From: PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Truth again
Date: 14 Dec 92 16:02:09 GMT
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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From: solan@smauguio.no (Svein Olav G. Nyberg)

|> Anyway. I think what Randall showed is not that a sentence in itself
|> is true, you're right. IF "a sentence in itself" is understood to
|> mean an UNINTERPRETED sentence. But what does seem correct is that
|> a sentence can be thought of as interpreted in a context in which
|> there is no one to interpret it. THAT is what Randall showed.

>No, Randall showed that a conviction\belief can be true even if
>non-checkable. (It does make asignment of truth value in those
>cases rather arbitrary, though.)

Huh?
I have no idea why you think he showed that.

>What is a sentence?

>If you mean by sentence an expressed and understood statement,
>even though not checked for truth-value or other content, you
>are right above, and I apologize.

No, I meant a linguistic thing, something that can express
a statement. And I'm saying that such a thing can express
a statement even though not checked for truth-value or other
content. Why would you think that a sentence cannot have
a content that is not checked??

>If you mean something else, like just the sound floating in the
>air, or the semblance of letters on a piece of paper, you4re
>wrong. Randall has shown nothing of the kind you then imply.

I thought I had made this clear.
By a sentence, first of all, I mean a TYPE of thing, not a token.
A sentence type can have tokens that are sounds floating in the
air or collections of marks on paper.

Second, I think sentences can be considered as interpreted
or uninterpreted. If uninterpreted, then of course they do
not have any content (that's what "uninterpreted" means).
But there is no problem that I can see with considering
sentences to be interpreted. No more than considering
marks on paper to be SENTENCES (rather than just ink).

|> And then it DOES follow that sentences can be thought of as true or
|> false independently of interpreters.
|> But not, obviously, independently of interpretations.

>Well, as indicated above, interpretation can be diverse.
>Should we not then go for _intended_ interpretation, at
>least in some fashion.

I don't know. Sometimes, I guess.
For example, I don't know whether it is a good idea always to
interpret Shakespeare as he _intended_ to be interpreted.
And, sometimes the intention might simply be, to be interpreted
according to the canons of English.

>But what becomes truth then, is not the sentence at all,
>but the interpreted _meaning_.

As I said, I have no problem with the idea that meanings of
sentences (propositions) can be true or false. But a huge
amount of work in semantics assumes that sentences themselves
can be true or false, too. For example, Tarski's theory
of truth is a theory of truth for SENTENCES. *Interpreted*
sentences.

>But then, as said above, it wouldn4t be the lamp that was true
>or false, would it. Not even the lamp _qua_interpreted_ either.
>The truth would be ...

Elliptical?

|> Jamie

>Hope you4re not the Jamie that Aerosmith sing[?] about.

I wouldn't know. Presumably, I am, relative to SOME interpretation....

Jamie
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech