Talk:Truth/Archive 11

message: Stevertigo didn't like the old title -- neither did I -- so now we have a new title.
I notice (he said hopefully) that nobody seriously objected to:
:Truth is a word used to describe assertions that are honest or accurate, or to express agreement, affirmation, or assent.
If nobody object (too strenuously) today, I'm going to put it into the article. Rick Norwood 12:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like that.  If nobody objects (too strenuously) let's go with JimWae's introduction. Rick Norwood 20:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, God. Yes, Jim is quite right. Go with his intro. Banno
I like Jim Wae's "version" only as a secondary paragraph. Again, its a disclaimer, only this time qualified as being "an important topic." Start with what it is. We were doing some good work on the Truth/draft page - certainly could be improved if we leave comments out. -Ste|vertigo 01:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving toward closure 

message: I'll give you the first paragraph if you will allow me to quote, in a later paragraph:
"The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the praise of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human natures." --Francis Bacon
*(Assuming you are addessing me) If you think the article is ready to handle poetic notions of truth already, it would be better to start with Keats - something that scholars have commented on and with which some even agree ;) --JimWae 00:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, that you classify Bacon, who was writing prose, as a poet.  He was serious, though perhaps more fond of metaphore than is the style with modern philosophers. Rick Norwood 18:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bacon 

message: Well, I've added the new sentences - but also organized the intro a bit to keep similar thoughts together & to more clearly introduce other parts of the main article. Maybe "The Truth" & Aesthetic truth can come someday, somehow, somewhere... --JimWae 04:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Update

message: In most of the cases I am familiar with, big changes in an article result in both repetition (earth flat mentioned twice) and non sequeturs.  Even if some of the changes are improvements, the require others to go back over the entire article and fix it.  This is why it is usually better to make a few changes at a time. Rick Norwood 20:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Big changes 

message: Why I deleted "Marx's criterium of truth": Marx did not propose that practice is a "check" on truth but, in fact, that "truth" can only be found in the historical, material world. He distinguishes this notion most particularly from legal truth which works from an idea of what is true to the more concrete realization of how the law expresses "Truth".
I am not sure how well Marx's truth would fare as truth in science. There is a correlation between Marxian truth and experimental research (arguably Marxian truth is based on a notion that truth arises through experimental research); however, experimental research is not the only source of scientific truth. Indeed, experimental research often seems to be used for the confirmation of theory (and this begins to sound suspiciously like the sort of things that Marx labelled "Idealism").
Nothing even resembling the notion of truth given in deleted section can be found on Wikitionary (I checked), nor can anything like what I've hinted at above.
Finally, the word you wanted was "Criterion" and not a bike race (its helpful to actually consult a dictionary before writing about their contents). Ig0774 21:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marx and Truth 

message: From the second paragraph:
:Is objective truth possible, or are we limited to subjective truth?
Not happy. The implication is that we certainly have subjective truths and it is objective truth that is problematic. But there are those who deny the very distinction between subjective and objective. I'm tempted to re-word it as
:Is truth subjective, objective, both or neither?
Can someone suggest a better sentence? Banno 07:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: thumb|100px|or maybe a spotlight to aid in the search for truth. --Ancheta Wis 20:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subjective/objective 

message: Can we at least steal the image  from the Icelandic page? There are so few images on philosophy pages, partially accounting for why so few get to feature article status... Banno 07:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: I know how these sorts of pages go: 99% of the people involved have taken about three courses in undergrad philosophy and/or have read a couple of articles in the SEP. For some idea of the complex terrain involved only in the deflationary theories, however, I recommend my the one I wrote deflationary theory of truth, which at least clarifies some of the billions of distinctions. Some deflationists do indeed hold that truth is a property, BTW (minimalists). Others holds that it is a useful predicate but not a property (disquotationalism). Redundnay theoriest hold that it is a redundant prediate and not a property. Prosententialists hold that truth is not redundant but neither is it a predicate!!--Lacatosias 12:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well Done! But never say never; bet you get sucked into this article as well... Banno 17:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quid est veritas? Good heavens. It's a monster!!--Lacatosias 18:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Veritas is not the same as truth, is it. The Romans had more sense. Perhaps we should better spend our time by attempting to rid the word Truth from the English language, rather than trying to produce an NPOV article on the subject. Banno 18:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, in Italian it's verità (direct derivation from the Latin) and it is taken as synonymous with truth, both in philosophy and in everyday language so far as I can tell. Howvere, the concept of "verisimilute" (verosomiglianza) makes much more sense in Italian. As far as declaring it a pseudo-problem and getting on with other matter, it seems that I find the  logical positivists positions much more appealing than I used to these days. --Lacatosias 15:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No way, I'm not touching this one 

message: Why is the person important enough to merit about 60% of the article on truth? I think it's obvious that it is this sort of nonsense which makes a laughingstock of Wikipedia among the vast majority of acedemics. I know: if you can shit on a philosophy article and get away with it, why not just go ahead and do it? I'm cool, once read a book by Ken Wilber, man!! He knows the truth, baby!! Having fun kids,cranks, mathematicians with no other way to spend heir free time and demented vandals? --Lacatosias 15:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 1) I did NOT add the ellipses. If you look back in the history, you will find that they were already there before my edit. I didn't reinstate them either: I simply left them alone, though I agree they are out of place. I didn't feel like going through and editing the whole article. 2) I was in a hurry and left in the Ken Wilbur section for the same reason. You will notice that I left a rather strongly disapproving comment on the matter above, however. I was about to cut it this morning, if no one had yet gotten around to it. 3) The OED definition, if I remember it correctly, was the one that said something like "truth is the discovery  of facts". Two problems: it's fundamentally POV.I'm a deflationist and I obviously do not subscribe to the idea that the truth-predicate necessarily has anything to do with facts in the world. Second problem: what is a fact?etc...--Lacatosias 08:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Apart from a comment that lacks serious inspection, you might like to consider that according to more than one credible review source, Wilber has been called "the foremost thinker in the field of the evolution of consciousness." According to another credible source he is "the most translated academic author in the United States." Academically, he is competent to comment on "truth". FT2 (Talk) 22:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: They form cogent, and coherent, summary of several known forms of "standards of truth". It has the space needed to explain how he analyses "truth" and how these relate. If it anticipates other types, then the question is, how does one include in the article, a model that collates different types which for much of history were seen as separate? Thats a layout issue though. I think the actual viewpoint and description of truth in his observations is notable. Perhaps move it to the end, though, as a sort of recap on the previous sections and tie them together?  FT2 (Talk) 22:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Edit: perhaps what this is saying is that the article discusses the wrong things first. Maybe it should look at types of truth, before theories about them? What do you reckon? FT2 (Talk) 22:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Much as I dislike his fluffy thinking, we may need to accommodate him, along with Buddha and Marx - but I suspect such a section would be a flame fest and trolls paradise. The present contribution will no do; it badly mixes truth, knowledge, validity and other epistemic concepts, and adds little to the discussion of the meaning of "truth". Banno 01:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, he's referenced by others in the field, I can look that up I imagine. His main contribution as I understand it, is to find a structure within which apparently different "truths" show a clear structural relationship to each other. Truth, or "what is true", is (in his view) more than just what is objectively representative, and this (in Wilber's view) is why there has been such trouble studying truth, precisely because it has different related dimensions, identified since antiquity but never really clear if and how they related to each other as measures of "truth". FT2 (Talk) 03:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The question here, I think, is not so much about Wilber's "importance" (that question is really just begging POV arguments). The question is really twofold: 1) does Wilber present a unique theory of truth or a unique notion of truth? and 2) is this theory widely accepted enough among scholars or others involved in the pursuit of truth to warrant the space used (in keeping with Wikipedia's policy not to overemphasize minority viewpoints)? Thus far, the answer to #1 seems to be basically "no". What is presented here is pretty much a table for classifying various dictionary definitions of truth in some categorical list (that is, it tells us nothing new about truth). What is perhaps relevant is the notion that truths can occupy different levels, and that depending on the "level" one adopts different things might be true — however, saying that does not require nearly the space now used. This sort of thing is endemic to Wilber's writing since he aims mainly to integrate, not innovate (or rather any innovation he might make is in the integration). As for #2, Wilber is certainly not regarded as a philosopher of truth, certainly not on the scale of Frege, Kripke or even Habermas — in comparison, "truth" is a very peripheral concept for Wilber's thought; what is more important is "epistemic tolerance" (freely adapted from John Koller on anekantavada — unsurprisingly, this and Nagarjuna's "two truth" theory could be seen as very early attempts at just this integration of various notions of truth). Moreover, citations of Wilber tend to drawn from his circle of "integrative theorist" friends whom he also cites, but not from the academic community at large. Aside from that one kernel that can possibly be drawn from Wilber's thought (which certainly belongs somewhere else in the article (perhaps even under "Types of Truth", or better yet, at the end), there is, I think, no reason to keep this section in the article. Ig0774 06:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ken Wilber... 

