Logik wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:15 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:46 am
A rule has no truth-value, so it's neither true nor false.
The rule has no truth-value. The rule is what establishes the criteria and mechanisms by which we determine truth-value.
Without axiomatic rules you cannot assert anything!
Correct. Hang on to that. And notice that we need to follow rules in order to assert that without rules you cannot assert anything. Notice the absence of a foundation for what we say beneath our linguistic practices.
If we take "=" to mean "compare two things to one another" then the proposition "A=A" can be interpreted as "Is A the same as A"?
No - a rule can't be interpreted as a question - that's the point of a rule - there is no yes/no answer, so there's no true or false. You've forgotten what you wrote a minute ago: 'The rule has no truth-value'. This is perhaps the incoherence at the heart of your misunderstanding.
Then we can have two different rules/axioms.
* A=A ⇒ ⊤ (two things can be the same)
* A=A ⇒ ⊥ (two things can never be the same)
Which one is "correct"? It's a matter of choice!
Why you reach this mistaken conclusion is obvious. An assertion that's true by one set of rules can be false by another set of rules. That's fatuously obvious. But remember your opening: 'The rule is what establishes the criteria and mechanisms by which we determine truth-value'. There's no contradiction between different sets of rules, because rules aren't truth-claims.
The same goes with things you classify as 'errors'.
In order to assert error-value - you necessarily have a set of rules.
Agreed.
The consequence of the above is that both truth-value; error-value or any assertion for that matter is a function of choice. The choice of rules you adhere to.
Agreed - but there's no rule-free perspective from which to judge between truth-claims within different rule-frameworks. Every assertion of truth-value uses linguistic rules.
Since rules are prescriptive by definition it leaves us in a very precarious paradox: How do we decide which prescriptions to adhere to? What if we choose different rules?
I find it interesting that you think our predicament is precariously paradoxical. Why so? How could it be any different? To repeat the question I've often asked, and you've never addressed: what kind of foundation is it that you think doesn't exist?
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:46 am
As I've explained above, a rule has no truth-value, so it can't be an error. Your mistake is to treat it as a factual assertion instead of a rule, and then conclude that the rule leads to contradiction.
The rule has no truth-value. Choosing to adhere or ignore any particular rule produces different truth-value for the same grammatical proposition.
This is an elementary mistake. Of course it's possible to produce identical linguistic expressions using different rules - and confusion will result. We use language in countless different contexts, for countless different purposes, and meaning is usually clear, though of course it can go wrong. I really don't believe you're a follower of Wittgenstein, because this was the whole point of his later philosophy.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:48 pm
Here's the conflation and confusion at work. You're mistaking the application of rules (we call this a rock and this a pebble) for the things and properties we talk about, using the rules. Things and properties don't name, categorise and describe themselves. That thing, with those properties, is not in itself a rock or a pebble - so, of course, we can call it either or both.
You are failing to recognise that when you have overlapping definitions you are already guilty of a contradiction.
This is simply and completely false. Definitions / descriptions 'overlap' all the time, because we can describe things in countless different ways - as you've agreed. Contradiction only occurs when, within one descriptive context, using one set of constitutive rules, we assert both a claim and its negation.
A thing can not be two different things at the same time and in the same sense.
Look at your words: 'and in the same sense'. What does it mean to say a thing is what it is 'in a sense'? Follow your insight: a thing can not be two different things at the same time. Agreed - and that shows that seeming contradictions in description are linguistic, and therefore nothing to do with the reality being described. You're mistaking the map for the terrain, as you have been doing all along.
If some rocks are pebbles then necessarily some things are "rocks" and "pebbles" at the same time and in the same sense.
This violates the law of non-contradiction. And you are yet to answer whether you have chosen to adhere to it or not...
Sigh. Some rocks ARE pebbles. Some hills ARE mountains. Some colour patches ARE both green and blue. Mummy, why are things so strangely confusing and pawadoxical? It looks like all facts are choices! (FFS.)
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:48 pm
If you mean that the social behaviour we describe as morally good and bad is not a linguistic matter - that's trivially true, and also not the moot point. The issue is whether a moral assertion is factual, so that morality is objective (a factual matter). No demonstration so far.
Sorry. Your premise is entirely artificial.
Animals do not have spoken or written language yet they exhibit morality.
I know you're finding this all terribly challenging, but just look at these two assertions:
1 Mine: '...the social behaviour we describe as morally good and bad is not a linguistic matter...'
2 Yours: 'Animals do not have spoken or written language yet they exhibit morality.'
As you see, I agree that morality is not a linguistic matter, and I've never once argued that it is. But 'objective' means 'factual', and facts are nothing more than linguistic assertions. So my claim that the issue is 'whether a moral assertion is factual, so that morality is objective (a factual matter)' is correct.
To insist that morality is all about the truth-value of the linguistic assertion "murder is wrong" is a fundamental misconceptualisation of morality and objectivity.
See above. The misunderstanding - of both the issue and my argument - is yours, as it has always been. And an example is your repetition of the claim that I think a moral assertion has a truth-value of any kind - which is unbelievably thick.
Nobody can meet the subjective criteria which you have chosen as the mark of "objective morality".
It is a confirmation bias. A self-fulfilling prophecy that “morality is linguistic”.
Ridiculous and dishonest. How about apologising for this lie? Or just acknowledging your mistake?
Logic/language is constructive and constructed.
Objectivity is constructive and constructed.
Morality is constructive and constructed.
Society is constructive and constructed.
Objective morality is constructed and goes hand-in-hand with social contract theory.
I'm tired of having to explain your mistakes - and your failure to acknowledge them as you plough on making more and different ones.