, in obliging us to take care as to what we mean by "exists". So "?(x)f(x)" is understood as something like "Of the things we are discussing, some of them satisfy f". "?(x)f(x)" will be true only in the case that something is f. The ontological commitments here are pretty minimal.

"?(x)f(x)" will be true only in the case that something is f. So indeed, it may well be in the same "state of affairs" that x is something about which we can talk and that for some f, makes "?(x)f(x)" true.

Reply to J

I am of the opinion that Banno at least somewhat derailed your thread on QV by immediately shifting it away from Sider's ontological realism and towards pure logical formalisms which intentionally avoid questions of ontology. I hope that does not happen again, as it would apparently be completely against the spirit of this thread to bracket all questions about being and ontology.

With that said, a bridge from Banno's concerns could be formed by considering the opinions of the inventors of the formalisms. What did Frege and Peirce, or older logicians like Kant, Abelard, or Aristotle think about the questions of the OP and the way that their systems interacted with it? Probably I am just repeating the prompt of the OP, but maybe that's okay.

Quoting J

So this seems like quite a parallel between “truth” and “existence,

As I see it, truth is about the relation between different things, and these different things exist.

The expression "p is true" says no more than "p"
We can't meaningfully say "p" is true, because there is no relation, but we can say "p" is true IFF p

We can't meaningfully say "x", but we can say "x exists"

For example, "there are a hundred thalers on the table" is true IFF there are a hundred thalers on the table.

Where "there are a hundred thalers on the table" exists in language and a hundred thalers on the table exists in the world.

Quoting Banno

I think that making use of the grammar of first order logic helps here, in obliging us to take care as to what we mean by "exists".

For sure, and there's a great deal to be said for clear and minimal ontological commitments. Analytic philosophy does some excellent work by taking predicate logic as a kind of model of good grammar for philosophers. Probably the things I'm worrying about in this OP only arise when one begins to question whether the world reflects these same commitments, and whether formalisms necessarily capture everything we want to say, philosophically.

Which leads to some of @Leontiskos's reservations. See my next post.

Quoting Leontiskos

it would apparently be completely against the spirit of this thread to bracket all questions about being and ontology.

If by “bracket” you mean “declare them out of bounds when discussing predication,” then yes, there wouldn’t be much left to say about whether predication might reveal parallels between existence and truth. But I think it’s fine to get clear on what the standard commitments are, and why they’re so useful. Particularly useful for those of us like me who hated actually doing logic.

A lot of my Kimhi-inspired concerns are very much contrary to the postulates of Fregean philosophy. Part of why I like his book so much is that he makes me take such a radical position seriously. (Robert Hanna subtitled his review of Thinking and Being as “It’s the end of analytic philosophy as we know it, and I feel fine!”*) Your suggestion that we try to bring Frege and other predecessors into the conversation is a good one. I’ll work on something brief and hopefully lucid that would contrast Frege with Kimhi on a couple of key questions . . .

* Let me add that I think Hanna’s piece is ill-considered and shallow, full of careless reading, and a terrible place to start if you’re interested in Kimhi.

Quoting Leontiskos

Perhaps Kimhi recognizes this, but the idea is that to recognize the notion of the true requires a second act of the intellect, a kind of back-folding of the intellect, or the trough and the crest of the selfsame wave of apprehension.

Yes, Kimhi believes this is important. He calls it an act of self-consciousness that follows an act of consciousness, and claims that it applies to any thought that p, not just the thought ?p is true’:

Kimhi:?I think p’ can be called a spontaneous self-clarification of p. I call it self-clarificatory because it brings out the content of consciousness without adding anything to it or determining anything about it. I call it spontaneous because the clarification is immediately available through the display of the judgment that p.

Part of what’s confusing in Kimhi is that he often uses ?I think p’ to mean ?I judge that p’, as you can see in the above passage. But of course ?I judge that p’ is even closer to what you’re calling “the notion of the true,” and Kimhi is certainly pointing to a second act of the intellect which makes self-conscious what has been initially thought or judged.

Quoting J

If by “bracket” you mean “declare them out of bounds when discussing predication,” then yes, there wouldn’t be much left to say about whether predication might reveal parallels between existence and truth.

Right.

Quoting J

But I think it’s fine to get clear on what the standard commitments are, and why they’re so useful. Particularly useful for those of us like me who hated actually doing logic.

Sure, I agree.

Quoting J

“It’s the end of analytic philosophy as we know it, and I feel fine!”*

Hah, I like that quote. I have a love-hate relationship with analytic philosophy. I was trained at an analytic school that strongly emphasized Thomism, and after a long time I began to see the downfalls of analytic philosophy, as well as the idea that a reduction of Thomism to analytic philosophy is an impoverishment. At the same time, Thomism is conducive to analytic philosophy, and can form a bridge between analytic philosophy and more substantial approaches to philosophy.

Analytic philosophy ought to be a transparent frame that can represent all different kinds of thinking, but it turns out to be pigeon-holed in certain directions. But I digress.

Quoting J

Part of what’s confusing in Kimhi is that he often uses ?I think p’ to mean ?I judge that p’, as you can see in the above passage. But of course ?I judge that p’ is even closer to what you’re calling “the notion of the true,” and Kimhi is certainly pointing to a second act of the intellect which makes self-conscious what has been initially thought or judged.

Yes, exactly. Clearly Kimhi is interested in using a finer scalpel than Thomas, but there may be a disagreement insofar as Thomas thinks apprehension of being and apprehension of being-as-true are two subtly different things, and that this represents one of the subtle ways that being and truth are separable. Given what you say, it is not clear to me whether Kimhi sees there to be any apprehension of being that is (metaphysically) prior to an apprehension of truth. Or in other words, does Kimhi see the fundamental "act of consciousness" as already bound up with truth?

It may be that while Aquinas is interested in comparing being to truth, Kimhi is interested in comparing being to the superset of truth called "thinking." For Aquinas being and truth are not the same thing, and yet it requires great subtlety to discern and describe in what way they differ. Nevertheless, if we set aside the very fine scalpel for a moment, it seems that their difference has to do with the difference between apprehension and judgment. For Aquinas there is a subtle way in which being precedes truth, and also apprehension of being precedes apprehension of truth (and certainly judgment of truth).

When we think about formal predications being and truth seem to always go hand in hand, because in formal predication truth is being taken for granted, and as Aquinas points out, being is always taken for granted. For this reason I don't see how the two could separate in that formal context (and by "formal predication" I am not necessarily talking about anything more complicated than things like, "The grass is long."). If we want to test their separability we must move out of that context.

Reply to J - Yes, good.

Quoting RussellA

The expression "p is true" says no more than "p"

This is a little tricky. Doesn't it depend on exactly what we mean by "say 'p'"? I can write 'p' in this sentence, as in fact I do, and we know that it's meant to stand for a well-formed proposition. But is this the same kind of "saying p" as in "I tell you p" or "I judge that p" or "I assert p"? Probably not, especially if we follow Frege. Some kind of assertion or force is missing.

So maybe we need to put it this way: "The expression 'p is true' says no more than 'p', PROVIDED that 'saying p' in this context means asserting p or judging p." But quite often, "saying p" doesn't come with any assertoric force -- we can name or mention 'p' without asserting it. That is the circumstance under which saying 'p is true' would give us a new predication. And let's not forget that asserting p, or saying 'p is true' doesn't make it true. That requires something else, maybe the Tarskian model you describe.

Quoting J

This is a little tricky. Doesn't it depend on exactly what we mean by "say 'p'"?

As you wrote:

Quoting J

I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

Yes, the expression "p is true" says no more than "p".

I agree that "says no more" is a figure of speech, but is intended to have the same meaning as your "adds nothing".

Consider the sentence "there are a hundred thalers on the table is true".

Because the word "true" is internal to the sentence, it cannot be making a judgment or assertion about either i) the other parts of the sentence it is within or ii) the sentence as a whole.

For the word "true" to be making a judgment or assertion about the sentence "there are a hundred thalers on the table" it will have to be external, such as "it is true that "there are a hundred thalers on the table"".

In other words, a sentence cannot be "self-conscious", using another figure of speech.

Quoting Leontiskos

Given what you say, it is not clear to me whether Kimhi sees there to be any apprehension of being that is (metaphysically) prior to an apprehension of truth. Or in other words, does Kimhi see the fundamental "act of consciousness" as already bound up with truth?

I don’t know. On questions like this, I find Kimhi at his most obscure. Typical statement: “The critical insight -- that any unity in consciousness is essentially self-consciousness of that unity -- is recognized to coincide with the insight that the consciousness of logical activity is inseparable from the capacity to manifest this activity in language.” Even in context, it’s hard to make this out. He is clear that he opposes what he calls “psycho / logical dualism”: “a theory of judgment as involving a subjective act and a truth-evaluable content – the unity and complexity of which is external to the judging subject.” In short, he doesn’t accept the Fregean picture that assertoric force is separate from whatever semantic content will determine truth value. But the “psycho / logical monism” that he does accept is (for me) very difficult to understand. I’ll take my best guess and say that, unlike Aquinas, Kimhi sees the “fundamental act of consciousness” as either affirmation or denial – what he calls a two-way capacity, borrowing from Aristotle. Propositions are affirmed or denied by acts of consciousness, not by predications – a kind of “full context principle.” Does this amount to truth being fundamental somehow? Maybe.