message: If the OED is an "abomination" and "simply wrong", you should be able to site a published source that confirms this.  If not, then your opinion is original research, and not cause to revert.  
You keep repeating the fact that I am a mathematician, not a philosopher.  Philosophy is not the only discipline that studies "truth", and, in any case, Wikipedia is notoriously egalitarian.
Since Lacatosias promises to come up with a better definition, I will wait until tomorrow before putting a dictionary definition back in the article.  However, in the future, please do not revert something that is sourced until you find a better source. 
I notice you also keep reverting my correction of the misuses of ellipsis.  Is it because you disagree about the way in which the ellipsis is used?  I'm going to fix just that, and see what happens.  One reference on the use of the ellipsis is "Eats, Shoots & Leaves."  I can provide others if necessary.  Rick Norwood 19:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't touched your sacred ellipses. What the --?? I have made about two edit to this page (all of them yesterday). I say "your sacred ellipses" since I certainly did not introduce them and it seems that you have done the vast majority of the editing on this article.--Lacatosias 08:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted above, the problem with dictionary defintions of truth is that they take a position on the question of what truth is. The deflationist view is that truth is simply a linguistic phenomenomen of one or another sort. To state at the outset that truth is correspondence with the facts is to bias the discussion in favor of inflationary theories, in particular correspondence theories. --Lacatosias 08:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Philosphy IS the only disciple that studies the nature of truth. Which branches of mathematics or sceince studies truth in and of itself? Can you specifically identify them for me? --Lacatosias 08:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is a brief list of published sources who all deny the affimration that truth is what distinguishes facts from other statements (or what have you)
# Field, H 1986: ‘The Deflationary Conception of Truth. MacDonald, G and Wright, C. (eds.) Fact, Science and Morality, Oxford, Blackwell.
# Field, H. 1994: ‘Deflationist Views of Meaning and Content’, Mind, Vol. 103, No.411.
# Grover, D 1992: A Prosentential Theory of Truth, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press
# Grover, D., Camp, J., and Belnap, N. 1975: ‘A Prosentential Theory of Truth’ Philosophical Studies, 27.
# Holton, R. 1996: ‘Minimalism and Truth-Value Gaps’. Forthcoming
# Horwich, P. 1990: Truth, Oxford, Blackwell.
# Horwich, P. 1994: (ed.) Theories of Truth. New York, Dartmouth.
# Horwich, P. 1995: ‘Meaning, Use, and Truth’, Min
An excellent reply. Hey, it lasted nearly two hours, that's not bad. My aim was as much to demonstrate the problem than to provide a solution, so thanks. Banno 09:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: To me it seems compellingly clear and simple (the answer to how to deal with this problem of defintintions, I mean) not the problem of truth itself, of course. First of all, everyone has to recognize that, as you pointed out in an earlier post, this article is about the nature of truth in itself. Not what sorts of stamements, beliefs and theories or even arguments are true, but it is abut the problematic nature of the property or non-property or predicate or prosentence "... is truth". What is this phenomenon? Why do we attach this locution to certain assertions and expressions?  
Is it really used to state a correspondence between sentences/proposition and facts or states of affairs in the external world? Or it is used, as in Ramsey's extreme deflationism, totally superflous? Or something else? The status of truth is problematic. Dictionaries must necessarily eliminate the problemaicity of the notion an provide what they take to be a standard common-sense defintion. Hence they will have to take a position with repect to the nature of truth. This purports to be an encylopedia entry. We do not have to eliminate the problemanticity of the notion. Indeed we should emphasize it. Al that should be stated at the beginning is (the obvious fact) that there is no commonly accpetd definition or theory of this conceptr and that this it is precisely the problem 
that philosophers attempt to confront by formuakting theories of truth. The common theoris are correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, redunancy, identity, etc.. The article will provide a summary of each of the major positions, but cannot purport to define or determine what truth is without violating NPOV. The idea of multiple dictionary defintions is even less satisfactory, since it would undermined the poit of the article: to provide the various positions which have been taken on the issue by experts who spend their lives studying the question of what truh is by substitung the lazy simlifications of lexigrophers who do not study the nature of truth but the nature of definctions. Why is the this so difficult to get across?--Lacatosias 10:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cite sources. 

message: JA: Because this seems to be a persistent symptom of WikiParalysis, I am copying a series of remarks that I made about it on the talk pages of several other articles:
JA: I'm noticing a generic phenom in WP.  The problem that we've encountered just recently here with the 2-cultural meanings of "empiricism" is not the worst case I've seen — for that you must visit the article on Truth — but it has the family resemblance.  There seems to be the expectation among ∃ people that WP is supposed to come up with the "1 true meaning of X, ∀ terms X", rather than just facing the fact, as mere lexicographers do, that many words have many meanings.  The end result that we find at the beginning of some articles is the lowest common denominator of everybody's pet meaning, which is in most cases a sheer triviality.  If Peanuts© cartoons ever come out of copyright, the problem will be solved, but in the meantime we end up with totally uninformative and not very appetizing word soups or salads.  Jon Awbrey 03:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate that fascinating lecture about lexicography. Now please take your apparent expertise in this field and go write a dictionary or help out with the entries on lexicography. For the last time, however, the word truth (just like the word existence) does not have a non-controversial definition.  It is very similar to the case of "existence". Here is an excerpt from the article on existence in the outstanding peer-reviewed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I have copied only the first three paras for illustration of how to go about dealing with a topic as similary vague and controversial as the one we are trying to deal with here and because anything more than three would constitute copyvio:
Like many philosophically interesting notions, existence is at once familiar and rather elusive. Although we have no more trouble with using the verb ‘exists’ than with the two-times table, there is more than a little difficulty in saying just what existence is. Existing seems to be at least as mundane as walking or being hungry. Yet, when we say ‘Tom is hungry’ or ‘Tom is walking’, it may be news to those not in Tom's vicinity, whereas ‘Tom exists’ would be news to no one who knew Tom, and merely puzzling to anyone who did not. Again, we know what it is like to be hungry or to walk, but what is it like to exist, what kind of experience is that? Is it perhaps the experience of being oneself, of being identical with oneself? Yet again, we can readily indicate what is meant by Tom's walking, but surely Tom's existing is not something we can indicate to anyone. On the face of it, there would seem to be no way at all in which we can explain what existing is.
It may be tempting to think that ‘Tom exists’ means merely ‘Tom is real’. In fact, this could be distinctly appealing, for ‘real’ is what has been called an ‘excluder’ predicate, meaning thereby that it attributes nothing positive to Tom, but operates in a purely negative fashion simply to exclude Tom from being imaginary, mythical, fictional, and the like. To say that ‘exists’ meant ‘is real’ would be to say inter alia that it attributed nothing positive to Tom; and that would do much to relieve our frustration at being so fluent in our use of ‘exists’ despite having no idea of its attributing anything positive to Tom. It would be a relief to discover that ‘exists’ attributes nothing positive to him at all.
Unfortunately, this won't do; for among all the negatives that ‘is real’ might be applying to Tom would be not only ‘not imaginary’, ‘not mythical’, etc., but also ‘not nonexistent’. Now, suppose a seer predicted that in two years that a son would be born to Bill and Mary, and that he would be called ‘Tom’. When the prediction was finally fulfilled, we might imagine the seer announcing triumphantly ‘At last Tom exists, exactly as I predicted he would’. If ‘exists’ were an excluder like ‘is real’, then the seer could only be understood as excluding something from Tom; and in this case it would be non-existence. As said by the seer, therefore, ‘At last Tom exists’ could only mean ‘At last Tom is not-nonexistent’. And if he really were to mean that, we should be entitled to ask him just when Tom could ever have been said to be nonexistent, i.e. never to have existed. In fact, before he existed Tom could never even have been referred to, and hence at that time nothing at all could have been attributed to him, not even the property of being nonexistent. Promising as it may have seemed, therefore, ‘Tom exists’ is not to be understood simply as ‘Tom is real’.
Of course, the failure of attempts to understand ‘exists’ as ‘is real’.... 
Nowhere is there a single attempt at a definition, much less a compilation of useless definitions from every source imaginable. I realize this is an extremely high standard to compare to the generalized and anarcho-democratic Wikipedia, but it is a good way to measure how far off the current philosophy articles are from what would be needed to attract serious-minded academics and professionals into taking this bizarre project with even a modicum of seriousness. Or do you perhaps believe that the SEP, and similar professional encyclopedias are not taken as seriously as the work we are doing here (interesting and occasionally insightful as it is on spectacularly singular occasions). What is wrong with this entry on existence, which contains NO definitions, in your opinion? --Lacatosias 14:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the proper use of dictionary definitions

