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Talk:Truth/insults?

Propositional attitudes

I agree with Nathan - this section is not relevant. Bring it to talk, folks. Banno 05:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed insofar as the section is relevant only to caution the reader that not all statements should be taken on their literal face value (also covered in the meaning of "proposition"). And we even forgot to mention the propositional attitudes such as "express as sarcasm" and "express as parody" and other such forms, potentially resulting in an endless section. I am going to collapse this section by removing the least directly relevant portions, and will not object to further collapsing of its content to reflect its placement in the introduction to the major theories of truth... Kenosis 18:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this material and shortened this section to two paragraphs, with the brief third paragraph currently serving as a way of separating our those who take belief and thought as the locus, and those who take sentences and propositions as the locus ... Kenosis 19:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

"Deviations of observations from expectations are commonly perceived as surprises, phenomena that call for explanations to reduce the shock of amazement. Deviations of observations from intentions are commonly experienced as problems, situations that call for plans of action to reduce the drive of dissatisfaction. Either type of discrepancy forms an impulse to inquiry (Awbrey & Awbrey 1995)." ...19:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Article is now too Abstract/Advanced

I could have sworn I wrote the following to this page a little while ago but its not here an not even in the history. Spooky. Anyway, this is what I said:

I've been away for a month and the article has totally changed. Some changes are for the better, but most have made it unreadable to the Misplaced Pages audience. Only someone with a master's degree (at least) in philosophy can understand most of it. Remember who we are writing for. This is someone who has looked up "Truth" in the encyclopedia because he doesn't initially know anything about it. Another problem is that Jon Awbrey's style is very abstract. Even I can't figure out what some of the sentences mean, because the terminology is so airy and vague. We need to use concrete terms. Finally, so of what's been added is of dubious relevance to the topic. I'm going to try to correct these problems but keep the good stuff Jon A. has added. --Nate Ladd 05:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Comportment

JA: Nathan, there is no excuse for wholesale blanking of text. There is no excuse for putting messages on my personal user page, and my name is Jon, not Jim. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt only because it is late on a Friday night. Any other time this would be a Test0 situation at the very minimum. This is an article that has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb by many editors for months now. Their work deserves a modicum of respect. Maybe you've been away for a while and don't know that. I am doing my best to imagine extenuating circumstances for you. I have told you three times to bring your criticisms to the talk page. That is the way that we've been operating here for quite a while now. I suggest that everybody go take a nap to clear their heads, and we will go through it all again as carefully as need be, but tomorrow, as there is no particular hurry about truth. Jon Awbrey 06:12, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

NL: I think you have badly overreacted. (1) I'm not doing any "wholesale blanking". I give reasons for my rewrites and a reason for my removal of one section. Another editor has already endorsed my removal of it. (2) Leaving messages on a user page is a standard way of communicating on wiki. (Or am I thinking of the user's talk page? Its been so long since I did it, I've forgotten.) (3) Sorry, about the name. I corrected it as soon as I realized my mistake. (4) What is a "Test0 situation"? (5) This article has been "gone over" for a lot longer than "months", and for a long time before you came along. Quite a bit of the article as it stood a month ago was my writing. I'm respectful of your contributions (see below and my note on your page), so I expect you to be respectful of my work too. (6) I don't need extenuating circumstances, since I've done nothing wrong. (7) I was so busy editing, that I didn't notice your reverts or your request that I come to the talk page until your 4th revert. I did try to put a comment here at that time, but there must have been an edit collision, because it disappeared. I've re-added it above. (8) I LIKE a lot of what you've done and I think in the future you and I will be allies against the barbarians. But I think most of your writing belongs somewhere else, directed to a more philosophically educated audience. Perhaps you could move it to a series of advanced philosophical topics and then we can have links to those on the Truth page? Nap time... --Nate Ladd 06:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Nathan, it is simply not permissible to alter the text of a sourced quotation, and it is extremely poor scholarly practice to alter arbitrarily a close paraphrase of a cited source text. But that is precisely what you are doing with the Dissoi Logoi material that is closely paraphrased from Kneale & Kneale. This violates all sorts of WP:VERIFY principles. Jon Awbrey 06:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

NL: Did I do that? I don't think so. Since the original was Greek, "initiate" is a translation of a Greek word that could be more clearly (for our audience) with "beginner". I don't understand your remarks about paraphrase. I edited something and gave reasons why. What's the problem? --Nate Ladd 06:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

RN: In Greek, "initiate" and "beginner" are not synonyms -- not even close.