He also has this interesting observation, which harks back to the QV discussion, and to @banno’s reminders here about logical form and ontological commitment: Kimhi calls Frege’s logic a functionalist logic, and says moreover that it’s extensionalist, “insofar as the truth-value of a proposition depends only on the extensional identity of its components and the manner of composition. Among other things, that means that logical principles are not about propositions (thoughts) but about what gets quantified.” (my italics) This is a pretty concise way of framing the problem. Because if you oppose this view of logic, as Kimhi does, then you seem to be saying that “propositions (thoughts)” can be the subject of logical thinking without committing to “what gets quantified,” which in turn would mean that existence can – would have to be – more than just “the value of a bound variable.” I dunno, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that’s what it says to me.

Looks like this has to be personal.

Quoting Leontiskos

...but everyone in the thread proved incapable of these metalogical distinctions.

Well, as one of those who participated, I'd characterise the interaction differently. You were unable to set out clearly what it was you wanted to show.

That, of course, does not mean that your point, whatever it was, was wrong, but that it could not be addressed.

It was also pretty clear that there were a few points of logic that you did not accept. That does not bode well for a thread such as this.

Quoting Leontiskos

I am of the opinion that Banno at least somewhat derailed your thread on QV by immediately shifting it away from Sider's ontological realism and towards pure logical formalisms which intentionally avoid questions of ontology.

It's discourteous to mention without linking.

Formalism seeks clarity in otherwise opaque discourse. In this case, what is shown is that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. That seems a direct answer to the OP. (Reply to J?)

But you want to play with archaic logic again, a topic in which I have little interest. Enjoy.

Quoting J

obably the things I'm worrying about in this OP only arise when one begins to question whether the world reflects these same commitments, and whether formalisms necessarily capture everything we want to say, philosophically.

Formalism just obliges good grammar. It shows us how to set things out more clearly.

And of course there is the further issue of whether we can indeed say all the things we want to say - philosophical or not.

Quoting Banno

Formalism seeks clarity in otherwise opaque discourse. In this case, what is shown is that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. That seems a direct answer to the OP. (?J?)

It's a direct answer, certainly. I was curious to learn more about what philosophers have said concerning the parallels between "truth" and "existence" as predicates, in the light of some concerns raised by Kimhi. I know I haven't given nearly enough of Kimhi's thought here (or perhaps too much :wink: ), but based on what's been discussed so far, do you think his reservations about Fregean predicate logic can be definitively shown to be misguided? I'm not sure whether you think you've answered the OP in the sense of putting my doubts to rest. I'd be very interested to hear more along those lines.

Reply to Banno Just saw this after posting my latest. Thanks, makes sense.

Reply to J Cheers.

I don't have Kimhi's book, so I can't answer any issues raised there directly. In any case it seems what is needed is a thesis, or a series of theses, rather than a thread.

I suggested that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. The obvious response is to ask what "about" is doing here. And so we move to talk of sense and reference, intension and extension, and so on, and the supposed rejection of Frege. The classical solution was, roughly, that an extensional understanding of logic is preferable simply because it is simpler. But there are intensional logics, which as I understand it tend to treat the intension of individuals as propositions; or more recently as algorithms. Speaking roughly, the extension is the thing we are talking about, the intension is the thing we are doing with it.

All this by way of saying that if the point is to improve on Frege, then that's pretty much what logic has been doing; and if the point is to show that Frege is mistaken, then it's somewhat closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

So where does that leave us?

Quoting J

Typical statement: “The critical insight -- that any unity in consciousness is essentially self-consciousness of that unity -- is recognized to coincide with the insight that the consciousness of logical activity is inseparable from the capacity to manifest this activity in language.”

Depends what he means by "manifest". From Merriam Webster, a synonym of "manifest" is "show".

As Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus, one can show logic but not say it.

Kimhi will have a hard time in arguing for a psychological/logical monism, and against the dualism of psychological saying and logical showing. Language can be said, but the logic within language can only be shown.

Quoting Banno

it seems what is needed is a thesis, or a series of theses, rather than a thread.

Yeah, I'm trying to work up something like that for a fresh OP.

Quoting Banno

if the point is to show that Frege is mistaken, then it's somewhat closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

So where does that leave us?

The simple answer would be, "Providing some carrots and sticks to entice the horse back." I think that's what Kimhi is trying to do, though what you say about intensional logics also fits with some of his concerns. In any event, I don't think that's such a bad place to left in. At worst, we'd discover that Fregean principles are solid, and can withstand even the most careful and creative criticism. At best, we might get a genuinely fresh concept of how philosophical logic can be related to ontological concerns.

Quoting J

That is, neither existence nor truth add anything, conceptually, to what they appear to be predicating ?existence’ and ?truth’ of. I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ?a hundred thalers’; I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

It seems to me that it adds nothing because it would be redundant. In making statements about things, you are implying that the things you talk about exist and that your statement is true. If not, then you are lying. When lying you don't say, "It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table." as it is already implied that what you are saying is true and that thalers and the table exists. This is why people are fooled by false statements because they assume that the statement is true without the liar having to actually declare it is true as part of the statement. To show whether or not your statement is true, we need to make an observation.

Reply to Harry Hindu As this thread has shown, it's complicated. A great deal depends on whether the statement "There are a hundred thalers on the table" occurs in a context where it's reasonable to assume it's also being asserted. Lying is not the only thing that could call this into question. I might be genuinely mistaken about the thalers, though of course I'd still be asserting it. Or I could be merely mentioning the statement, or pointing out something about it, or asking for a discussion of its semantic content. In such a case, the information/predicate that the statement is also true can be provided outside the context of an assertion, so that it isn't redundant. This all goes back to the basic Fregean question of whether we can "say" a proposition, or at least understand it, without asserting it, that is, separate semantics and truth-value from assertoric force. So I think my statement from the OP that you quote was too hasty. I should have written, "I can say 'It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table' but this adds nothing to the semantic content of the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

As to how we ascertain the truth of a statement, that's another story, and usually involves some combination of observation, as you say, and correct use of a language. The exact combination has been disputable and I'm sure will continue to be.

Quoting RussellA

As Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus, one can show logic but not say it.

Hmm. Not quite sure I get this. Can you refer us to some passages in the Tractatus?

Quoting J

Hmm. Not quite sure I get this. Can you refer us to some passages in the Tractatus?

Wittgenstein argues in the TLP that propositions cannot represent logical form, that logical form cannot be expressed in language.

Logical form can only be mirrored in language, shown in propositions.

TLP 4.0312 My fundamental idea is that the "logical constants" are not representatives; that there can be no representatives of the logic of facts.

TLP 4.12 Propositions can represent the hole of reality, but they cannot represent what they have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it - logical form.
In order to be able to represent logical form, we should have to be able to station ourselves with propositions somewhere outside logic, that is to say outside the world.

TLP 4.121 Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them.
What finds its reflection in language, language cannot represent.
What expresses itself in language, we cannot express by means of language.
Propositions show the logical form of reality.
They display it.

TLP 4.1212 What can be shown, cannot be said

As a practical example, given the proposition "the apple is on the table", how can the logical constant "on" be expressed in language?

The Merriam Webster defines "on" as "used as a function word to indicate position in contact with and supported by the top surface of". It then defines "top" as "the highest point, level, or part of something". It then defines "high" as "an elevated place or region". Any attempt to express "on" in language becomes either infinite or circular.

If logical constants cannot be expressed in language, then there is a dualism between language and its logic.

Khimi, however, believes that there is a psychological/logical monism.

Quoting J

He is clear that he opposes what he calls “psycho / logical dualism”: “a theory of judgment as involving a subjective act and a truth-evaluable content – the unity and complexity of which is external to the judging subject.” In short, he doesn’t accept the Fregean picture that assertoric force is separate from whatever semantic content will determine truth value.

This strikes me as an important truth, and one that is missed on TPF (and in analytic philosophy generally). Granted, I do see a measure of separability between assertoric force and semantic content, and this is especially useful in a pragmatic or functional sense, but it seems pure fantasy to claim that they are entirely separate.

A metaphor for this thread could be the truck in the mud. The Fregian paradigm does fine in many types of mud, and folks like Banno seem to think that it can handle any kind of mud whatsoever, but Kimhi is introducing mud pits that such folks have never seen or even conceived. I would even say that the failure of Fregian logic in certain contexts is demonstrable, and was already demonstrated in the QV thread by folks like Sider and Simpson. The most honest answer from the Fregian would apparently be something like, "Our system cannot and does not address these questions, but we are not interested in the questions anyway."

Quoting J

But the “psycho / logical monism” that he does accept is (for me) very difficult to understand. I’ll take my best guess and say that, unlike Aquinas, Kimhi sees the “fundamental act of consciousness” as either affirmation or denial – what he calls a two-way capacity, borrowing from Aristotle. Propositions are affirmed or denied by acts of consciousness, not by predications – a kind of “full context principle.”