message: JA: The dimension of classification according to the arity of the truth predicate stands on generic logical grounds, since we may ask about the arity of any predicate, and it is not really due to Peirce.  In fact, the Stoics and Aristotle both used primitive versions of triadic truth predicates.  I suggest that we treat the arity factor and the robust/flatulent dimension as independent at first, rather than making periodic tables just yet.  Jon Awbrey 14:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dimensions of classification

message: JA: I'm having some trouble following the putative logic of the following paragraph:
Some theories hold in common that truth is a robust concept.  These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences that seem to predicate truth or falsity, such as "Snow is white is true", can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself.  Truth is a substantive property, just as red is a substantive property predicated of a barn in the sentence "The barn is red".  The task for such theories is to explain the nature of this property.  Hence, according to these theories, truth needs explanation and is something about which significant things can be said:
JA: I take this to say that truth is a property of sentences like "Snow is white", and that a sentence like "'Snow is white' is true" predicates truth of the sentence "Snow is white".  So far so good.  Further along it points to the analogy with a sentence like "The barn is red" that predicates redness of what I assume to be a "specified in context" (SIC) barn.  Okay I think.
JA: Now consider the main clause of the first statement:
These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences … can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself.
JA: Now, the analogy says:
: Sentence : Truth :: Barn : Redness
JA: Truth is a substantive property of the sentence, and redness is substantive property of the barn.  Does the structure of the barn provide insight into the nature of redness itself?  Something seems to be out of kilter there.
JA: I will not quibble over the classical meaning of "substantive", but "truth being a substantive property of the sentence", like "redness being a substantive property of the barn", seems intended to say that truth is an important property of the sentence, in other words, that it tells us something about the nature of the sentence itself.
JA: Therefore, it seems like the proper statement is:
These theories all hold that the truth of the sentence provides meaningful insights into the nature of the sentence itself".
JA: Is that what you meant?  Jon Awbrey 16:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Important observation. Thank you. It was indeed compeletly meangingless in fact and also failed to capture the essential distiction between the two sides because it retinaed the problematic notion  of properties. --Lacatosias 18:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Problematic paragraph

message: The problem is not just that any simpklicitiv dictionary defition will inevitably take sides in favor of correspondence versus e.g. deflationat theoried of truth. The fact is it will take sides that truth exists and can be defined. At the turn of the centurty, Russell and Moore both adopted the non-delatonry view that truth is a primitive, indefinable, predicate. Beyond this, since we must necessarily bring in continental and non-analtic view in order to be balanced, it should be remebered that one of the most famous philosphers of modern times Richard Rorty has essentially adopted Nieitche's idea that "there are no truths, only interpreations". Rorty calls them desciptions and redescriptions of the socially contructed world (or something along these lines). I don't think many Rortians or Nietzheanas would be content with saying, at the beginnign of an article on truth, "truth is...." Period. But this is complete nonsense. Why do I even bother? After all, "deflatiomay theories are just another form of robust theories (whatever that is)". Incidnenty, the term "robust" was used by Sir Michael Dummett (damned idiot!!) to refer to his own and similar positions in a paper discussion the deflationary theory of Gottlob Frege (one of his great philosphical inspirations). He took the problem quite seriously, as a deep challenge to his own belif in correspondence.
# Dummett, M 1959: ‘Truth’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s. 59. Reprinted in Dummett, M 1978 Truth and Other Enigmas, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
--Lacatosias 09:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nietzchian, Rortyian, etc.. view of truth

message: JA: Coming down with a cold after all that bouncing around the country, so may be a few days before back in the saddle, but be on guard against jumping to the conclusion that Peirce's use of words like "concordance" or "correspondence" can be modeled by 2-adic relations, as he will also speak of 3-adic sign relations as "triple correspondences".  And see the Pragmatic theory of truth article, still a work in progress, for a caution on the distinction between real (good) and nominal (not so good) definitions.  Jon Awbrey 21:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood.  I would like to see further improvements of that article too, (Pragmatic theory of truth ), so the customer can be referred over as needed.  That's about all we had room to say anyway, insufficient as it always seems to be.  Hope you feel better quickly...Kenosis 21:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1, 2, 3 

message: I must protest at the imposition of Charles Peirce's schema in such a dominant position in the analysis of Theories of truth for this article.  Peirce has a definite place in the article, which is under Pragmatic theory.  This monadic, dyadic, triadic schema might well be determined by a consensus to be a useful schema, along with appropriate references to who developed the schema (which is Peirce, and about possible consensus I have no idea because I can't yet relate this to the article-- what on earth would a "monadic" truth relation be).   But I believe it is a definite stretch of OR and possibly POV guidelines to impose his schema on the entire article in this fashion, which now attempts to overarch the work of all the other major philosophers.  Again, I believe this should be discussed, explained to the editors, and if determined to be a useful schema for the article, should at minimum be consensused as such.  The section currently reads as follows...Kenosis 22:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are a bit late to the party. I criticized the introduction of this section almost immediately after it was introduced. Why didn't you speak up then? Things might go along more smoothly if editors actually bothered to read other editors comments.--Lacatosias 08:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Speaking only for myself, this should, if anywhere, be integrated into Formal definitions, followed by appropriate symbolic examples.  The overwhelming majority of readers will get lost in that section anyway, and the symbolic logic afficionados will hopefully find that it explains everything once they parse it.  Jon, you will find few more avid fans of Peirce's triad than I am, especially when applied to such events such as accidental and intentional misapplication of (should we call it a "sign" , a "symbol", "refere" "signal" here?) to the object or referent intended to be conveyed to a listener, who must also, even in the most diligent application of good faith, discern what is intended to be conveyed or misrepresented.  And it would be extremely nice to somehow be able convey to the reader the various implications of these (at minimum) dual-triadic relations as they relate to the concept of truth.  But I do not believe it belongs in such a dominant place in the article, because the very fact of putting forth these relations means we now have, at a minimum, two overarching schemas to deal with, one a logical format which is a derivative of the more basic I/symbol/intended-referent and  thou/received-symbol/perceived-referent for even the most basic truth relations...Kenosis 00:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Another thing, how are we supposed to explain to the reader how to make the jump from the idealized dyadic "truth relation" of the correspondence theory to the others without getting into the distinctions involved in multiple triadic relations, especially for the constructivist and consensus theories and such?.  (They are not reducible to a single triad to complete their analyses.  Nor is the pragmatic, which depends on multiple persons to complete Peirce's schema, nor even the coherence, which depends on multiple triads to establish coherence, but which can theoretically be done by a solipsist protagonist... This is already a conceptual mess to explain to readers after you get past correspondence theory.  For the "substantive theories" section a simple reference to dyadic ought be adequate when explaining the "truth relation" sought by the proponents of "correspondence theory" I should think.)...Kenosis 03:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Logical schema for section on theories of truth

message: Hmmmm.. that's an interesting phenomenon. The current section entitled "Theory of truth" seems to have almost no relation to theories of truth of any kind that I have ever encountered in any philosophy texts or articles. However, it did remind me of an altogether different sort of book that I have on my shelf: a textbook on semiotics!! --Lacatosias 17:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmm... 