NL: They are not "in" Greek. They are in English. And when "initiate" is a noun it means the same thing as "beginner." See below. (I can't imagine what you even intended to say. There's only ONE Greek word at issue here, so the question of whether two Greek words are synonyms does not arise.) --Nate Ladd 21:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Stop reverting

Folks, stop the revert war or I will lock the article. Play nice. Banno 06:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Banno. (But please note, I haven't been reverting. JA was, but I didn't realize it for a long time.) --Nate Ladd 06:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Debatable sentence removed for rewriting and placement elsewhere as appropriate

Last sentence of reflection and quotation section placed here for rewriting and placement in the Formal definitions section or elsewhere as appropriate...Kenosis 15:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It is hardly an accident, then, that matters of numbering phrases, quotation, and reflection are bound up with each other in mathematical logic and computation theory." ... 15:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course, you realize that taking the above quote out of context commits the very act that the section in question discusses. However, the sentence in question totally misrepresents Gödel number, so I agree with its removal. Rick Norwood 19:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Understood Rick. Now I imagine we will be required to quote it and reflect, part of which involves quoting the word quotation within a quotation now taken out of its original context ;-) ... Kenosis 19:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Minor modification to Truthbearer section

I removed "the linguistic turn in ..." changed to "modern", because the analysis of propositions did not start with the linguistic turn, but with the advent of analytic philosophy. Further, the dissecting of syntax and linguistic interpretation did not begin with Derrida et al, but has been a gradual trend leading up to the linguistic turn anyway. May as well keep it simple as reasonably possible in the intro section...Kenosis 19:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Major problem with intro section of Philosophy of truth

This section began as an attempt to introduce the concept of truth predicate, and has since fallen into nearly complete explanatory disarray. I missed it until Nathan Ladd called it to my attention. I have no problem with the first paragraph. The second paragraph doesn't say anything meaningful and is in several respects wrong as it's currently written. Theories of truth can not be classified according to the schema presented, indeed most of the substantive theories (possibly excepting the Pragmatic theory of Charles Peirce and the Russell version of correspondence theory) do not fit into this classification. Even the linguistic-analytic new kids on the block are not necessarily explained effectively by these three criteria. That renders the attempt at explaining semiotics excessive in this introductory section. I wish there were a way to get this in early in the article, but it's just too much for both the writers and the readers to expect at this introductory stage of the article. I think all but the first paragraph should be removed and rewritten to be used somewhere else. In particular, the last two paragraphs have something meaningful to contribute, but not as part of the intro. I will therefore remove it until some better sense can be made of this relatively recent development in the article. Personally I would be comfortable with just moving right into truthbearers here and presenting the analytic-linquistic and semiotic material in a separate section where Kripke and Semantic theory is currently introduced ... Kenosis 20:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It is conventional to refer to a philosophical treatment of a particular subject matter as a theory, whether or not it qualifies as a theory by either empirical or logical criteria. Most of the discussion below follows this convention.

Theories of truth can be classified according to the following features:

• Primary subjects. What kinds of things are potentially meaningful enough to be asserted or not, believed or not, or considered true or false?
• Relevant objects. What kinds of things, in addition to primary subjects, are pertinent to deciding whether to assert them or not, believe them or not, or consider them true or false?
• Value predicates. What kinds of things are legitimate to say about primary subjects, either in themselves, or in relation to relevant objects?

In some discussions of meaning and truth that consider forms of expression well beyond the limits of literally-interpreted linguistic forms, potentially meaningful elements are called representations, or signs for short, taking these words in the broadest conceivable senses.

Most treatments of truth make an important distinction at this point, though the language in which they make it may vary. On the one hand there is a type of very basic sign that is said to be true or false of various objects. For example, in logic there are terms such as "man" or "woman" that are true of some things and false of others, and there are predicates such as "__is a man" or "__is a woman" that are true or false in the same way. On the other hand there is a type of complete sign (or representation) that expresses what grammarians traditionally call a complete thought. Here one speaks of sentences and propositions. Some considerations of truth admit both types of signs, terms and sentences, while others admit only the bearers of complete thoughts to judgments of truth or falsity. Recent literature in linguistic-analytic philosophy uses the term truthbearers to describe the vehicles of complete thoughts, but with no intention of prejudging whether they bear truth or falsehood. ... 20:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Use "beginner" not "initiate"

The English word "initiate" when used as a noun means beginner. So whatever Greek word is being translated as "initiate" we can also translate as "beginner". And since the latter is a more familiar term, it makes the the article more readable to use it. To the editor who wrote an edit annotation that "In Greek "initiate" and "beginner" mean different things" (and who then added a snotty remark.): You are confused. These two words are English words, so it makes no sense to say "In Greek" they mean different things. What matters is that in English they mean the same thing. --Nate Ladd 21:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)--Nate Ladd 21:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