I was thinking of bringing the question of affirmation and denial into the thread as well, as it seems central. For those who view logic as bound up with human reasoning and human mental acts, the foundationalness of affirmation and denial cannot be ignored. This is why Aristotle, Aquinas, and presumably Kimhi are interested in those acts. It has never been clear to me how so many on this forum fail to recognize that logic is bound up with human reasoning and human mental acts, and especially how they manage to insulate logic from mental acts, including analyses of assertoric force, existence-predications, predication of truth beyond mere consistency, intellection of terms as opposed to mere discursive arranging, etc. In practice metalogical concerns are simply ignored, but they become the elephant in the room.

This has been on my backburner for some time, and I will look at Aquinas (and also Aristotle), but my sense is that Aquinas would say that affirmation and denial are the foundational linguistic and logical acts, but that they are the crest after the trough of the wave of apprehension, and that trough is apprehension of being. So affirmation always does follow upon apprehension of being, but the two are not identical.

Quoting J

He also has this interesting observation, which harks back to the QV discussion, and to banno’s reminders here about logical form and ontological commitment: Kimhi calls Frege’s logic a functionalist logic, and says moreover that it’s extensionalist, “insofar as the truth-value of a proposition depends only on the extensional identity of its components and the manner of composition. Among other things, that means that logical principles are not about propositions (thoughts) but about what gets quantified.” (my italics) This is a pretty concise way of framing the problem. Because if you oppose this view of logic, as Kimhi does, then you seem to be saying that “propositions (thoughts)” can be the subject of logical thinking without committing to “what gets quantified,” which in turn would mean that existence can – would have to be – more than just “the value of a bound variable.” I dunno, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that’s what it says to me.

These are good and interesting thoughts, but surely the task is to define an alternative to extensionalism, and then within this process one will end up better defining extensionalism. In particular I wonder if we can discern an alternative without adverting to metaphysics and the very difficult question of being qua being. More simply: does a critique of extensionalism require one to appeal to a metaphysical context, or is the critique also achievable within a physical context?

I do see value in the extensionalism of analytic philosophy, but it also has limitations. On one view extensionalism is a later and inevitable stage in logic, and the preliminary stages involve gaining an understanding of the realities and terms that will be manipulated by the extensionalist framework. It seems that Kimhi is saying that it isn't this simple, and that the paradigm of extensionalism is not even sufficient to make true sense of this later stage of logic. I do think that if we press intelligent extensionalists they will say, "Well yes, I admit that there are simplifications and pragmatic assumptions occurring in our work." Someone like Kimhi is perhaps pressing further, asking for a more precise specification of what those simplifications and assumptions are.

Quoting Banno

In this case, what is shown is that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. That seems a direct answer to the OP.

How would this be an answer to the OP? The question we are considering is whether all true sentences are formulable within formalism, and it seems a foregone conclusion that they are not. For example:

Quoting J

I was curious to learn more about what philosophers have said concerning the parallels between "truth" and "existence" as predicates...

Given that there is no explicit predication of existence (or, I think, truth) within formal logics, how could this question possibly be answered by limiting ourselves to formal logics?

It's a bit like if someone said they wanted to look at the interaction between thunderstorms and tornadoes, and then the lab scientist tries to give an answer without leaving his concrete bunker. The scientific lab in the concrete bunker is very helpful, in large part because it excludes thunderstorms and hurricanes from the environment and makes everything a lot simpler. But if we want to study thunderstorms and hurricanes, or their interaction, then it's no use pretending that the scientific lab within the concrete bunker is going to suffice.

Quoting Banno

The classical solution was, roughly, that an extensional understanding of logic is preferable simply because it is simpler.

Simplifications are preferable until they're not. What often happens is that folks forget they are dealing with a simplification, and they forget that there is something beyond these simplifications.

Quoting Banno

But there are intensional logics...

Sure, and intentional logic would seem to be a topic that is relevant to the thread. The danger of derailment that I spoke of is not present in a discussion of intentional logic, for that which the thread is premised upon is not rejected in such a case. :up:

Reply to RussellA Thank you, that gives a good context. I always approach the Tractatus with the (increasingly faint) hope that it will reveal its secrets to me, but it never has. Later Wittgenstein means a great deal to me, but I can never quite get the propositions of the Tractatus to yield the sense that I know many good philosophers find in them.

I don't want to pull us off onto Wittgenstein, so I'l just ask one more follow-up question: Can you say what the difference is between "representing" logical form and "mirroring" logical form? The example of the apple on the table suggests that, while "on" is undefinable without circularity, its logical form can nevertheless be shown through usage. That doesn't sound like the same issue -- or is it?

Reply to Leontiskos I appreciate your thoughtful response to this. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm going to try to write up a couple of specific examples of a Kimhi-inspired challenge to Fregean philosophy of logic, which will better address many of these questions. That way we can sink our teeth into the details, and have some idea what the arguments would need to show, without having to go read all of Thinking and Being and/or get pulled into too much metaphilosophy.

It may take a while, though. Dusting off my Frege . . .

Quoting Banno

...there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing

Quoting Leontiskos

How would this be an answer to the OP?

I'm sorry you can't see how it answers the OP. It is at least a beginning. Hence
Quoting J

It's a direct answer, certainly.

J apparently can see how it addresses the OP

Existence, at least as qualification, ranges over individuals, while truth ranges over propositions. The OP asks about the relation between existence and truth. Not
Quoting Leontiskos

...whether all true sentences are formulable within formalism, and it seems a foregone conclusion that they are not.

...which is too general, too glib. I might reply, in kind, that all (true) sentences can be parsed into propositional logic. "p". Therefore all true sentences are "formulable within formalism".

Similarly, the following shows some misapprehension: Quoting Leontiskos

Given that there is no explicit predication of existence (or, I think, truth) within formal logics...

We have both existential quantification and ?!. And we have Tarski and all the ensuing work. These are concerted efforts to explore the grammar of truth and existence. First order logic shows that quantification is not a first order predicate, free logic shows the implications of treating existence as a first order predicate. Tarski explicitly makes truth a second order predicate ranging over propositions. Claiming that there is no explicit predication of existence or truth in formal logic is ignorant.

But you are afeared of formalism:
Quoting Leontiskos

...how could this question possibly be answered by limiting ourselves to formal logics?

There is no suggestion that we limit ourselves to formal logic. But you might benefit from making at least some use of it. It seems we are repeating the problem seen in other threads, where a lack of literacy in formal languages leads to an inability to set out the issues clearly.

Quoting Leontiskos

...intentional logic would seem to be a topic that is relevant to the thread.

Neither of us, nor I suspect anyone else here, have the background in intensional logic (with an "s", not a "t") that is required. I'll just leave here the intuition that more recent developments in treating intensions as algorithms reinforce treating intension as use, and leave it at that.

This post will just rattle your cage. That is probably all that can be done until @J can formulate a more explicit topic.

Reply to J I'll keep an eye out for further posts from you. Thanks for bringing Irad Kimhi to my attention.

Quoting J

As this thread has shown, it's complicated. A great deal depends on whether the statement "There are a hundred thalers on the table" occurs in a context where it's reasonable to assume it's also being asserted.

...like in everyday language-use because we typically use language to inform others of some state of affairs in the world whether it be what is on the table or what is on this page.

Quoting J

Lying is not the only thing that could call this into question. I might be genuinely mistaken about the thalers, though of course I'd still be asserting it.

...which you would be lying to yourself.

Quoting J

Or I could be merely mentioning the statement, or pointing out something about it, or asking for a discussion of its semantic content.

...which you would be referring to the scribbles on the page or the sounds coming from your mouth and not actually thalers on the table and would be just as redundant to say that "It is true that I am mentioning the statement" or pointing our something about it (like the statement exists on this page). In other words, it is redundant to make statements about things that we can already see for ourselves.

Quoting J

In such a case, the information/predicate that the statement is also true can be provided outside the context of an assertion, so that it isn't redundant. This all goes back to the basic Fregean question of whether we can "say" a proposition, or at least understand it, without asserting it, that is, separate semantics and truth-value from assertoric force. So I think my statement from the OP that you quote was too hasty. I should have written, "I can say 'It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table' but this adds nothing to the semantic content of the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

As to how we ascertain the truth of a statement, that's another story, and usually involves some combination of observation, as you say, and correct use of a language. The exact combination has been disputable and I'm sure will continue to be.

In other words, the semantic content involves what you are actually talking about that others can observe for themselves to verify the truth, whether it be thalers on the table or scribbles on the screen. I would say that the difference between knowledge and belief is that knowledge is supported by both logic and observation while beliefs are only supported by one or the other.

Quoting J

Can you say what the difference is between "representing" logical form and "mirroring" logical form? The example of the apple on the table suggests that, while "on" is undefinable without circularity, its logical form can nevertheless be shown through usage. That doesn't sound like the same issue -- or is it?