message: "An article should begin with a good definition or a clear description of the topic."
"Avoid peacock terms that show off the subject of the article without containing any real imformation."
"State facts which may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader."
"Using the principle of least astonishment, you should plan your pages and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense."
I would like to ask those currently editing this article if they think the article as it stands follows these guidelines?  Rick Norwood 19:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: From the Wikipedia guide to writing better articles and the List of Policies

message: JA: I'm having some trouble following the putative logic of the following paragraph:
Some theories hold in common that truth is a robust concept.  These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences that seem to predicate truth or falsity, such as "Snow is white is true", can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself.  Truth is a substantive property, just as red is a substantive property predicated of a barn in the sentence "The barn is red".  The task for such theories is to explain the nature of this property.  Hence, according to these theories, truth needs explanation and is something about which significant things can be said:
JA: I take this to say that truth is a property of sentences like "Snow is white", and that a sentence like "'Snow is white' is true" predicates truth of the sentence "Snow is white".  So far so good.  Further along it points to the analogy with a sentence like "The barn is red" that predicates redness of what I assume to be a "specified in context" (SIC) barn.  Okay I think.
JA: Now consider the main clause of the first statement:
These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences … can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself.
JA: Now, the analogy says:
: Sentence : Truth :: Barn : Redness
JA: Truth is a substantive property of the sentence, and redness is substantive property of the barn.  Does the structure of the barn provide insight into the nature of redness itself?  Something seems to be out of kilter there.
JA: I will not quibble over the classical meaning of "substantive", but "truth being a substantive property of the sentence", like "redness being a substantive property of the barn", seems intended to say that truth is an important property of the sentence, in other words, that it tells us something about the nature of the sentence itself.
JA: Therefore, it seems like the proper statement is:
These theories all hold that the truth of the sentence provides meaningful insights into the nature of the sentence itself".
JA: Is that what you meant?  Jon Awbrey 16:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Important observation. Thank you. It was indeed compeletly meangingless in fact and also failed to capture the essential distiction between the two sides because it retinaed the problematic notion  of properties. --Lacatosias 18:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Problematic paragraph

message: Removed to talk:
In one classical formulation, truth is defined as the good of logic, where logic is a normative science, that is, an  inquiry into a good or a value that seeks knowledge of it and the means to achieve it.  In this view, truth cannot be discussed to much effect outside the context of inquiry, knowledge, and logic, all very broadly considered.
Perhaps a re-wording of this might make some sense, but as it stands it is quite unclear; also unsourced; I think it would only add to the common confusion of truth and validity. Banno 19:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Brief passage removed to talk

message: God damn it, what happened to the section on the correspondence theory? Turn my back for a day, and the text goes to hell. Look at:
This type of theory, in essence, attempts to posit a relationship (a "truth relation") between "thoughts" or "statements" on the one hand, and "things" or "objects" on the other, as it might theoretically exist independently of the persons involved in the exchange and independently of other issues.
You mean something like: Correspondence theories claim that true sentences correspond to the actual state of affairs. 
Come on, folks - let's at least have an article that is readable! Banno 20:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Two days ago there was no section on correspondence theory.  This is all do-able Banno...Kenosis 20:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not true. There was a very concise, accurate and 
meaningful on-paragraphy summary section on most of the major theories before you added the stub template and then they began to expand into enormous, bloated post-modernish word-salads. What was that all about? Each one of us I'm sure, if we wanted to, could expand particiualr sections (actally subsections) into tractatuses. For example, there is a section called "Other deflationary theories" which describes the prosentential theory and some others on the space of about two sentences. Obviously, people have written (several) books about prosententialism, social constructivism and so on. But all I derive from this article is that the pragmatic theory (actually theories) and the correspondence theory are the only viable theories of truth and we will thereofre focus 99% of the article on them. NPOV, I guess.--Lacatosias 08:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There are more informative, and also slightly more concise, ways of comparing/contrasting traditional correspondence and coherence theories than what is currently in the text, without losing the most important subtleties.  I will either report back to you with some sourcing on these, or if seemingly unlikely to be controversial, I will simply go ahead and repair or replace existing material with citation as needed...Kenosis 20:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Correspondence

message: : To say that an arrow is true
:: Is just to say that an arrow,
: To say that a love is true
:: Is just to say that a love.
: Sigh ...
JA: Jon Awbrey 17:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And you're just beginning the deflationary process here... ;-) ... In response to your perception, I was prompted to add the following to the Redundancy subsection: "Proponents of pragmatic, constructivist and consensus theories would differ with this conclusion, and instead assert that the second person making the statement "that's true" is actually paricipating in further verifyiing, constructing and/or achieving consensus on the proposed truth of the matter — in this instance, the statement that "it's raining."   Feel free to hack it up if necessary...Kenosis 18:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Geez, I put it in here; it comes out there... How they do that?...Kenosis 19:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Not OR, POV unless you add sourced objections (of which ther are NONE I suppose in all of philosophy to all of the other theories??). --Lacatosias 10:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cupid Deflated 

message: JA: I'm not the one who stuffed this article full of all this high-falution' stuff.  We can always go back to KW if you prefer.  Given the content that those-who-came-before-us thought was appropriate to include in a WP article on Truth, we have these options:  (1) Delete all the hard stuff, (2) Leave it in and explain it correctly, (3) Drop a lot of names and buzz words that will let the previously uninformed reader go away with the false impression, the PseudoKnowledge, of thinking that they have learned what it's all about.  Choose wisely, Glosshopper.  Jon Awbrey 13:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: None of this is written in stone; it's all written in sand.  Just ask the Buddha's representative referenced later in the article...Kenosis 22:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Knowledgeable philosophers seem to agree that he was responding mainly to James, that man of all seasons; how dare he, when we're supposed to be able to put him in a narrow conceptual box like everyone else.  Russell was sometimes an idiot, brilliant as he was.  I paraphrase here: Pragmatism is not a theory of truth but rather a form of epistemology--oh, well , excuuuse me!  As we know, he did lump all three into many of his criticisms (perhaps some of them valid) a good number of which, upon closer analysis, actually applied to none of the three most visible pragmatists individually.  Well, James made his mark, and moved onto other things quickly enough.  Dewey wrote Russell an angry letter or three, and proceeded to mark his indellible stamp on academia.  And Peirce, as you know, was regarded by Russell as the most intelligent man alive, and the most intelligent American ever.  Peirce, other than dying destitute, turns out to have done just fine and still continues to make his mark.  In the end, his semiotics work will be known as well over a century ahead of his time.  (Rather be "just slightly ahead of our time", like Panasonic used to say.)  Personally, my favorite (again paraphrasing here) is Russell's retort to James's statement about the hypothesis of God being true if it works in the broadest sense of the word.  Russell (that wonderfully slyest of dogs) said that it is far easier to settle the question whether popes are always infallible, than to answer the question whether thinking them infallible is on the whole good...Kenosis 00:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: There are many infinteely many objections to ALL theories of truth. Just go do a tiny bit of research on the matter, please. Anything you have to say almost certaonly would not be OR, as Jon Awbrey pointed out above. You really shouldnìt flatter yourself into thinking that a non-existent entity such as yourself (or myslef or anyone who contributes to this ridiculous 'pedia) is capable of refuting a theory that has been adopted and defeneded by some of the greates philosophcial logician of the last century (Frege, Ramsey, Ayer, Carnap, Strawson, Hartty Field, Paul Howhich and so on). Please don't imagine also that there are no onjections to correspondence theory (to start with what is a fact or state of affairs? is that the same as Kant's unintelligible moumenon?)) (see Frege 1897) who blew it out of the water for enternity as far as I'm concerned (stupid fellow,  that Frege!!, eh, I think Rick Nowrwood is FAR SUPERIOR) and the coherence theory of self-supporting assetiond which reinforce each other in a circualr spiral of never-endign interneal consistency grounded in.....what exactly??
I can document all the objections to correspondence, coherence, pragmatic and defaltionary theories if you like. But I think a more reasobale proposal is to take the POV staments that are lerady there out of the article. Which I will proceed to do.--Lacatosias 10:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: RN: I have published in refereed journals.  Just because I am not Fregé does not mean I have nothing to contribute.  My request was a serious one, but off topic, for which I apologize. Rick Norwood 17:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be useful.  I suggest dealing with it one point at a time, taking into consideration that there is a necessary heirarchical order to the article and a need to make it accessible to READERS !.  We and a number of other editors did it with some other very difficult articles; with a lot more work, I think it possible it can be done here too. ..Kenosis 14:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: & Triple Sigh ...