How about "I am a novice"? I don't see the importance...Kenosis 21:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The point is that the passage in question is a translation from the Greek. "Initiate" does not mean "beginner" in English either, but the difference is more important in Greek, where an "initiate" was one who was formally initiated into a mystery cult. Only initiates were privy to the secrets of the cult. The formal status of an initiate is important to the point being made, a point lost if the word "beginner" is used, which has no formal status -- that is, there is no point at which one officially becomes a beginner or officially stops being a beginner. I am sorry that you find the use of correct language "snotty", but there it is. Rick Norwood 21:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It was your annotation, not your language, that I called snotty. The formal status of an intiate is NOT relevant to the point being made. In fact, waat the sentence means doesn't matter. All that matters to the point being made is that the sentence is true when one person says it but false when another does. That's because the subject is "I" and the predicate is not universally true of everyone. I'm going to rewrite the whole thing plainer. We don't need to quote an obscure Greek source to make such a pedestrian point. --Nate Ladd 21:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The point is not the question that is being raised, which is today a commonplace, but that this document is the first extant document that raises the question. Second, it is important that the predicate, "... is an initiate." apply to some people but not to others. The predicate "... is a beginner." is vague enough to apply to anyone. In any case, the first example known to raise this question should be quoted correctly, not incorrectly. Rick Norwood 23:19, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, but please note that the passage did not say anywhere that this was the earliest known time the point was made. --Nate Ladd 23:42, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The bibiography is bloated and inappropriate

The bibliography is filled with references to works that are not cited in the text. Also, most of them are inappropriately advanced for our audience. And there is no guidance as to what a beginner to the subject of truth should turn to next. There are also a lot of references to articles in other encyclopedias. Surely, that is an implied admission that we have failed to do explain the subject adequately ourselves. The bibliography should be limited to (1) Introductory (but longer than an encyclopedia article) texts, (2) A handful of classic works on truth, and (3) works actually cited in the text. (Also, for no apparent reason, the header "For further reading" appears in the middle of all this.)--Nate Ladd 22:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The "Further reading" section is, or should have been, limited to works not cited in the body text of the article. Works cited should all be in the "Referrences", except those which used footnotes...Kenosis 22:36, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I think most of the entries in the References section are not cited in the text. --Nate Ladd 23:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Move Bib to Talk for Case-by-Case Re-Exam

• Beaney, Michael (ed., 1997), The Frege Reader, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK.

• Dewey, John (1900–1901), Lectures on Ethics 1900–1901, Donald F. Koch (ed.), Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL, 1991.

• Dewey, John (1932), Theory of the Moral Life, Part 2 of John Dewey and James H. Tufts, Ethics, Henry Holt and Company, New York, NY, 1908. 2nd edition, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1932. Reprinted, Arnold Isenberg (ed.), Victor Kestenbaum (pref.), Irvington Publishers, New York, NY, 1980.

• Dummett, Michael (1991), Frege and Other Philosophers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• Dummett, Michael (1993), Origins of Analytical Philosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Foucault, Michel (1997), Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Volume 1, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Paul Rabinow (ed.), Robert Hurley et al. (trans.), The New Press, New York, NY.

• Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1986), The Idea of the Good in Platonic–Aristotelian Philosophy, P. Christopher Smith (trans.), Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 1st published, Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles, J.C.B. Mohr, Heidelberg, Germany, 1978.

• Grover, Dorothy (1992), A Prosentential Theory of Truth, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

• Habermas, Jürgen (1979), Communication and the Evolution of Society, Thomas McCarthy (trans.), Beacon Press, Boston, MA.

• Habermas, Jürgen (1990), Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (trans.), Thomas McCarthy (intro.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Habermas, Jürgen (2003), Truth and Justification, Barbara Fultner (trans.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Kirkham, Richard L. (1992), Theories of Truth, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Kripke, Saul A. (1975), "An Outline of a Theory of Truth", Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975), 690–716.

• Kripke, Saul A. (1980), Naming and Necessity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Lewis, C.I. (1946), An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 'The Paul Carus Lectures, Series 8', Open Court, La Salle, IL.

• Linsky, Leonard (ed., 1971), Reference and Modality, Oxford University Press, London, UK.

• Martin, Robert L. (ed., 1984), Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• Moody, Ernest A. (1953), Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic, North-Holland, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1953. Reprinted, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1976.

• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968). "Uber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinn", ("On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense"), in Jürgen Habermas (ed.), Erkenntnistheoretische Schriften, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, Germany.

• Putnam, Hilary (1981), Reason, Truth, and History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

• Quine, W.V. (1982), Methods of Logic, 4th edition, Harvard Unversity Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Quine, W.V. (1992), Pursuit of Truth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990. Revised edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992.

• Quine, W.V., and Ullian, J.S. (1978), The Web of Belief, Random House, New York, NY, 1970. 2nd edition, Random House, New York, NY, 1978.

• Rawls, John (2000), Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, Barbara Herman (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Rescher, Nicholas (1973), The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• Rorty, Richard (1991), Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

• Russell, Bertrand (1913), Theory of Knowledge (The 1913 Manuscript), Elizabeth Ramsden Eames (ed.), Kenneth Blackwell (collab.), George Allen & Unwin, 1984. Reprinted, Routledge, London, UK, 1992.

• Russell, Bertrand (1940), An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, 'The William James Lectures for 1940 Delivered at Harvard University', George Allen & Unwin, 1950. Reprinted, Thomas Baldwin (intro.), Routledge, London, UK, 1992.