Suppose there are two people in a room, A and B. A has prior knowledge about apples on tables. B doesn't have prior knowledge, but wants to know about apples on tables.

Situation 1) The room is windowless. A describes in words to B what it means for there to be an apple on a table

Situation 2) The room has a window. A points to the window, and B sees through the window that there is an apple on a table.

In 1), the logic of an apple on a table is being "represented", it is being "said"

In 2), the logic of an apple on a table is being "mirrored", it is being "shown"

The problem with 1) is that if B has never previously been "shown" an example of one thing on top of another thing, B will never understand what A is saying, will never understand what is being "said".

Yes, because the word "on" is undefinable without being infinite or circular, its logical form cannot be "said", but its logical form can be "shown".

The question we are considering is whether all true sentences are formulable within formalism.

Within the literature, it seems to me that the words i) assertic force, asserted, force, extrinsic and assertion seem to be synonyms for Frege's "reference" and the words ii) content, semantic, intrinsic and unasserted seem to be synonyms for Frege's "sense".

From the Wikipedia article on Formalism (Philosophy)
Formalists within a discipline are completely concerned with "the rules of the game," as there is no other external truth that can be achieved beyond those given rules.

In these terms, situation 1) is a formalist situation.

But within situation 1), B, never having had prior knowledge of an apple on a table, no matter the words used by A, will never know the truth of what it means for there to be an apple on a table

IE, within a Formalist situation, B can never know the truth of the proposition "there is an apple on the table". True sentences can never be formulable within Formalism.

Reply to RussellA Thanks, this helps. "Representing" is describing in words, while "mirroring" is more like ostension or making a picture. I'm not satisfied with how this carries over into logical form
(is "on" really a logical connective?), but that can wait till another day.

Quoting RussellA

Within the literature, it seems to me that the words i) assertoric force, asserted, force, extrinsic and assertion seem to be synonyms for Frege's "reference" and the words ii) content, semantic, intrinsic and unasserted seem to be synonyms for Frege's "sense".

I would say, not synonyms, but they match up with the distinction that "reference" and "sense" is meant to draw. Semantic content reveals sense, and of course can be unasserted, according to Frege. Assertions and truth-claims about what's actually "out there" depend upon the idea of referring. This thread has mostly focused on how to understand the act of assertion, it seems to me.

*mispost*

Quoting Banno

I'm sorry you can't see how it answers the OP. It is at least a beginning.

Okay, I grant that it is a beginning. My point is that formal considerations cannot answer the OP. "There are no true sentences that are not about some thing," is not a formal consideration. It is at best a presupposition of formal logics, not a conclusion. And whether every true sentence in a formal language is about existing things is a contentious topic.

Quoting Banno

Existence, at least as qualification, ranges over individuals, while truth ranges over propositions. The OP asks about the relation between existence and truth.

As you pointed out:

Quoting Banno

So generally, existence is not a first order predicate; nor is truth.

Again, the concepts of existence and truth are presuppositions of formal logic, not things that formal logic handles as first-order predicates. If we are considering and comparing the presuppositions of formal logic, then we have already taken a step beyond the object language.

Quoting Banno

I might reply, in kind, that all (true) sentences can be parsed into propositional logic. "p". Therefore all true sentences are "formulable within formalism".

Even if they could, we know from Godel that not all true sentences can be shown true in propositional logic. By limiting ourselves to a formal context we limit our access to truth.

Quoting Banno

Claiming that there is no explicit predication of existence or truth in formal logic is ignorant.

Claiming that the existential quantifier is equivalent to predicating existence is ignorant, and you know this. Your first post hedged on this sort of thing.

Quoting Banno

This post will just rattle your cage. That is probably all that can be done until J can formulate a more explicit topic.

The topic is fine. The problem is your approach which sees everything as a nail, because your only tool is a hammer. If you want a thread on the internal workings of formal logic, maybe you are the one who needs to make a new thread. The idea that all questions can be answered by formal logic is daft, and provably false. It's high time you stopped pigeonholing every thread into your naive paradigm.

-

Logical systems are meant to capture correct human reasoning, and although each system fails in certain unique ways, all formal systems fail insofar as they are static and because of this lack recursion or reflexivity. One of the most unique properties of the human mind is its ability to think about its own thoughts, with a kind of infinite reflexivity. Formalized systems lack this "self-knowledge," so to speak. Godel used this fact to prove his incompleteness theorem, but it goes deeper than that. Thinkers who turn their gaze on truth qua truth or being qua being (as opposed to truth qua consistency or being qua stipulation) are using the muscle of the human mind that allows this infinite reflexivity. Trying to do such work while limiting oneself to a static formal system is to presume that the static system can demonstrate true statements about itself in this reflexive manner, and this presumption always turns out to be false. The static system will only ever arrive at faux truth and faux being, for the simplifications that are part and parcel of static systems preclude one from thinking about truth in itself or being in itself.

Quoting J

Thanks, this helps. "Representing" is describing in words, while "mirroring" is more like ostension or making a picture. I'm not satisfied with how this carries over into logical form
(is "on" really a logical connective?), but that can wait till another day.

Another day has arrived.

True, prepositions such as "on" are not logical connectives, but rather syncategorematic.

From the Wikipedia article on Syncategorematic term

The distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic terms was established in ancient Greek grammar. Words that designate self-sufficient entities (i.e., nouns or adjectives) were called categorematic, and those that do not stand by themselves were dubbed syncategorematic, (i.e., prepositions, logical connectives, etc.)

Khimi uses the concept of an a syncategorematic expression, where a syncategorematic expression does not add anything to the sense of any proposition embedded in it.

Therefore, within the proposition "p is true", the expression "is true" is a syncategorematic expression, which adds nothing to the sense of "p".

From the Notre Dame review of Irad Khimi's Thinking and Being

A syncategorematic expression does not add anything (whether content or form) to the sense of any proposition embedded in it. On Kimhi's account, the assertions "Not-p", "A thinks p", "p is true" and, last but not least, "p" itself, do not add anything whatsoever to the sense of "p". None of these expressions stands for a relation. In fact, none of them stands for anything. They all are syncategorematic expressions. That the assertion "p" is itself a syncategorematic unit becomes intelligible once it is realized that the propositional symbol "p" consists in a fact rather than a complex (100).

This means that the proposition "the apple is on the table" is also a syncategorematic unit, meaning that it cannot stand by itself, as not being a self-sufficient entity. In terms of the Tractatus, this proposition is a fact rather than a complex, where a complex would be "the apple is on the table and the table is brown in colour". Complexes derive from facts using truth tables.

I think that I can understand that a Tracterian fact, such as the proposition "the apple is on the table" cannot stand by itself, in the same way the the equally valid proposition "matunda ni juu ya meza" cannot stand by itself, in that any proposition needs a context in order for it to be meaningful.

Syncategorematic expressions need a context.

Reply to Leontiskos Again, what you have written shows multiple errors in your understanding of formal logic. And misunderstandings of my post. Experience shows that listing them will only cause you to double down, so I'll leave that aside.

You might benefit from reading Gillian Russell - I've mentioned her to you previously. At issue is if there is a "correct human reasoning" in the way you suppose. She careful shows this to be unlikely, for reasons other than misunderstanding Gödel.

https://gilliankrussell.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/logicalnihilism-philissues-v3.pdf

Your attempt to examine logic without paying due attention to formality is counterproductive.

Quoting Leontiskos

we know from Godel that not all true sentences can be shown true in propositional logic.

That is not what Godel said nor what we take from Godel.

To show a sentence is to prove the sentence from a set of axioms and rules of inference.

But if a sentence is contingent, then to show that the sentence is true requires specifying which model or models 'true' pertains to.


Propositional logic:

We have the soundness and completeness theorem:

G |- P if and only if G |= P.

That is, a set of formulas G proves a formula P if and only if every model in which all the formulas of G are true is a model in which P is true.

Soundness (if G |- P then G |= P). Proof is straightforward by induction on length of derivation. I don't know who first proved it.

Completeness (if G |= P then G |- P). It seems this was first proved by Post in 1921.

So:

If a sentence is contingent, then the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone. (Soundness) Moreover, there is a mechanical method to demonstrate that the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone (that is, there is mechanical method to adduce a model in which the sentence is false).

If a sentence is contingent, then the negation of the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone. (Soundness) Moreover, there is a mechanical method to demonstrate that the negation of the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone (that is, there is mechanical method to adduce a model in which the sentence is true).

If a sentence is logically true, then the sentence is provable by logical axioms alone. (Completeness) Moreover, there is a mechanical method to adduce such a proof.

If a sentence is logically false, then the negation of the sentence is provable by logical axioms alone. (Completeness) Moreover, there is a mechanical method to adduce such a proof.

Also, if a sentence is true in a given model, then it can be demonstrated that it is true in that model. Moreover, there is a mechanical method to demonstrate that it is true in that model.

Also, if a sentence is false in a given model, then it can be demonstrated that it is false in that model. Moreover, there is a mechanical method to demonstrate that it is false in that model.


Predicate logic:

We have the soundness and completeness theorem:

G |- P if and only if G |= P.

That is, a set of formulas G proves a formula P if and only if every model in which all the formulas of G are true is a model in which P is true.

Soundness (if G |- P then G |= P). Proof is straightforward by induction on length of derivation. I don't know who first proved it.

Completeness (if G |= P then G |- P). This was first proved by Godel in 1930, but Henkin's very different proof in 1949 is the one usually referred to.

So:

If a sentence is contingent, then the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone. (Soundness) But there is no mechanical method to demonstrate that the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone (that is, there is no mechanical method to adduce a model in which the sentence is false) (follows from Church 1936, corollary of incompleteness theorem).

If a sentence is contingent, then the negation of the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone. (Soundness) But there is no mechanical method to demonstrate that the negation of the sentence is not provable by logical axioms alone (that is, there is no mechanical method to adduce a model in which the sentence is true) (follows from Church 1936, corollary of incompleteness theorem).

If a sentence is logically true, then the sentence is provable by logical axioms alone. (Completeness) But there is no mechanical method to adduce such a proof (follows from Church 1936, corollary of incompleteness theorem).

If a sentence is logically false, then the negation of the sentence is provable by logical axioms alone. (Completeness) But there is no mechanical method to adduce such a proof (follows from Church 1936, corollary of incompleteness theorem).


Incompleteness (Godel-Rosser in modern form):

If (1) T a formal theory (has a recursive axiomatization and recursive inference rules), and (2) T is consistent, and (3), e.g., Robinson arithmetic is interpretable in T, then T is incomplete (that is, there is a sentence P in the language for T such that neither P nor ~P are theorems of T).


"[...] not all true sentences can be shown true in propositional logic."

The best I can make that a definite thought as to formal logic: If a sentence is contingent, then it is not provable in propositional logic from logical axioms alone. That is true, but it is merely the soundness theorem for propositional logic, and I see no reason to think it is something that comes from Godel.

Quoting RussellA

From the Wikipedia article on Formalism (Philosophy)
Formalists within a discipline are completely concerned with "the rules of the game," as there is no other external truth that can be achieved beyond those given rules.

An example of Wikipedia promulgating sloppy misinformation.

What is called 'game formalism' or 'extreme formalism' regards mathematics as merely execution of rules for strings of symbols. But formalism in the philosophy of mathematics has variations that are not game formalism. Indeed, it seems that game formalism is not widely accepted while other forms of formalism have more acceptance.

This goes along with the fact that, contrary to the Internet (and even printed) meme, Hilbert did not say that mathematics is just a game played with symbols, as indeed Hilbert did very much view finitistic mathematics as contentual and infinitistic mathematics as applicable even though ideal.

Reply to RussellA Again, thanks for the response to my concerns. Two things:

1. My question about whether “on” was a logical connective only meant that I wasn’t aware of a “logic of ?on’” that had been worked out. For all I know, there is one, but if you start playing with it, you can see why it might be ill-suited for formal functions. “If a is on b, and b is on c, then a is on c” – true or false? Beats me. Depends. But once we disambiguate “on”, what are we going to do with it? All sorts of interesting questions hinge on getting clear about “and”, “or”, “if/IFF”, “can”, “must”, et al. -- well, who knows, maybe we need a better understanding of “on” too.

2. I deliberately didn’t say anything about Kimhi’s use of “syncategorematic” in this thread because it’s so non-standard, and even though he has a go at explaining it about three different ways, his usage isn’t transparent to me. You write:

Quoting RussellA

Therefore, within the proposition "p is true", the expression "is true" is a syncategorematic expression, which adds nothing to the sense of "p".

That’s right, but it’s right for Frege as well. Frege’s assertion (judgment) stroke, indicating “is true”, is syncategorematic.

Where it gets bizarre with Kimhi is his further claim that p itself is syncategorematic. You’re right that he regards p as a fact rather than a Fregean complex, but how then is p used? What is the context we need to provide in order to state a relation involving p? I don’t think that, e.g., joining it with q in ?p & q’ helps. The problem lies in how facts are asserted – how they’re affirmed or denied. When the ND reviewer writes, “ ?p’ itself . . . [does] not add anything whatsoever to the sense of ?p’,” this can only mean that some assertion of p can add nothing to p’s sense, but that’s still orthodox Fregeanism. I think Kimhi wants to say something more radical – that the context needed to make use of (syncategorematic) ?p’ has to involve a monistic understanding of what it is to assert. He thinks the necessary separation of sense and assertion is all wrong. “From the monist point of view, a simple propositional sign displays a possible act of consciousness.” -- the possibility of affirmation or negation.

And on this mystical note, I’ll stop.

Quoting TonesInDeepFreeze

Soundness (if G |- P then G |= P). Proof is straightforward by induction on length of derivation. I don't know who first proved it.

isn't that Godel's completeness theorem?

Reply to Banno

No, that's the converse of the completeness theorem.

Reply to TonesInDeepFreeze
Ok.

Not authoritative, of course, but

ChatGPT:David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann are often credited with formalizing the notion of soundness in their work on formal logic systems in the early 20th century. Their 1928 book "Grundzüge der theoretischen Logik" (Principles of Mathematical Logic) laid the groundwork for formal systems, including the notion that derivations in a formal system should correspond to semantic truths.
However, the soundness theorem is usually associated with Kurt Gödel, who in 1930 proved both the soundness and completeness of first-order logic (predicate logic) as part of his doctoral dissertation. This work demonstrated that if a formula is provable, it is also true in all models, and conversely, if it is true in all models, it is provable. The proof of soundness is typically straightforward compared to the proof of completeness, but both are key results in Gödel's work.

So while Hilbert and Ackermann helped define the formal system, it is Gödel's 1930 work that solidified the formal proof of soundness in the context of first-order logic.

Have you any thoughts on the OP? Perhaps on "existence is not a predicate"?

(1) It is possible that Godel first proved the soundness of the predicate calculus. I mentioned in my post that I don't know who first proved it.

(2) Source other than an AI bot?

(3) If G |-P then G |= P is soundness not completeness. Even if Godel was the originator of the soundness proof, still soundness and completeness are different, being converses of each other.

/

I have no comment on discussion of "existence is not a predicate" in this thread. But, whether or not this suits the context of that discussion: In the most basic sense of predicate logic, of course existence is not a predicate, but existence is formulated as a predicate in certain modal logics.

"Godel’s completeness theorem, which he proved in 1930, shows that if a formula is semantically valid, then it is provable within the system, while the soundness theorem follows as a corollary: if a formula is provable, it is valid." ChatGPT

That's great. ChatGPT caught, in flagrante, lying about the pair of central theorems of mathematical logic.

The soundness theorem does not follow as a corollary of completeness.

Trivially, an inconsistent system is complete and not sound!

It is SO discouraging to look at the Internet.

Quoting Banno

Not authoritative, of course

Time Magazine's Understatement of the Year

Followup with the liar bot:

I wrote:

"That's wrong. soundness does not follow from completeness" - TonesInDeepFreeze

ChatGPT replied:

"You're correct. I misspoke. The soundness and completeness theorems for first-order logic are indeed distinct results, and soundness does not follow from completeness.

Here’s a more accurate description:

Soundness Theorem: This theorem states that if a formula can be derived using a formal system (i.e., it is provable), then it is also valid (true in all models). The proof of soundness generally involves showing that the rules of inference in the formal system preserve truth.

Completeness Theorem: Godel's completeness theorem, proven in 1930, states that if a formula is valid (true in all models), then it is provable within the system.

Godel proved the completeness theorem, but the soundness theorem was established in the context of formal logic as well, often attributed to earlier foundational work in formal systems, including work by other logicians and formalists who developed and refined these ideas. Soundness was addressed as part of the broader development of formal systems and logical proofs." - ChatGPT

/

And that is still a quite incorrect statement of the theorems. And slop in the summation paragraph too.

Reply to TonesInDeepFreeze Cheers. I don't disagree with any of that. Yep, Chat GPT confabulates.

Quoting Banno

Again, what you have written shows multiple errors in your understanding of formal logic.

I see you are back to your schtick of non-responses. I will take this as a concession, and move on with the topic of the thread.

Reply to Leontiskos Tones listed some of your errors for your benefit. Address yourself to him: Reply to TonesInDeepFreeze

Have a look at the Russell article. Let us know what you think. It takes a more detailed approach to metalogic that we've seen so far, while at the same time being quite broad.

I've made my view pretty clear over the years. There is no "correct" way of thinking in the way supposed by some. Instead we have a range of conversations, growing and spreading in a quite organic fashion. From what little I've understood of your position, you seem to think that Aristotle and a couple of others fathomed the whole of how we ought think, and anything since then is mistaken. I doubt there is a common ground to be found here.

Quoting Banno

Tones listed some of your errors for your benefit.

There was only one (combined) error. I mentioned several facets of the matter just to provide an ample understanding of it.

Reply to TonesInDeepFreeze Ok.