message: JA: If there's a perceived lack of criticism of all available positions, then the proper way to handle that is to add more critique to the underserved positions, not to delete the critical reflections that we have.  Jon Awbrey 11:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Positions, Objections, Replies, ...

message: JA: The word "robust" does not makes a lot of sense, either in the vernacular sense, or in its other technical senses.  If someone can cite an example of early primary literature sources using this term to describe their own position, rather than  applying it to other people, then that might legitimate it.  Till then, "standard", "substantive", or "traditional" seem more apt.  Jon Awbrey 14:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I could not agree more vigorously Jon.  We can cite to it, but it's meaningless for this article.  Please let's all settle this issue and use "substantive" and whatever other qualifiers we can find and cite to.  These all used to be called simply "theories of truth" until a barrage of new academic commentators began to make new classifications-- and they are by no means settled either.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is robust, wines can be robust, but theories--we're just following a modern trendy term that essentially means "hey, my theory's stable, bulky, not a 95 pound weakling, throw anything you want at it and it keeps on ticking".  In this sense of the word "robust" the performative and redundancy theories are quite robust too.  So therefore I'll immediately support any outright deletion which leaves only "substantive" and/or replaces it with a more suitable characterization, ideally citable to a reputable modern commentator.  I'll immediately drop any advocacy of the use of "robust" based on the Oxford readings synopsis of the issue.  Incidentally the Oxford readings book I earlier cited to also uses the word "substantive" as a classification for the five theories presented under this basic classification, as do other resources.  Possibly Lacatosias has something to add here amidst his wealth of resources?...Kenosis 14:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Robust

message: One of the things I believe should be clarified for the reader at the outset, and early in the article, is where lies the demarcation line of discussions about theories of "truth" as distinguished (possibly) from theories of "knowledge".  Are they, at the end of the day, one and the same?  Is this article an article about everything we humans know?, or believe we know?, how we know it or think we know it?, and when do we know it?, and hence to some extent an article about a theory of everything?  If the latter, maybe we're compelled to introduce our friend Immanuel Kant to the readership too? and all of the derivative problems leading up to the late 19th and early 20th Century discussions?  The demarcation, if there is one, between "truth" and "knowledge" is not a new problem (Russell and the Pragmatists got severely crossed on the issue, for instance).  It is an issue that I think should be settled to the satisfaction of the preponderance of editors, documented, and set forth in the article itself so the reader is aware of the sometimes very subtle distinctions between discussions about "concordance of belief and fact" and discussions about "concordance of statement and fact" along with the myriad other uses of "truth"....Kenosis 14:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely right Jon.  And this truth article gets stuck smack dab in the middle of the question, because the trend has been to erase these traditional distinctions when discussing truth, to wit, Haack's work, constructivism that warrants sociology's involvement, similarly with consensus theory.  Russell, I now realize, was arguing to keep "truth" inquiries within bounds (of his preference of course) that ultimately were breached nonetheless...Kenosis 15:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Important distinction between epistemology and truth? or not?

message: JA: Sorry if that was unclear, but I was requesting page numbers for the remarks.  Dates are not needed if there's only one work by a given author.  Just referring to a whole work and letting the reader go fish, is considered improper citation, not to mention a nuisance.  Also, I modified the statements there, because the previous ones were illogical, so I prefixed a "cf" as if to say that the, er, concordance of the new version with what the source is saying needs to be checked.  Usually best to go with a direct quote in these kinds of cases.  Jon Awbrey 15:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pages, not dates

message: JA: Probably advisable in this context not to use "consistency" in anything other than its strict logical sense.  Jon Awbrey 16:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  I think this is a bit of a tough one, because my research indicates that coherence finds its most comfortable home in the a priori world(s).  Let me go see how the pros have grappled with this.  But I think that explanation was confusing and substantially incorrect before (due to multiple editors' incompletely superimposed edits I imagine).  So I put something in there for now that was consistent with the Encyc. Phil. article on the subject.  The author of that article does not grapple with the great solipsist systems at all, so there's still some more research to be done there...Kenosis 16:45, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: this is true Jon.  But I needed to start somewhere there; and to go farther would immediately have led to excessive length because of the analysis of where coherentists stray when arguing the merits of how the theory can be applied to real life-- in the end, they end up relying on another theory to apply it to the real world in any way, etc., etc..  But, the previous reduction to "if a biffle is a boffle..." was just too much of a dismissal of the merits of this theory.  If that were it, it would never have become among the classic traditionals.  And you could tell someone didn't understand this by what the following sentences said, which were non-explanatory and left all the issues hanging in mid-air...Kenosis 18:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Coherence &ne; Consistency

message: There was too much technical material for the intro, which increasingly short circuited JimWae's fine contribution in the form of what are the questions about truth that scholars ask; tentatively put into an introductory section to substantive and minimalist theories, all pending other editors' views on it...Kenosis 17:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved rapidly expanding material pending weigh-in of Banno, JimWae, Rick Norwood and others

message: Short and to the point! Rick Norwood 17:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think we have now reached an ideal introduction, and should move on to the rest of the article. 

message: I think it would help us to move toward a consensus if you would pick out one statement in the article you think is POV.  I realize that you may think that there are many such statements, but we can't discuss them all at the same time, so let's start with one. Rick Norwood 17:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question for Lacatosias  

message: The POV tag is not supposed to be removed until the person who placed it there is satisified that the bias in the article has been properly remedied. For example,  The POV tag has reamined untouched on the fascism page for about the last two years or so. The problem is clear: someone has decided to introduce criticism (original or unoriginal is not the matter) to only one theory in the article wwith which they disagree. The same has not been done for the theories whcih are overwehlgingly preferred by other editors: pragmatic theory (no one dare touch the godly Pierce on this 'pedia), correspondence or what have you. This is rather blatant bias. 
Incidentally to Rick Ficklewood (or whatvere his name is?), you can try publishing you refutation of deflationary theories in the "Jounral of Philosohical Logic", "the Journal of Symnbolic Logic" , etc. etc...
What are you waiting for? The world is just waiting for youre revolutionary work to appear and proclaim the most extraordinary prodigy since Saul Kripke ( a deflationist, BTW). --Lacatosias 18:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My question was about backlogs.  Also, I don't think the two journals you suggest are appropriate; certainly the second of the two is not.  What I would be looking for, assuming I decide my idea is good enough for the months of research required, is a journal that has published papers both agreeing with and disagreeing with deflationary theories of truth. Rick Norwood 20:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What the hell? How am I supposed to get anything published without a pH.D, for example? Why do you even waste your time on this nonsense...agrguing abuut the the first three sentences in a philosophy article which serious scholars will never read anyway? And, even if they DO, you wonìt get any credit for it? What's the point? Why should I contribute to this madness in the first place? I suppose you have not noticed that there are an overehwlming number of cranks, pseudoscientists, vandals, teenagers and so on who mess up 99&% of the articles on here either, eh? Go try to save the conscsiouness article, for example!! What the hell is the point? --Lacatosias 10:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Criticisms and/or authors of criticisms have already been included, at least in part, in the current sections the correspondence theory, coherence theory, pragmatic theory, and consensus theory.  Correspondence theory criticisms and limitations takes a whole paragraph, fully half of the section.  In the pragmatic theory section, the note about Russell's criticism (sans analysis of his criticisms for purpose of simplicity and extreme brevity there), was deleted in context of an extended argument about length of that section.  We haven't yet gotten started on the contra end of the constructivist theory, and the editors may still have some things to add there as well, because there are plenty, depending on which constructivist version you pick.  The sum of all this is neither POV nor unfair on the article editors' part, at least thus far.  There is a place for brief reasoned summaries of these contra issues in every section, including the one about which you are objecting, though it should in each case be done in the necessary context of what has already been introduced in the article, lest we get too far ahead of the reader.  That is what was done, however imperfectly for now, in the section on Redundancy and other minimalist theories...Kenosis 13:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tag. 