• Salmon, Nathan, and Soames, Scott (eds., 1988), Propositions and Attitudes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• Smart, Ninian (1969), The Religious Experience of Mankind, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, NY.

• Tarski, Alfred (1944), "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (3), 341-376.

• Wallace, Anthony F.C. (1966), Religion, An Anthropological View, Random House, New York, NY.

• Williams, Bernard (2002), Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Here are the remainder of the unused references (most of which were already unused prior to my last several edits). Some of them are duplicates from above. They may be useful in putting up a section "For further reading" or such...Kenosis 16:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• Baldwin, James Mark (ed., 1901–1905), Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 3 volumes in 4, Macmillan, New York, NY.

• Blackburn, Simon, and Simmons, Keith (eds., 1999), Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Includes papers by James, Ramsey, Russell, Tarski, and more recent work.

• Clifford, W. K. (1877), "The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays". (Prometheus Books, 1999)

• Field, Hartry (2001), Truth and the Absence of Fact, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• Habermas, Jürgen (1976), "What Is Universal Pragmatics?", 1st published, "Was heißt Universalpragmatik?", Sprachpragmatik und Philosophie, Karl-Otto Apel (ed.), Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Reprinted, pp. 1–68 in Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, Thomas McCarthy (trans.), Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1979.

• Horwich, Paul, (1988), Truth, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• James, William (1904), A World of Pure Experience.

• James, William (1907), Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Popular Lectures on Philosophy, Longmans, Green, and Company, New York, NY.

• James, William (1909), The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism', Longmans, Green, and Company, New York, NY.

• James, William (1912), Essays in Radical Empiricism. Cf. Chapt. 3, "The Thing and it's Relations", pp. 92–122.

• Le Morvan, Pierre (2004), "Ramsey on Truth and Truth on Ramsey", British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 12 (4) 2004, 705–718, PDF.

• Peirce, C.S., Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols. 1–6, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.), vols. 7–8, Arthur W. Burks (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1931–1935, 1958. Cited as CP vol.para.

• Peirce, C.S. (1877), "The Fixation of Belief", Popular Science Monthly 12 (1877), 1–15. Reprinted (CP 5.358–387), (CE 3, 242–257), (EP 1, 109–123). Eprint.

• Peirce, C.S. (1901), "Truth and Falsity and Error" (in part), pp. 718–720 in J.M. Baldwin (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 2. Reprinted, CP 5.565–573.

• Ramsey, F.P. (1927), "Facts and Propositions", Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 7, 153–170. Reprinted, pp. 34–51 in F.P. Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990.

• Ramsey, F.P. (1990), Philosophical Papers, David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

• Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, 1962.

16:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Truth and Truth theory

The article Truth theory has been created and edited by a single user. The subject matter does not appear to differ substantially from this pre-existing article. Strongly recommend merging any usable material to here and making Truth theory a re-direct. Comments? Banno 05:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: All articles in WikiPedia are created by single users and edited by single users until such time as other users take part in their development.

What steps have you taken to notify other users of the existence of this article, so that they can support it? Banno 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: The article Truth theory is still a Wikiwork-in-Progress, as all pages in WikiPedia are. The use of the epithet "theory" follows a very common practice in WP for indicating that it covers the more abstract, advanced, technical, theoretical aspects of the subject in a more complete and comprehensive detail. Indeed, the division of the same subject matter into different levels of treatment is such a routine practice that there are several sets of templates already in use for handling this very common type of situation, and there is one of them, {{seeintro}} in use at the top of the Truth theory article.

The argument that Truth theory is a "more advanced" article is nonsense. It is more limited in its content than this article, rather than more advanced. Rather, it is original research or vanity - notice the reference to Jon's own article. Nor does the present content warrant such an approach. Banno 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Per talk page discussion at Truth, it has become evident at this point that there will be no such advanced, comprehensive, or technical development of the subject matter of theories of truth in the introductory article Truth, and so there is no conflict between the two levels of treatment.

What does this mean? Are you sugesting that hte material on, say, Kripke's work is at an introductory level? Banno 15:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: I am following the model of numerous other (Introductory, Comprehensive) article pairings in WikiPedia, for instance, the following:

JA: ∴ Oppose Merge. Jon Awbrey 07:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment. But that implies something about theory. Are not { definition, observation, generalization, theory etc } members of some {set}, with an ecology and interrelation? What does this imply for the role of the observer, critic, etc. Are we talking about a community or ecology of ideas? I am sure that this is published ground, and is not original research. Do you have names for the scholars? End of comment. --Ancheta Wis 11:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Ancheta, I'm sorry, but your comment is obviously way over my head. Perhaps there needs to be some third level of discussion page where it could be taken up? Alas, tertium non datur so farum. Jon Awbrey 12:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