Quoting RussellA

From the Notre Dame review of Irad Khimi's Thinking and Being

Informative review. :up:

Quoting J

I’ve been working with some ideas in Irad Kimhi’s Thinking and Being. Much of what he talks about concerns the nature of the relationship between predication and truth-assertion. It occurred to me that “Existence is not a predicate” has some obvious parallels with “Truth is not a predication.” That is, neither existence nor truth add anything, conceptually, to what they appear to be predicating ?existence’ and ?truth’ of. I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ?a hundred thalers’; I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

Before looking at affirmation and negation I want to revisit this part of the OP now that I have a better understanding of the context.

Colloquially, I want to say that both predications of truth and existence add something to the thing they are predicated of, for this thing is thought to be truth apt or existence apt. By thinking of such predicables as "apt" they are thought of as logically pre-true or pre-existing. This way of thinking seems to be what we now consider normal. Of course, it is possible to affirm such predications without the words "true" or "exists."

Regarding the idea that existence is not a predicate, I think this is tied to standard compositional syllogistic. It would seem that judgments of existence are atomic in a way that is foreign to the combining and separating that constitutes logical acts, and therefore questions of existence are considered pre-logical (including being prior to logical predication). Formal logic is only concerned with existence qua logical function, as for example is seen by the existential quantifier. Existence, then, is treated as a kind of meta-predicate which is barred from being taken into per se consideration within the object language, given the way that it is not (logically) manipulable.

Quoting J

All sorts of interesting questions hinge on getting clear about “and”, “or”, “if/IFF”, “can”, “must”, et al. -- well, who knows, maybe we need a better understanding of “on” too.

Yes, there are many logical systems other than Frege's First-Order Logic, such as noted in the Wikipedia article on Non-classical logic. Some, I am sure, not invented yet.

Quoting J

Where it gets bizarre with Kimhi is his further claim that p itself is syncategorematic. You’re right that he regards p as a fact rather than a Fregean complex, but how then is p used? What is the context we need to provide in order to state a relation involving p? I don’t think that, e.g., joining it with q in ?p & q’ helps. The problem lies in how facts are asserted – how they’re affirmed or denied.

Quoting J

I think Kimhi wants to say something more radical – that the context needed to make use of (syncategorematic) ?p’ has to involve a monistic understanding of what it is to assert.

Following on from @Leontiskos, it seems that truth and existence are meta-predicates rather than predicates.
Not "the apple is on the table is true" but "the apple is on the table" is true.
Not "the apple exists" but "the apple" exists.

For Khimi, the proposition "p" is a syncategorematic expression, where "p" is a fact.

Khimi agrees with Frege that a proposition can be both asserted (reference) and unasserted (sense), but whereas Frege thinks that sense and reference can be disassociated, Khimi disagrees and believes that sense and reference are two parts of a single unity

The fact that "I saw the Morning Star" is both asserted, in that it refers to the planet Venus,
and unasserted, in that its sense is of a star the rises in the morning.

For Frege, "unicorns are mythical creatures" can have a sense, a horse-like animal with a single projecting horn from its forehead, even though it doesn't have a reference.

For Khimi, if a proposition has a sense, then it must also have a reference, as sense and reference cannot be disassociated.

Khimi agrees with Wittgenstein that there are no negative facts,

It comes back to Wittgenstein's puzzle, how can not-p negate p, when p may not be the case.

Khimi holds that the idea of a judgement without a contrary is incoherent, in that if I judge the postbox to be red, then I must also be judging whether the postbox is not-red.

This makes sense in that I only know what something is when I know what it isn't.

I only know what it means for there to be rain if I also know what it means for there not to be rain.

To know something, I must know not only "p" but also "not-p".

This concept is mirrored in Wittgenstein's truth tables in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein did not invent truth tables, but their use in modern logic is usually traced back to the Tractatus. Because an exhaustive list of the truth-possibilities of a proposition tells us everything we need to know about that proposition, the truth table then shows us what we need to know about that proposition.

For example, the proposition "It will rain" can be understood by all its possibilities: "it will rain and I will get wet", "it will rain and I won't get wet", "it won't rain and I will get wet" and ""it won't rain and I won't get wet".

A fact such as "p" has meaning only when it can be judged to be "not-p".

A fact such as "the postbox is red" has meaning to me when I can judge whether it is "not-red"

For Khimi, the proposition "the postbox is red" has a sense, as well as a reference, but also "the postbox is not-red" must have a sense as well as a reference, as sense and reference cannot be disassociated.

The question is, what does "the postbox is not-red" refer to?

The colour purple is not-red, as well as the colours orange, brown, turquoise and violet.

Therefore, the colour not-red could be the colour violet.,

Therefore "the postbox is not-red" could be referring to "the postbox is violet".

This introduces possible modal worlds. Wittgenstein is important for his introduction of modality.

From the SEP article Possible Worlds

However, the predominant version of combinatorialism finds its origins in Russell's (1918/1919) theory of logical atomism and Wittgenstein's (1921, 1922, 1974) short but enormously influential Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

IE, "p", although syncategorematic, gets its meaning from its contradictory pair "not-p".

Reply to Leontiskos Yes, I had recourse to it several times in drafting my various posts about Kimhi. Much better than the Hanna piece.

Quoting J

“From the monist point of view, a simple propositional sign displays a possible act of consciousness.” -- the possibility of affirmation or negation.

Reading more of Kimhi's book, I am appreciating it, especially the way he explodes the Fregean paradigm over and over. I think Kimhi could help clear up the truth-functional confusions overflowing in <this thread>, which are all essentially based on the Fregean form-substitutability between (A & ¬B) and (B & ¬B).

But another overlap between the child thread and Kimhi is as follows:

Quoting Leontiskos

In English we can deny in a manner that does not affirm the negation of any proposition, and this violates the way that propositional logic conceives of the LEM. In fact, going back to flannel’s thread, this shows that a contradiction in English need not take the form (A ^ ~A). In English one can contradict or deny A without affirming ~A.

Quoting Leontiskos

(Propositional logic seems to assume, prima facie, not only the commonsensical idea that C is neither A nor B, but also the deeply counterintuitive idea that C is neither ¬A nor ¬B. Usually if C is neither A nor B then it must be both ¬A and ¬B.)

Compare Kimhi:

Kimhi, Thinking and Being, 93:[For the non-Fregean] The truth-connector is therefore seen as an expression of an operation. In fact, we can speak of truth and falsity operations, which are performed by . . . is true and . . . is false respectively. The assertion “p is true” is the same as “I truly think p.” There is no logical gap between these assertions. By contrast, the assertion “p is false” is not the same as “I truly think not-p.” Thus, truth and falsity operations are not symmetrical. However, they both apply to p and “A thinks p.” It is only in judgments about others that the use of . . . is false is required in addition to negation.

I would want to say that calling something false is to deny, not to negate, and that the asymmetry of affirmation and denial is well represented by Kimhi's final sentence here. Denial requires an interlocutor in a way that affirmation does not (and this interlocutor could also be merely represented). The corollary here seems to be that saying "p is false" is not the same as saying "not-p".

At this point I would want to see denial and negation as distinguished according to what Kimhi says on 87 about Aristotle, where denial is an assertion "away from" and a negation is a "separation." But I would have to look into this more, and I know Kimhi will go on to speak about whether and in what way these are truly distinct.

(I also really like Kimhi's work in unifying the various formulations of the PNC, a point that I have often found difficult to convey to those whose paradigm precludes it.)

Reply to Leontiskos I'm glad to hear you're reading Kimhi -- not for the faint of heart! In fact you may find parts of it easier going than I did, due to your background in Aristotle.

I didn't participate in the thread you refer us to, and I'm not prepared right now to try to take it all in. But your quoted comment about negation versus denial is definitely apropos. It may come down to the difference between 'not-X' (negation as an operation within a proposition) and 'It is not the case that (p)' (denial of a proposition), though I'm not sure about this. What Kimhi adds to this, in a manner I'm still grappling with, is the unity part: the claim that "the assertion 'p is true' is the same as 'I truly think p'." In general, the role of an act of consciousness in Kimhi's philosophy is what allows him to take a thoroughly monist stance on these matters, but as I've said before, I think he could have done a much clearer job explaining it.

I also agree that he's good on the PNC. One of the most appealing and lucid sections of the book.

Quoting J

I'm glad to hear you're reading Kimhi -- not for the faint of heart! In fact you may find parts of it easier going than I did, due to your background in Aristotle.

A lot of it is on point for me, even though he is going deeper than I have seen others go. It is also bringing together a number of disparate interests of mine, which is great.

Quoting J

It may come down to the difference between 'not-X' (negation as an operation within a proposition) and 'It is not the case that (p)' (denial of a proposition)

I think that's right, but I think it can be elaborated further.

Quoting J

What Kimhi adds to this, in a manner I'm still grappling with, is the unity part: the claim that "the assertion 'p is true' is the same as 'I truly think p'." In general, the role of an act of consciousness in Kimhi's philosophy is what allows him to take a thoroughly monist stance on these matters, but as I've said before, I think he could have done a much clearer job explaining it.