message: I have removed the following sentence from Correspondence theory for further discussion and citation(s)...Kenosis 18:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "A correspondence theory of truth represents a rejection of any sort of relativism about truth that extends further than the "truth relation" of interest."18:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence removed from Correspondence theory for further discussion and citation(s)

message: In partial response to Lakatosias' complaints, upon further review of the present material, I believe this following blockquote is too much for the Truth article, when a link is provided, inter alia, to Pragmatic theory of truth, to semiosis and to Charles Peirce:
Now thought is of the nature of a sign.  In that case, then, if we can find out the right method of thinking and can follow it out — the right method of transforming signs — then truth can be nothing more nor less than the last result to which the following out of this method would ultimately carry us.  In that case, that to which the representation should conform, is itself something in the nature of a representation, or sign — something noumenal, intelligible, conceivable, and utterly unlike a thing-in-itself.  (Peirce, CP 5.553, 1906)
Peirce is merely differentiating between signifier (truth-bearer) and signified (whatever object is involved)  One sentence should be quite sufficient in place of this.  Truncate this, and I can easily chop a sentence or two from the James summary as a gesture of comeraderie without sacrificing the basic thrust there.....Kenosis 18:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a red link there.  Jon, encyclopedia writers are forced to do this all the time.  But I will not fight you too much on this, as I know better by now.  And there's still plenty else to be done here.  This is a tough subject, and when all the participating editors adequately understand this tough subject which has bloated into another name for epistemology, then it will all fall together, and in the end should hang together too.  So, NP buddy.  But I still think you don't need the whole blockquote there to make the point...Kenosis 19:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But I do understand Peirce's point quite well as goes basic semiotics.  So he is arguing to those of his day (and our day too) that the sign has an interactive influence on us and can even dominate us and get in the way of our perception of a proposed truth relation, and that it is inherently triadic from the getgo--sorry, try all you like; can't reduce it any further-- which is something almost no one understood in his day.  Even today people regularly confuse sign and signified all the time, and end up seeking to impose their signs on the signified for who-only-knows-what-associations-or-motivations-they-may-have, along with numerous other gaffes that come out of being excessively attached to one's semantics.  But the Peirce quote doesn't explain squat to such people...Kenosis 20:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The pragmatism section should definitely be cut down in size. There is certainly no (legitimate) reason for it to be twice as long as the other sections. — goethean ॐ 19:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Now that you have removed the sentence about Russell, the pragmatism section contains 544 words. The coherence section contains 229 words. The correspondence section is 255 words. This gives pragmatism undue weight. — goethean ॐ 19:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: That wasn't counting the footnotes. Don't trim the footnotes. A good idea would be to put your large Peirce quotation in a footnote, and replace it with a sentence in the text. — goethean ॐ 20:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've got an idea. Let's subdivide the Pragmatism section into "Peirce" and "James" subsections. That would make even more clear how unbalanced the article is. The large Peirce quotation should go. — goethean ॐ 20:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree this is not an exact balancing test.  And I think the other sections will rightly expand a bit in due course, especially the stubs after pragmatic theory, which both require far better explanations than are currently contained.  The main problem I have with the Peirce quote is that it really doesn't explain anything that can't also be said in a sentence or two integrated into the existing paragraph-- and the right way of saying it could be far more explanatory for most readers.  ("something noumenal...utterly unlike a thing-in-itself" means nothing to most readers here, unless they happen to be Immanuel Kant afficionados)...Kenosis 20:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moreover, I'm reminded now that Peirce is here rearranging and re-inventing Kant's schema, which is all fine, except far too obscure and obtuse for an article such as this...Kenosis 22:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion for removal and briefer replacement of Peirce quote

message: JA: As I tried to do once before, I think that it would be handy to introduce earllier than presently a generic name for the subject matter to which the term "true" applies, some word like "truth-bearer", "potentially meaningful or significant element", whatever.  But it would help to avoid the many awkward circumlocutions that I find myself forced to do each time I try to make a paragraph make any kind of sense.  So vote for your favorite candidate.  Jon Awbrey 19:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subject matter of the truth predicate 

message: I just noticed that the introduction, in the process of simplification, lost essential footnotes, especially the reference to Russell.  Those need to be restored, to avoid the accusation that the ideas are undocumented. Rick Norwood 20:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  loss of footnotes 

message: The overarching structure of the article, as it stands, assumes that this is an article about the philosophy of truth.  The other sections, Truth in mathematics, Truth in law, Truth in religion, are now just asides from the (supposedly) mainstream Truth in philosophy.
I think a better organization would be a section on Truth in philosopy, which can come first, since most of the people working on the article currently seem to be philosophers, followed by much shorter sections on Truth in mathematics (an undefined constant), Truth in science (deniability), Truth in law (good faith), Truth in religion (God's truth, double truth, Pilate), and Truth in art (Keats).
I'm not proposing another major rewrite.  Just a new heading, right under the ToC, Truth in philosophy, followed by subheadings, followed by other major headings as suggested above, with those paragraphs pulled out of the philosophy section.  This organization would also allow the first part of the Truth in philosophy section to contain definitions of important terms, such as "truth-bearer", "Robust (or whatever)", "deflationary", etc.  Then the rest of the philosophy section could use those terms with conficence.
Comments?  Suggestions? Rick Norwood 20:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rick, this is not an article about truth in philosophy, but rather about philosophy of truth.  Maybe you have the solution here, which might ultimately to split off an article on Philosophy of Truth, with a separate article about Truth, and let all the various common slants finally have their day.  I really don't know for sure, but I don't think the effort should be abandoned quite yet...Kenosis 21:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving right along 

message: What's going on with the footnotes now?????  This is an encyclopedia with links that can be put into [1] this space, not an academic paper!!  The links go right to footnotes, no need to scroll to the end of a chaper or book; that's what notes are for in an encyclopedia.  Gee whiz here....Kenosis 21:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jon, then  tell me where to lodge a most vociferous complaint in Wikipedia.  I could not agree more that this footnote format is a pain in the A&%$# to edit.  But it works, however clumsily.  Turning our style into that of an academic paper is not going to change this, but rather, detracts severely from the readability of these already difficult articles, and forces the reader not only to have to parse past the additional distractions, but also forces the reader interested in the notes to familiarize themselves with the references and scroll to the bottom of the page!! rather than to just link to fn and quickly backpage if they're interested!!  This is not right, this academic style--it's for our temporary convenience only....Kenosis 21:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation format

message: Removed and place here for futher discussion: 
::So plausibly sentences of different languages, such as the (English) The sky is blue and the (German) Der Himmel ist blau express the same proposition.  
This kind of comparison has the potential to make a good point with minor adjustment, particularly if integrated with an example or two of how an inexact translation or impossible translation confounds idealized conceptions of truth bearers. Perhaps an example such as "geist"?  Is it mind, or spirit? maybe it's "intelligent design"?.  I suspect someone has a yet better example for possible use to illustrate the point effectively....Kenosis 23:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence removed from Bearers of truth section

message: Do we have a dictionary to quote from that says:
"some form of accord between belief and fact"
or "an accord between statement and fact"?
Aside from the renewed emphasis on "fact", few I've seen focus on beliefs or statements - they are very vague about "what" is supposed to be in accord with "facts" IT does not seem to be a "common" definition --JimWae 21:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, which is avoidance of a vague, sensitive, very difficult set of issues that lead right to the questions you entered into the introduction...Kenosis 21:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice edit Jim.  If the intro is now considered stable by the proponderance of editors, in light of the many difficult questions that immediately attach to the word "truth", I humbly suggest that the preponderance of editors who have diligently consensused this intro should back it up with a rotating watch schedule, and revert arbitrary additions with an iron fist, so to speak, absent any compelling, well-considered arguments to change it.  It states the facts as they are, and then moves onto the article proper.  Thank you, Sir ....Kenosis 21:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: It was, but is no more.  I'm perfectly content with JImWae's Razor here....Kenosis 22:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The request for verification runs through the whole article, not the intro.  There should not be any further need to cite from the intro, or at least that's what I thought...Kenosis 23:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Rick, I just noticed your addition, and I'm not going so far as to revert it.  I guess other editors will weigh in in due course.  I have no real preference as long as it makes sense and quickly gets to the business of stating the problem, which is that there is no clear and widespread agreement among scholars on what truth is, except everyone seems to think they know what it is, and it's not always the same thing. ..Kenosis 23:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  beliefs & statements 