We get the point, Jon. No need to take up valuable space with an irrelevant list. The question remains, is the separation into two articles justified in the present context. I say no. Does any one here, apart from Jon, support the existence of Truth theory? Banno 15:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Mission control we have a bit of a problem. I've only been involved as a registered user for three months now, though I have had an opportunity to watch the development of the Intelligent design article and a few others very closely and with great interest for at least the last year and a half. That's enough time to develop some sense of what OR, NPOV, and other basic foundational precepts of Misplaced Pages are about when set in the context of controversy. What is now presented to the various editors is an article titled Truth theory which is mistitled. This article should under no circumstances be merged, but rather should:

• (1) be immediately removed, written at home, office, or the local Starbucks, and after the author is satisfied with the content, be submitted to a web or paper journal for possible publication, after which it can be cited and included as Awbrey's theory of truth; or,
• (2) Retitled to reflect its content, which is something like A unique synthesis of carefully selected theories of truth in light of Charles Peirce's theory of semiotics, set in the context of formal logic and neo-positivism; or,
• (3) rewritten so it is not a repository for one editor's miscellaneous research on the subject, and split (with reasonably accurate reflection of the actual content) into several articles that might perhaps be something like Semiotic theory of truth, Analytic-linguistic theories of truth, etc.

Under no circumstances should the current article on Truth theory be merged. ... Kenosis 14:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC) Without offering a detailed analysis, the last of these three would be my preference. I apologize for getting angry...Kenosis 15:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Kenosis, your speculations about many things are of course your own. Like many speculations that people get away with on mere talk pages, they are unfounded, unqualified, unsourced, and unsupported by empirical data. There are definite protocols for deleting articles, procedures that are based on specific criteria, and these criteria must be applied across the board to all pages in WikiPedia, or else WikiProtocols give up their right to be called legitimate. Jon Awbrey 15:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Kenosis, are you considering listing the article at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion? If so, see Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy. But if there is no material on the other article that could be used here, I suggest we simply redirect rather than delete. Banno 15:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

No Banno, I am not advocating deletion, certainly not at this stage. I would instead expect that in the end, such material will find its way into more accepted delineations of content according to topic (i.e., well sourced and standard within their respective realm of presentation). If the intent is to present a balanced view of more obscure and/or "advanced" issues in the theories of truth, the content should of course recognizably reflect this and be organized accordingly. Right now it's just a repository for Jon's preferred approach, which can be empirically shown to be the case if necessary.

Jon Awbrey I already trust implicitly (and explicitly) to arrive at top-shelf products in certain areas-- for instance, in philosophy of mathematics I immediately felt gratitude that he had arrived at that page, because he is extremely adept at handling complex technical topics of this general kind. For another instance, after some points of contention, he did a proberbial "bang up job" with what he got involved in scientific method. On yet other articles the content has gotten arguably too finely developed and lengthy for most readers, especially in opening sections of articles. As well, the technique of attempting to guide the reader through a set of conundrums rather than summarizing in encyclopedia or "journalistic" style of organization has been troublesome to me. (Writers for journalistic media are normally expected to assume editors and other decisionmakers will be involved, and put the most important stuff up front in summary fashion with a readily identifiable hierarchy of presentation. And they are expected to assume that if, say, the last half of the content is truncated for lack of space or whatever, what they put up high in the body text will then tend to survive the hatchet job. This indeed is part of the general set of Misplaced Pages recommendations for article writing.) I trust the material at issue here will find the right slots in Misplaced Pages in due course...Kenosis 18:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA, it is customery to indent talk page comments so that the flow of a thread is obvious. Also, please take care not to delete others comments on the talk page. Banno 15:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of Proposed Merge 2

JA: Creating new head to lessen edit conflicts. Jon Awbrey 15:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: When Banno gets done fiddling with the talk page, maybe I'll be able to get a word in edgewise. Meanwhile there's real work to do. Jon Awbrey 16:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Why this outburst? Why this superfluous heading? Banno 16:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: As I said above, in order to lessen edit conflicts. I either read it somewhere in WP or some old WP hand told me that creating new sections from time to time would reduce the chances that many folks are editing the same section at once, and I always follow advice and custom right up to the point where I run into walls, and then I do something else.

JA: On a possibly related note, I wish you would take care not to edit my talk page comments, as you appear to have mangled their contents and formats several times now, for instance: here 1 and here 2.