Yes, but in his defense I think it is very hard to elucidate the manner in which the intellect knows truly, and how truth is both psychological and ontological. This is also related to the table that the ND reviewer gives, which would also be a good jumping off point:

[math]\begin{array} {|c|c|}\hline A\,believes\,p. & A\,believes\,p. & A\,believes\,p. \\ \hline p. & Not-p. & A's\,belief\,is\,correct. \\ \hline So\,A's\,belief\,is\,correct. & So\,A's\,belief\,is\,incorrect. & So\,\,p. \\ \hline \end{array}[/math]

[hide="Reveal"]

[math]\begin{array} {|c|c|}\hline A\,believes\,p. & A\,believes\,p. & A\,believes\,p. \\ \hline p. & Not-p. & A's\,belief\,is\,correct. \\ \hline So\,A's\,belief\,is\,incorrect. & So\,A's\,belief\,is\,correct. & So\,\,p. \\ \hline  \end{array}[/math]

[/hide]

Quoting J

I didn't participate in the thread you refer us to, and I'm not prepared right now to try to take it all in.

I wouldn't really recommend reading it, but it is an interesting test case of what would happen if we ignore Kimhi's points, such as the point that (b?¬b) is not a genuine proposition. In large part that thread is just people assuming that it is a genuine proposition, and also some devoted Fregeans being adamant about this. Obviously that assumption leads to problems at every turn.

One of those "disparate interests" that Kimhi brings together is the strange situation I find myself in on TPF, where there are some who have become very proficient at the manipulation of logical symbols—which they are quick to lord over others—and yet they seem to have no idea of the purpose of logic. For example, the problem with viewing (b?¬b) as a proposition is that it does not fit with the final cause of logic, and these people have no understanding of the question, "What is the final cause of logic?" They have no reference point outside the internal machine of logic.

Kimhi talks about this:

Kimhi, Thinking and Being, 91-2:A similar point can be made with respect to Frege’s use of semantic notions such as “the sense of . . .” and “the reference of . . . ,” namely, insofar as we come to see them as pointing to similarities and differences displayed by the notation, we recognize that they are not predicates, since all predicates are expressible using the notation; hence we come to see them as mere means deployed to communicate the use of the notation to a learner. In the end, the success of this communication requires this realization. One can say, therefore, that Frege’s universalist conception is eliminativist with respect to both semantical and formal-categorical discourse. Note that the very construction of the Begriffsschrift is not in any obvious way internal to the fact-stating discourse, namely, we cannot describe it as the actualization of the capacity of linguistic self-consciousness which is internal to the activity of assertion as such.

Picking on Banno again, a stark example of this sort of thing can be seen in a thread trying to figure out what logic even is:

Quoting Leontiskos

. . .You are appealing to usage, but the etymology and the historical usage point very clearly to logic as an art of reasoning.

They say that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. A few weeks ago I looked at your thread which is intended to teach propositional calculus (link). It's no coincidence that in your third substantial post you were already into truth tables. But even in your first substantial post you said, "What we want to do is to examine the relations between these propositions, rather than their contents." It seems to me that it would have been more apt to say that we want to examine the relations that obtain between these propositions based on their content. Relations hold or fail to hold in light of the content of the relata, and this has everything to do with truth.

Now a pedagogue might choose to introduce the rules of logic before introducing the purpose of logic, much like you could teach a child to kick a ball before introducing them to the game of soccer. Of course I am not convinced that this is sound pedagogy.

The posts I was responding to are defending what would be labeled by Kimhi "the modern schematic conception of logic" (pp. 89-90). It is fascinating to me that Banno would teach logic without starting by telling his pupil what logic is for. When is the pupil ever to learn what the tool of logic is used for? Or the teacher? This is something like the epitome of a functionalist approach which attempts to prescind from all ontological questions.

Thus one reason I am interested to read Kimhi is to understand what pitfalls Frege was attempting to avoid in constructing a system that has led to such oddities ("psycho-logicism").

Quoting J

What Kimhi adds to this, in a manner I'm still grappling with, is the unity part: the claim that "the assertion 'p is true' is the same as 'I truly think p'."

I think Kimhi has some good insights, but in things like this I wonder if he is pushing his point too far.

The problem is that Frag. B2 of Parmenides' poem presupposes that truth and falsity are asymmetrical, and I think this is correct. In the early pages of his book Kimhi takes for granted that they are symmetrical, and this creates problems. He assumes that in speaking of truth one can equally well speak of falsehood. For example, we can say that there is no gap between a reality and an assertion of that reality, but it does not follow that there is no gap involved in an assertion of falsehood. The proper object of an assertion of falsehood is always a proposition or representation, whereas the proper object of an assertion of truth can be reality itself.

Later in the book Kimhi seems to get a lot clearer on this asymmetricity, but at least at the beginning it looks a bit confused to me.

I have always found it interesting to read Genesis 3 in light of that aspect of Parmenides' poem, because the serpent introduces (partial) falsehood into creation for the first time, and this places Eve on a "path entirely unable to be [traveled]" (2). In Augustinian language we would say that falsehood is a privation of truth, and presupposes it in a way that truth does not presuppose falsehood. There was truth in creation before the serpent spoke, and falsehood (and doubt!) only emerged by and through his speaking.

Quoting J

What Kimhi adds to this, in a manner I'm still grappling with, is the unity part: the claim that "the assertion 'p is true' is the same as 'I truly think p'."

I don't have access to Thinking and Being, so am using reviews of the book.

Khimi does seem to say that the expression "is true" in a proposition such as "the Moon circles the Earth is true" is redundant.

If I assert that the proposition "the Moon circles the Earth" is true, am I not asserting my belief that the Moon circles the Earth, that I truly think that the Moon circles the Earth?
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Quoting Leontiskos

The proper object of an assertion of falsehood is always a proposition or representation, whereas the proper object of an assertion of truth can be reality itself.

The assertion of both truth and falsity about reality

Accepting that the Moon is not made of cheese, the proposition "the Moon is made of cheese" is false, and the proposition "the moon is not made of cheese" is true.

The assertion of truth, that "the Moon is not made of cheese" is an assertion about reality, in that the Moon is not made of cheese.

But what about the assertion of falsity, that "the Moon is made of cheese", What is being asserted. It can only be that the Moon is made of cheese, meaning that an assertion of falsity is also an assertion about what does and doesn't exist in reality.

In this instance, the objects of assertions of both truth and falsity are about reality.

The symmetry of truth and falsity

I only know the meaning of the true proposition that "the Moon is not made of cheese" if I also know the meaning of propositions that are false, such as "the Moon is made of butter", "the Moon is made of diamonds" and "the Moon is made of aluminium".

In this sense, one only knows how to speak about a proposition that is true providing that one also knows about propositions that are false

Perhaps this is what Kimhi means by "speaking of truth one can equally well speak of falsehood". Though in fact, it is more the case that one can only speak the truth by being able to speak about falsehoods.
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Quoting Leontiskos

There was truth in creation before the serpent spoke, and falsehood (and doubt!) only emerged by and through his speaking.

On the other hand, truth and falsity only exists as a relation between language and the world.

"Parmenides of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia" is true IFF Parmenides of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia.

Before the serpent spoke, as pre-language there cannot be truth or falsity, there was no truth or falsity in creation.

Quoting J

I’m looking for some source help. I know that the parallel between ?X exists/doesn’t exist’ and ?p is true/false’ is a familiar one, but I can’t find a focused discussion of it in the literature

I originally skimmed the works of Gyula Klima when I saw your thread, but I did not see anything related in a precise way. Yesterday I picked through some of the volumes of a journal he co-edits, "Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics." I found an article that is remarkably on-topic in volume 12. It is LukᚠNovák's piece, "Can We Speak About That Which Is Not? Actualism and Possibilism in Analytic Philosophy and Scholasticism." Unfortunately after volume 10 they stopped making the pdfs available online, but it looks like you may be able to get a copy of volume 12 here.

Instead of asking about predications of truth and being, which is a bit general, the article looks at the question of whether we can speak about that which is not. Novák looks at Frege, Russell, Meinong, Quine, Strawson, and then a number of scholastics, particularly Henry of Ghent, Francis of Meyronnes, and John Duns Scotus.

One of the interesting points that Novák makes is that there is a characteristic divide between the scholastics and the analytics with respect to natural language:

LukᚠNovák, Can We Speak About That Which Is Not?, 168-9:In scholasticism the matters are rather more complicated. Generally speaking, the scholastics lacked the Russellian revisionist attitude towards natural language, and therefore they rarely explicitly challenged the obvious capacity of the natural language to refer to non-existents. Their approach was, generally, to explain and analyse, not to correct language – and so the standard scholastic theory of supposition (the mediæval counterpart of reference) naturally allows (via devices like ampliation etc.) for reference to non-existents.[18]

Kimhi's reliance on Wittgenstein is curious insofar as Wittgenstein has one leg in both camps, although both legs seem to be underdeveloped.