message: Two suggestions are hanging fire.  There's my suggestion about breaking the article up into subtopics: philosophy, mathematics, law, science, religion, etc.  Nobody really seemed to object, but nobody was terribly enthusiastic either.  I'd like to attempt it, but I don't want to start another revert war.
The second, and more important suggestion was about moving the definitions about truth in philosophy higher up.  Right now, the article plunges into undefined technical language pretty quickly. 
Comments? Rick Norwood 19:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like your idea, but it will be a lot of work to totally rewrite the article. "truth in art" comes to mind... Your second point lost me. It seems like you meant to say "lower down" rather than "higher up". — goethean ॐ 20:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  working toward a stable article 

message: Sorry that this comment is not contributing to the article, but I find it very ironic that this page should be tagged as "not verified".  And, in another way, it's almost a good demonstration of the principle. --Bdoserror 19:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not verified? Well, it just shows that all the editors unconsciously subcribe to the verificationist theory of truth or anti-realism: there are no verification-transcendent truth conditions.--Lacatosias 14:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irony 

message: I have removed the not-verified tag from the article proper. The basis for this is that the article is getting much closer to verified in general.  Without offering specific evidence on this, I vaguely imagine it should now be tagged by section as needed. The tag itself is defined within the editing code as "not verified" set within template markers, and can apply to either article or section depending on placement. ...Kenosis 02:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "not verified" tag removed from intro

message: I've removed this tag for lack of further justification by the editor who placed it.  The rest of the relevant discussion is here:  ....Kenosis 02:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV tag removed from section on Redundancy theories

message: :::::They didn't want 'em good —
:::::They wanted 'em Tuesday!
:::::— Ronald Reagan, Apologia pro cinema sua
JA: This is an important article, and it deserves a higher standard of scholarship than it currently exhibits.  Aside from the POV issues, which I will discuss separately, it has the following problems:
# Improper citations. There are many places where a string of statements in the text is followed by a long string of citations and/or footnotes, given without page references.  This is highly improper.  A generic citation after a generic statement says that the whole work cited is an instance of the generic statement in question.  A citation placed after a specific quotation or putative paraphrase of a source says that an equivalent thought can be found in the source cited at the place cited.  It is not acceptable to send the reader off on a fishing expedition to see if something like the statements in the text are found somewhere in the long list of whole works cited.
# Low quality citations.  Primary source citations are preferable to secondary source and tertiary source citations.  This is necessary to preserve accuracy as well as to prevent biased distortions from creeping in, as anybody who has played the "Whispering Game" in grade school should well comprehend.  We shoud do better than merely recycling the contents of other encyclopedias.
JA: It's no excuse to say "we're only writing an encyclopedia here" — there is no Tuesday deadline, and the limits on space are nowhere near so severe as some people are pretending they are, mostly resorting to that excuse for lack of any substantive arguments.  There is no excuse for not holding to a higher standard of accuracy, completeness, fairness, and quality.  Period.  Jon Awbrey 13:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standards Of Scholarship (SOS) 

message: JA: The article is currently POV, and more than one editor says so, even editors who disagree on many other points.  Nobody pretends that achieving balance is an easy thing, especially in an area where many POV's are obviously present, but here are some general considerations that I see as being pertinent:
# Use and misuse of dictionary definitions. Dictionary definitions can be useful in getting off square one in a controversial article, and getting on to the meat of the controversy.  But they can also be misused, as they are being misused now, to slant the article in a particular direction.  The nice thing about a full dictionary entry is its inclusiveness, the fact that it must cover, in a logically disjunctive way, something approaching the full diversity of usages that are prevalent in a given linguistic community.  Reasonable summaries of this variety can be made in a shorter space.  But selecting your favorite definition from this array amounts to a distortion of the facts of usage.  Furthermore, dictionary entries provide nothing more than the "customary connections" (Hume) of words — no theoretical conclusions can be drawn from this.  The problem of what "truth" means is not reduced to the problem of what "correspondence" means by the fact that one of many dictionary definitions mentions them together.  In the first place, it is implausible that dictionary informants are using the word "correspondence" in the technical sense of "correspondence theories of truth".  In the second place, it is hardly clear that the notion of correspondence is simpler than the notion of truth.  In the third place, no analysis of correspendence is being supplied.  Jon Awbrey 14:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Issues

message: JA: I'll insert a new section marker here because the previous section is becoming too long to edit easily, and this issue seems like a side-bar, requiring the repetition of many obvious procedural points that ought to be common sense by now.  Jon Awbrey 10:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Style vs. Substance

message: This seems to be exactly what Bertrand Russell suggested, and which is now done more generally in predicate logic.  A first order predicate cannot itself contain a predicate.  A second order predicate can contain a first order predicate, but not a second order predicate, and so on.  Thus, self reference is avoided not only in the case of "This sentence is false," but also in other cases, such as "This set does not contain itself." Rick Norwood 00:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kripke's theory of truth 

message: I've shortened the wordy section on "truth bearers".  In particular, I've cut out several uses of footnotes for parenthetical remarks.  Footnotes should be used for references.  What this section needs most is at least one reference to a standard work that uses the expression "truth bearer". Rick Norwood 00:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Truth bearers → Definitions

message: I'm glad to see the article moving forward.  Does anyone know what to do about Kripke?  He seems to be a major philosopher, but if his work is based on Russell and Whitehead, that should be mentioned, and his theory of truth (basically hierarchical) should be together with similar theories (Robust?  Or have we abandoned that word?). Rick Norwood 14:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Onward and upward and back again

message: JA:  Philosophical discussions of truth can be sorted according to what they take as their subject matter and what they regard as legitimate to say about their subject matter. The two kinds of terms involved in this may be called the subjects and the predicates of the discussion, respectively. It is conventional to refer to a distinctive philosophical treatment of a particular subject matter as a theory, whether or not it ever becomes a theory in the logical sense. The section of this article devoted to the major theories of truth bows to that convention; more specific logical treatments of truth are summarized farther below in the section on "Deflationary" threories and in the section on Formal definitions.
RN:  Many philosophers, from Plato to Popper, have written on the nature of truth. Modern theories tend to fall into one of two categories, substantive theories and deflationary theories.
I found the JA version used a lot of words without saying a lot, and so I attempted to shorten it.  JA reverted.  Comments from others would be appreciated.  
Aside to JA: there are rules for the use of capital letters and quotation marks.  A poet may just toss them in for seasoning, but a non-fiction writer should use them with reason and moderation.  Unless you are George Herriman, you shouldn't put words in quotation marks to indicate ambiguity or uncertainty, and unless you are e. e. cummings (a fan of George Herriman) you shouldn't use the presence or absence of capital letters for emphasis. Rick Norwood 14:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Compare JA with RN

message: The section now titled definitions was a nice editing job, Rick, and I supported it initially.  But, there are not that many definitions to be introduced prior to summarizing the major theories.  As it stands now, the "definitions" section is solely about truth bearers in modern philosophical usage, with a brief sentence explaining "propositions".  When I expanded on the earlier editors' cue here, I used their presentation format as an opportunity to do some explaining to the reader, something you have advocated here.  The slightly lengthy third paragraph was intended to expain where truth, lies, misunderstandings, etc. fit into the scheme here, and also was an opportunity to pave the way for an intuitive understanding of triads (which take on a number of forms depending on how one approaches the issues).  Understanding that there are numerous ways of presenting this stuff, I want to recommend that we get back about the job of actually explaining this stuff to the reader again.  Truth bearers needs explaining, propositions needs explaining, and truth predicate needs explaining, and all of it can readily be woven into the earlier editors' plan to introduce truth bearers.
I'd like to start with some version of the previous explanation we gave, which appears to have assisted you in understanding this concept and thereby allowed you to truncate it to its present form.  I think we should afford other non-technical readers a similar opportunity, per the Wikipedia recommendations you mentioned earlier.  I will proceed to begin to do that now..  Almost certainly other editors will peck away at it, or even replace it outright, but whatever it is replaced with should explain things to the reader that do not require knowledge of the theories that the article then proceeds to introduce...Kenosis 17:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Truth bearers