My apologies. Note that I repaired the damage as son as I was made aware of it, as I did for the material that was apparently inadvertently removed by yourself earlier. Banno 22:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Either that or it's some inadvertent effect of an edit conflict, which is why I try to avoid them. Jon Awbrey 17:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 1. With regard to the following query:

What steps have you taken to notify other users of the existence of this article, so that they can support it? Banno 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: I am not aware of any WikiPolicy that requires a user to notify anybody before creating an article. I used the {seeintro} template to refer hapless readers to Truth simpliciter by way of a less technical introduction, but the complementary {introduction|...} template that is used on several of the introductory physics articles did not seem very "complimentary" to me, so I was looking for another. The format that they use in several math intros seemed a bit friendlier, but I was still mulling it over. Jon Awbrey 17:40, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I would have though it a common courtesy, given your explanation for the existence of the page. Banno

JA: Point 2. With regard to the accusations of originality on my part issuing from the direction of Kenosis. I personally and strongly resent those remarks. There is not a single article that I've touched on in the time that I've been here that is not better sourced, better grounded in common cultural contents, or at least better punctuated, for my having touched on it. Requests for standard sources have always been met to the extent that anybody could stand to read them. Jon Awbrey 18:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

No one doubts your capacity to cite sources; But authors are, shall we say, not encouraged to cite their own work. But this is a side issue. The main issue here is: where should the information be placed? Banno 22:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 3. With regard to this query, copied from above:

What does this mean? Are you sugesting that the material on, say, Kripke's work is at an introductory level? Banno 15:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: The article merely mentions Kripke's work in passing. Not being subject to Humean error, I do not expect attempts to develop that material beyond the level of mere allusion to meet with any different reception than the attempts to develop other sections have already met with in the past, namely, a lamentable hue and a tumultuous cry, the tearing of hair and the scraping of slates whenever the section in question grows past the age of 3 or 4 paragraphs. Do you? (Cf. Humean error). Jon Awbrey 05:00, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 4. With regard to the following comment:

The argument that Truth theory is a "more advanced" article is nonsense. It is more limited in its content than this article, rather than more advanced. Rather, it is original research or vanity - notice the reference to Jon's own article. Nor does the present content warrant such an approach. Banno 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: The article on Truth theory is intended to cover the subject of truth at a theoretical level that the present levelers of Truth have decided not to aspire to. Their option in doing that is wholly appropriate. There is no harm, and indeed much benefit, in having both introductory and more advanced articles. This need is already clearly recognized in many subject areas, as evidenced by the Table of articles given above. I have myself worked on both sides of that ledger in several of the above cases, depending on which side needed the most work at a given time.

JA: What is inappropriate is the notion that having an article with one sort of intended reader must preclude the existence of articles that serve the interests and the needs of any other sort of intended reader. Jon Awbrey 18:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 5. With regard to the following comments:

The main issue here is: where should the information be placed? Banno 22:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: The information should be placed in a place where editors with a particular "theory of the intended reader", also known as a "user model", will not interfere with its being communicated to potentially interested readers. The wholly imaginary user models of certain editors are nothing more than a kind of "psychological projection" or wishful thinking on their part, wholly unsupported by any sort of empirical data – for example, the kinds of survey research and statistically sampled needs assessments that I used to do for a living. These editors seem to be clueless to the fact that "average reader" is a statistical term of art, not just another figment of their imagination. I think it is rather evident from both sides of the Table that I gave above that not all WP editors and WP readers are operating at the grammar school reading level. Jon Awbrey 02:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 6. With regard to the following remarks:

No one doubts your capacity to cite sources; But authors are, shall we say,

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed.

not encouraged to cite their own work. But this is a side issue.

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed.

Banno 22:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Rather, it is original research or vanity — notice the reference to Jon's own article. Nor does the present content warrant such an approach. Banno 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Some journals allow self-reference in citations. Others do not. If you know of an explicit guideline or policy in WP that forbids editors to cite papers they have authored, then please point me to it. Otherwise, keep your weasel-worded insinuations of vanity in the projective imagination from whence they issue. So far I only know of the guidelines at WP:VAIN, which I suggest that you review. We are not talking about somebody's personal blog here. The paper that I cited was presented at a peer-reviewed conference in 1992, revised by its 2 co-authors over the next 3 years, and published in a peer-reviewed journal in 1995. And it was hardly the only work cited in our formerly "bloated" list of references. When WP as a whole achieves the standard of sourced and peer-reviewed references of which that bloat was but the most anorexic sample, then we'll be getting somewhere. And why am I even discussing this with "editors" who do not use their real names? Jon Awbrey 12:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Truth in math

Kenosis, thanks for your comments. There's no way to do this whole subject justice in less than 2-3 paragraphs. I'm a little worried that I've given undue weight to algorithmic information theory (mostly because I'm just now reading Gregory Chaitin's latest book.)

John Awbrey- you're pretty good at demanding appropriate attributions; if you can think of a better way to refer to Boolean logic feel free. Thanks! --M a s 17:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

M_a_s, two to three paragraphs is quite consistent with other threads within the existing article. You would certainly have my backing on it to synopsize accordingly. Please start by using your best judgment in introducing this topic to a general readership in a way that can also be understood by mathematicians to reflect the lay of the land, so to speak. We can later link to, say, a more developed section in Philosophy of mathematics or other appropriate main article in due course. Your efforts and thought very much appreciated...Kenosis 19:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Continuum Hypothesis

Rick, thanks for editing. The continuum hypothesis is historically probably more significant than Hilbert's 10th (and Chaitin's / Wolfram's construction.) CH was Hilbert's 1st, probably for a reason. But to me, probably because I'm not a set-theorist, CH and AC have always felt too vague and too "so what." The appeal of Chaitin to me was that, here it is, an (exponential) Diophantine equation in some 1000's of variables, but nonetheless there's no way to know whether there are a finite or infinite (or in one case an even or odd) number of solutions.