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Volume 5 is also on topic, although less so. It deals with the question of direct and indirect realism as applied to Aristotelian Medievals such as Avicenna, Averroes, and Aquinas. Aquinas ends up with a doctrine where Kimhi's both-and holds, namely reality is present to the intellect in itself and yet representational/propositional moves are not thereby excluded. This volume is available from Klima's faculty page: "Universal representation, and the Ontology of Individuation."

Reply to Leontiskos Thank you, appreciate the references.

Reply to J

I’ve been working with some ideas in Irad Kimhi’s Thinking and Being. Much of what he talks about concerns the nature of the relationship between predication and truth-assertion. It occurred to me that “Existence is not a predicate” has some obvious parallels with “Truth is not a predication.” That is, neither existence nor truth add anything, conceptually, to what they appear to be predicating ?existence’ and ?truth’ of. I can say “A hundred thalers exist” but this adds nothing to the concept ?a hundred thalers’; I can say “It is true that there are a hundred thalers on the table” but this adds nothing to the proposition ?There are a hundred thalers on the table’.

This is the exact thing Artistotle circles around in Book IV Chapter II of the Metaphysics, only vis-á-vis being and unity (truth comes into it later but I don't recall exactly where).

The text is available with Aquinas' commentary. But truth in particular and the "The true is that which is" thesis is most straightforwardly addressed in the Disputed Questions: https://isidore.co/aquinas/QDdeVer1.htm


Anyhow, if you're interested in the parallel with unity (and thus goodness) it's below. Similar sort of observation.

549. Now the terms one and being signify one nature according to different concepts, and therefore they are like the terms principle and cause, and not like the terms tunic and garment, which are wholly synonymous. —Yet it makes no difference to his thesis if we consider them to be used in the same sense, as those things which are one both numerically and conceptually. In fact this will “rather support our undertaking,” i.e., it will serve his purpose better; for he intends to prove that unity and being belong to the same study, and that the species of the one correspond to those of the other. The proof of this would be clearer if unity and being were the same both numerically and conceptually rather than just numerically and not conceptually.

550. He proves that they are the same numerically by using two arguments. He gives the first where he says, “For one man,” and it runs as follows. Any two things which when added to some third thing cause no difference are wholly the same. But when one and being are added to man or to anything at all, they cause no difference. Therefore they are wholly the same. The truth of the minor premise is evident; for it is the same thing to say “man” and “one man.” And similarly it is the same thing to say “human being” and “the thing that is man;” and nothing different is expressed when in speaking we repeat the terms, saying, “This is a human being, a man, and one man.” He proves this as follows.

And then Deely has some very interesting stuff on the Doctrine of Signs lying prior to logic in John Poinsot that gets at the relationship between truth and existence, an understanding of signs acting as a scaffold for realism. And it seems to offer up simpler avenues for dealing with the truth of statements like "unicorns have one horn," or disconnects between intent/thought and utterance. But as much as I do appreciate his stuff I also think he has a tendency to bury the lead and get lost in minutia.



However, it seems to me that this still falls into the Aristotlean vein of truth being linked to the intelligibility of being. I'll have to try to remember where I found it but I remember reading a fairly compelling argument that this doesn't really square that well with correspondence theories of truth as often envisaged in analytic philosophy, but might be more profitably envisaged as a sort of identity theory. And this obviously has consequences for understanding formalism, the idea of the "proposition" as primary truth bearer, etc.

Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank have a neat book called "Aquinas on Truth," that gets at this same issue from a slightly different angle, claiming that Aquinas' heavily ontological conception of truth is neither in line with modern correspondence or coherence versions of truth, but rather contains elements of both. Knowledge of something (its truth) is analogically related to its being. The coherence element of course relates to the intelligibility of being and the intrinsic logic of thought.

Thanks much. I admit to being daunted by the Thomistic apparatus, but that's my problem. Certainly a revisit with Aristotle's Metaphysics is in order. I might run a few quotes by you (and other Aristotelians) that Kimhi uses to support his position, if that's OK with you. Curious to know if K's interpretation is mainstream or outlier/revisionist.

Quoting J

I know that the parallel between ?X exists/doesn’t exist’ and ?p is true/false’ is a familiar one, but I can’t find a focused discussion of it in the literature

Truthmaker theory identifies truth as a relation between what exists (a truthmaker) and a proposition. See: D. M. Armstrong's "Truth and Truthmakers".

Quoting J

Curious to know if K's interpretation [of Aristotle] is mainstream or outlier/revisionist.

The difficulty, which also strikes me as a red flag, is that Kimhi provides no bibliography. Therefore it probably goes without saying that he has no clear sources to corroborate his interpretations of Aristotle. I don't see much Aristotelian scholarship being appealed to.

And a weakness is that Kimhi completely ignores the Medieval period. One cannot oppose Frege without an alternative, and the most basic Aristotelian alternative to Frege is the Medieval development of Aristotle. Kimhi may be committing the faux pas of providing a critique without any alternative.

Reply to Relativist Thank you. I've been trying to get ahold of a reasonably priced copy of the Armstrong book. Now I'll try harder.

Reply to Leontiskos The lack of references and biblio is indeed annoying. You have to search through the footnotes. The ones for Greek scholarship (mostly re Aristotle) that I can find in the text are: Charles Kahn (mainstream, right?); Jennifer Hornsby; Jonathan Beere; Michel Crubellier; Lukasiewicz (also mainstream?); Anscombe (not sure how she's regarded now); C.W.A. Whitaker; Benjamin Morison; Walter Leszl; John McDowell; Edward Lee; and I may have missed some. So I think the scholarship is there (minus the Medievals, as you point out), it's just hard to get an overall picture of what Kimhi is relying on.

Re Beere, Kimhi does say, "Both my usage and my understanding of the Aristotelian terminology of capacity and activity are informed by Jonathan Beere's illuminating study, Doing and Being (OUP, 2009)." Do you know Beere's work? Is Kimhi wise to rely on it?

Reply to J The Kindle version is $21.

Reply to Relativist Thank you. I know it's ridiculous in 2024 but I'm a child of the previous century and I need paper pages and lead pencils in order to think properly! :smile:

Reply to J You make me feel like a kid! Well, I guess I am - I'm only 70.

Quoting J

The ones for Greek scholarship (mostly re Aristotle) that I can find in the text are: Charles Kahn (mainstream, right?); Jennifer Hornsby; Jonathan Beere; Michel Crubellier; Lukasiewicz (also mainstream?); Anscombe (not sure how she's regarded now); C.W.A. Whitaker; Benjamin Morison; Walter Leszl; John McDowell; Edward Lee; and I may have missed some. So I think the scholarship is there (minus the Medievals, as you point out), it's just hard to get an overall picture of what Kimhi is relying on.

Right, good points. And Kimhi interacts with some of these scholars a great deal, some hardly at all.

Quoting J

Re Beere, Kimhi does say, "Both my usage and my understanding of the Aristotelian terminology of capacity and activity are informed by Jonathan Beere's illuminating study, Doing and Being (OUP, 2009)." Do you know Beere's work? Is Kimhi wise to rely on it?

I have never heard of him, but I haven't kept up with Aristotelian scholarship, and what I read is in large part limited to what I am able to access. OUP is of course a good press.

Kimhi does a fair job of noting the ways that he is interacting with the scholars he cites. I think whether his view agrees with the received view depends on the topic at hand. One reason I mention the Medievals is because Aristotle's works are underdeveloped or underdetermined on many of these later issues, and they can therefore be taken and run with in different directions.

Reply to Relativist Well, as a Relativist, you are "relatively" young then!

Reply to Leontiskos Thanks. As I mentioned earlier, at some point I want to quote a few passages from Kimhi interpreting Aristotle and see if you, @Count Timothy von Icarus, and others who know this field agree with him.

Reply to J - At this point I am guessing that Kimhi is an Aristotelian Wittgenstenian. As I said elsewhere, his index has about 50% more references to Wittgenstein than Aristotle. This will doubtless shape his interpretation of Aristotle. I find that Aristotelians enjoy sometimes engaging Wittgenstein, and although they are often favorable towards him it is also not uncommon to find disagreement. Kimhi seems to interpret each in favor of the other.

Quoting J

Let me add that I think Hanna’s piece is ill-considered and shallow, full of careless reading, and a terrible place to start if you’re interested in Kimhi.

That was my feeling also. Although I haven't read Kimhi yet, and added his Thinking and Being high on my reading list alongside Rödl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity (2018), I've read Rödl's first two books — Self-Consciousness (2007), and Categories of the Temporal (2012 for the English translation) — and greatly enjoyed them. Kimhi's treatment of assertions that self-ascribe beliefs reminded me of Rödl's construal of them as acts of knowledge from spontaneity. When I Googled this I found an unpublished review essay by Owen Boynton that covers and compares both Kinhi's and Rödl's recent books. His review seems much better than Hanna's.

I might not contribute further to this thread before I've read some Kimhi. I just want to add that I found the title of the first chapter of his book hilarious: "The Life of p"

Reply to Pierre-Normand Fantastic, I'll read the Boynton immediately, thanks. It will be good to have an introduction to Rodl as well -- I don't know his work apart from the odd reference.

I liked "Life of p" too but fair warning, it's the only joke in the book.