message: Thanks for the reference.  At least now we know how the word is spelled! Rick Norwood 18:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know better than to mess with Jon unless it's absolutely necessary.  I should tell you he does a fantastic job with articles that allow for more detailed technically and logically specific explanations (see, for example, his recent work on the Pragmatic theory of truth article).    I have an obligation to attend to this afternoon; I'll read your exchange with Jon later and think about it...Kenosis 18:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Truthbearers 

message: JA: Usage note.  Considered across the spectra of their usage, all of these terms are shifty with respect to the line between the abstract pole and the concrete pole.  But as a general rule, "proposition" is most often used for the abstractest thing and terms like "inscription", "token sentence", or "utterance" are most often used for the concretest things.  "Statement" is often convenient when you wish to remain deliberately flexible about the level of abstraction intended.  Jon Awbrey 19:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposition, Statement, Sentence, Inscription

message: JA: I'll stow it here while I think on it.  Jon Awbrey 20:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chuck that for now 

message: In predicate logic, a predicate is just a sentence which contains a free variable.  For example, "He is a woodchuck," is a predicate, because it contains the variable "he".  Is the use in philosophy similar?  That is, is "This sentence is the truth," a predicate because it contains the variable "this sentence"? Rick Norwood 21:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense to offer a separate brief section for predicates..  And thanks for yanking my hasty offering before. ..Kenosis 21:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Predicates 

message: Current version: Philosophical discussions of truth can be sorted according to what they take as their subject matter and what they regard as legitimate to say about their subject matter. The two kinds of terms involved in this may be called the subjects and the predicates of the discussion, respectively. It is conventional to refer to a distinctive philosophical treatment of a particular subject matter as a theory, whether or not it ever becomes a theory in the logical sense. The section of this article devoted to the major theories of truth bows to that convention; more specific logical treatments of truth are summarized farther below in the section on deflationary threories and in the section on formal definitions.
Let's take it sentence by sentence.  I think we all agree that the first sentence is content free.  For example, Automobile manuals can be sorted according to wht they take as their subject matter and what they regard as legitimate to say about their subject matter.  If I remember correctly, JA wanted something bland and inclusive, but why say something that does not provide any information?  The second sentence introduces subjects and predicates, so I would expect the third sentence to define those terms, but it moves on.  So, how about combining the first two sentences, trimming the first and expanding the second.  Thus:
Suggested replacement for sentences one and two:  Philosophical discussions of truth make a distinction between the subject of the discussion, the sign, symbol, or idea to which the term “truth” may be applied, and the predicate, which is the application of some truth value to that subject.  
Is this acceptable?  Rick Norwood 21:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I must have made that edit as you were writing the above. Ig0774 22:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Incidentally, my comment on the non sequitur was supposed to apply to this sentence: "Truthbearer, in the context of modern philosophical discussion, is not applied to a person or group of persons." and only because there seems to be no reason for this confusion to arise in the mind of the reader (in fact, "a person" is not even on the list of potential truthbearers). This sentence reads a bit like an artifact from a previous edit. Ig0774 22:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, it is. But this confusion has arisen in the past; there was once a brief edit war in which  some twerp wanted to state that Jesus Christ was the only legitimate truth bearer. Such is the nature of the Wiki. Banno 22:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Banno, duly noted, though we may have that covered this time by reference to modern philosophical discussion.  I noticed lg0774's edit and decided to clarify it without reference to a "god".  lg0774 has since clarified it further yet...Kenosis 01:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy of truth paragraph 

message: This sentence:
:A proposition is the abstract entity expressed by a sentence, held in a belief, or affirmed in an assertion or judgment.  
Originally appeared between the first two paragraphs of "bearers of truth". It seems that its a relevant sort of definition for this topic, it just doesn't seem to belong there. Anyone have any suggestions as to where this would fit better? Ig0774 22:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Displaced Proposition 

message: JA: In case you didn't know this, definitions are content-free.  But they do serve the purpose of introducing a handy term of art for a mass of unwieldy periphrastics.  That is precisely the point, whether its done with a formal Def *.1, or with a more gentle definition in passing, of handy terms like subject and predicate, and so on.  The longer you put it off, the more words you waste with no corresponding benefit of clarity.  And nobody's for that, now are they?  Jon Awbrey 23:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I kind of agree.  Could you kindly put your sharp analytical skill to our aid and install a definition in the Formal definitions section for now?  one which factors in Kripke, the redundantists, and the earlier traditional expectation that you gotta use the actual word "true" for it to be a truth predicate (though without having researched this, I doubt there was ever a day when every theorist bought into the idea that "truth predicate" should only be used in the formal logic analysis).  Thanks Jon...Kenosis 00:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't forget we're not talking to scientists and philosophers in this article--it's just too broad a topic.  That's why there is currently placed in the article some attempt to say this stuff in a way that the reader can actually read a bit and walk away with a bit of something instead of drowning.  Put these formal definitions up front? and the article will make little sense to most average readers....Kenosis 00:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

text: That's not what the removed subsection currently says.  I trust the editors will get it working right in the end...Kenosis 00:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Jon, I didn't see that transaction.  How long ago? ...Kenosis 00:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Sleep well...Kenosis 00:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On Definition, On Dancer, On Donner und Blitzen

message: JA: I pointed out previously that treating the flationary frame of reference as the only game in town is totally POV and a rather narrow POV at that.  There's a whole world of discussion of truth — yea, and philosophical discussion, too —that is not trapped in this particular linguistic-turning-in-on-itself gravitational singularity.  In order to discuss this wider warp and woof, and the place of the linguistic navel within it, it is necessary to introduce a more articulate terminology for the "admissible predicates" that various theorists admit.  All that is required of us here, since it's not our job to elect the Elect, is to describe each cult of ascetics and party of epicures, noting that some have taken a vow of POVerty with respect to the predicates that others revel in.  That seems fairly fair to me.  Jon Awbrey 02:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yae or nae.  I inadvertently flip them over at least daily.. NP buddy....Kenosis 03:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough Jon.  That sounds like a reasonable plan here....Kenosis 15:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The World Of Truth Outside

message: JA: I really have tried for days now to get through this mish-mash.  There are just too many basic confusions of use-mention, category confusions, etc.  Because the problems actually start earlier, I have included the run up to the most problematic section.  Jon Awbrey 03:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The term "truthbearer" may be applied to propositions, sentences, statements, ideas, beliefs, and judgments. 
JA: Too many different categories or logical levels of things are lumped together in this statement about truthbearers.  This is far worse than a mere list of things at the same logical level, or nearby levels of abstraction.  Some words, like "ideas", are just two ambiguous to begin with here.  I personally doubt that the term was meant to apply to judgments and beliefs, unless you just mean the propositional contents thereof.  If you have a source that says that, try to keep it a secret, as I will just consider that source seriously confused.  BR & LW, of course, say all sorts of non-sense about facts, but until you have a sentence-independent way of saying what a fact is, you might well just stick to the sentence.  So I would recommend starting with concrete syntactic things like sentences, and terms if you admit them, and mentioning their abstract contents as a persistent afterthought.  Jon Awbrey 03:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Easy now, please.  Previous editors had a reasonable plan.  We tried to work with it and thus discovered the following.  Few writers have had enough courage to step forward and clearly identify how many published philosophers seem to prefer a display of linguistic deftness to a straightforward explanation of how confused the philosophers themselves are about this most difficult of topics (though somewhat ahead of most other folks).  Now that we know somewhat better, we're in a better position to write a more informative article...Kenosis 15:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Having stated that, please use caution with a word like "sentence", because they're actually specific statements or clauses or propositional phrases.  I can see the potential mess here already without even applying a full analysis.  Selected history to identify where the main problems are appears to make good sense, and we know from other difficult articles this approach can work if appropriately explanatory material and wording is used.  Kudos on the possible breakthrough here, at least for now..,.Kenosis 15:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted Material