Algorithmic information theory and the CH are marginally related, in the sense that their study and development is a direct offshoot of Godel. CH does belong here, I think at least for historical purposes, but there should probably be a way to incorporate Hilbert's 1st and Hilbert's 10th.

Thoughts? --M a s 23:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I all depends on how well written it is. It is hard to be clear, correct, and brief. Rick Norwood 00:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Good edits. "Naive" I think is a little POV... In my eye Hilbert wasn't really naive in his assumptions. (M a s 00:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC))

Thanks. "Naive" is in the sense the word is used in Paul Halmos' Naive Set Theory. Rick Norwood 13:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Janitorial Tags

JA: I always have trouble spelling "maintainance". I have placed tags on several sections that are very incomplete, poorly written, poorly justified as to their relevance, and cite no sources whatsoever. I know, this is true of most articles in WP, but I've been informed that it can "help" to call attention to it. Jon Awbrey 12:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Good job, Kenosis, JA. I was going to add Honor's Class but you beat me to it. Godel, Escher, Bach touches on some of these but it's not nearly as scholarly.

Maintaining a Balanced And Critical Point Of View

JA: The existence of a neutral point of view (NPOV), like the existence of a god's eye view (GEV), an absolute frame of reference (AFOR), a value free science (VFS), an ontologically neutral language (ONL), or the ether bunny (EB), is yet another charming lie-to-children (L-T-C) that the children of several ages past were fond of telling themselves long past the age when they should have known better. Some of these myths of our own divinity and bulls of our own infallibility are proverbs well lost and, with a little luck, have lost their last post-pubertal devotees, but some of them still serve as ideals, or regulative principles, so long as we do not confuse the earnest wish with the extant reality. That sort of mental confusion is what is commonly diagnosed as hallucination. By way of avoidng that confusion, I will invite the use of the term balanced and critical point of view (BACPOV), instead. Jon Awbrey 12:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: As an object example, chosen not at random but more for its brevity, let us examine the following text from the article on Truth:

'''Coherence theory''' <p> {{main|Coherence theory of truth}} <p> There is no single coherence theory of truth but rather an assortment of distinct perspectives that are commonly collected under this title. A pervasive tenet is the idea that truth is primarily a property of whole systems of propositions and can be ascribed to individual propositions only derivatively according to their coherence with the whole. Where theorists differ is mainly on the question of whether coherence entails many possible true systems of thought or only a single absolute system. For coherence theories in general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within the whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency. For example, the completeness and comprehensiveness of the underlying set of concepts is a critical factor in judging the utility and validity of a coherent system.<ref>], for instance, assembled a controversial but quite coherent system in the early 19th Century, whose utility and validity continues to be debated even today. Similarly, the systems of ] and ] are characteristic systems that are internally coherent but controversial in terms of their utility and validity.</ref> <p> Some variants of coherence theory are claimed to characterize the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.<ref>Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p130-131 (Macmillan, 1969)</ref> However, formal reasoners are content to contemplate ] but mutually contradictory systems side by side, for example, the various ]. On the whole, coherence theories have been criticized as lacking justification in their application to other areas of truth, especially with respect to assertions about the ], ] data in general, assertions about practical matters of psychology and society, especially when used without support from the other major theories of truth.<ref>Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p131-133, ''see'' esp., section on "Epistemological assumptions" (Macmillan, 1969)</ref> <p> Coherence theories distinguish the thought of ] philosophers, particularly of ], ], and ], along with the British philosopher ].<ref>Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p130</ref> They have found a resurgence also among several proponents of ], notably ] and ].

JA: BACK after coffee, kiddo ... Jon Awbrey 12:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

RN: If you read the Wiki description of NPOV you will find it says pretty much what you are saying. It acknowledges that absolute nutrality is not possible, and if possible would not be desirable, but it suggests that people of good will can come together to avoid partisan pleading. The problem is not NPOV in the article on Calculus, but NPOV in the article on George Bush.

JA: Been there, read that, and of course it's all the usual common sense things to say, but you'd be surprised how much common sense can be lost once an acronym becomes an e-lip-servered anachronym. I have a feeling that both Leibniz and Newton would beg to differentiate themselves from your other POV, and I'm pretty sure that it's easier to figure out what Dubya is about than it is to rechnen what Calc is about. But never mind that now, what I had in mind here had to do with far more petty pedantic peccadillos than the commander in chief of our assembled armadillos. Jon Awbrey 15:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: The question of NPOV and his big sister BACPOV came up in regard to the section on coherence theories of truth. In particular, the qualifying phrase "are claimed to" was deleted from the sentence below on the grounds that it was POV.

Some variants of coherence theory are claimed to characterize the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.<ref>Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p130-131 (Macmillan, 1969)</ref>

JA: Yes, it's true that the "apostrophaic passive voice auxiliary construction" (APVAC) is a usual suspect when it comes to weaseling in a POV bias. "Yet Another Man Behind The Sceeen" (YAMBTS). Sorry, statistically speaking, it really is usually just men. However, in this case I claim that omitting the hedge — that's like a screen only seldom so high — is the surer bet to bias the statement all the more.

JA: Given this lesson of two evils, is there a third way, a higher path? Yes, the best way to deal with APVAC's is to replace them with statements of the form "So&so said such&such here&when&where". For example, in the present instance, this would yield a line like this:

Alan White (1969, 130–131) argues that some variants of coherence theory characterize the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.

JA: Then readers can clique on the linque and decide for themselves whether they want to believe a drummer. And as you well know, to say that Alan R. White is true is just to say that Alan R. White. Jon Awbrey 14:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

RN: But suppose Alan R. Black. Rick Norwood 14:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Just reviewing some of this earlier discussion. Alan White obviously was a less-than-famous philosopher/academician, but the strength of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy is in its extensive peer review process, not in the notability of mostly deceased authors in a field that hasn't changed much in nearly forty years (even in light of Haack's and others' recent contributions, including highly questionable ones such as the classification of "robust" theories). As I analyze the situation, nothing much has changed since the pragmatists Peirce, James and Dewey weighed in a century ago. Since then it seems to me it's been pretty much "academic"  ;-) Haack's "foundherentism", for instance, is mainly just a neologism for her brand of pragmatic theory if you ask me (but pls don't ask me as I'm not notable here either)... Kenosis 20:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge or delete

Editors might consider commenting on this

discussion. Banno 21:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Here is what I wrote on the "Articles for deletion" page:

• keep: The article truth is both too long and too technical. That article should give a brief discussion of truth in philosophy, with each major school defined, but the more technical parts should be moved to truth theory. On the other hand, the article truth theory should cover a variety of ideas, not just one philosophical specialty. Rick Norwood 13:17, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

How long before we get to remove the suggested merge tag? I don't see any support for it....Kenosis 00:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Do it. Rick Norwood 13:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rick. I'd ideally like to get an OK from others too before proceeding to remove this tag. Anyone seen our "in-house administrator" Banno lately? ...Kenosis 02:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I simply don't have time at present to follow through with this, so go ahead and remove it, if that is the consensus. But it will mean a re-working of both articles. What underpins my concern here is that this topic is by its nature synthetic - a bringing together of a range of ideas. Because of this, it is difficult to make it encyclopedic, and I suspect that to be the reason that it is avoided in other encyclopedias. It is difficult, when bringing in ideas from a range of philosophers and over a range of topics, not to introduce bias of one form or another; this is a difficulty that is not so pronounced in articles on particular philosophers or particular arguments. Banno 02:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed what you say, Banno. As I look over the article as it presently is written, it seems to be as good a summary of the various theories as I've seen anywhere. We could certainly quibble righteously in a number of areas -- it could be simpler, more complex, could be shorter, could be longer, etc., but it seems to me to have a structure that can likely be brought into the future somewhat intact...Kenosis 02:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Apeironism

WimLoo has added a link (in the wrong place) to his article on his theory of truth, which he calls apeironism. I'll leave it to the experts whether this theory should have a link and/or an article. Rick Norwood 13:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed. No hits on Google, and no sources in the article on the "subject". Probably someone should move to delete the article on Apeironism too... Kenosis 15:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Truth in Math Redux

Regarding the discovery of "true statements about the natural numbers that cannot be proven true": I have seen an exponential Diophantine equation that has been mapped via Lucas's (I think) theorem from a Universal Turing Machine, such that they have a solution in one variable if and only if the UTM as represented by the other variables halts. See, e.g. A New Kind of Science. I'm sorry I'm slobbering the description... At any rate though the equation was actually constructed. IIRC it had about 40 unknowns.

Now, I can make the claim, (A) "This Diophantine Equation has a solution." This very well might be true, but appealing to the Church-Turing thesis, I would have no way to prove it (because I can't see whether the UTM halts or not.) More importantly a FAS would not be able to prove it as well.

I can likewise make the claim, (B) "This Diophantine Equation does not have a solution." Again, this might be true for the same reason.

But if I accept the Law of the excluded middle, then either A or B is true.

So, in a sense, isn't it true to say that a true statement has been constructed about the natural numbers and yet it cannot be proven true? (I don't know which one it is, though, A or B.)

Thoughts? --M a s 16:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Picture troubles

I would consider the removal of the picture of "The Truth". It would be inappropriate for some of our younger readers. Just a suggestion.

-Jarrad from the United Kingdom

There was some discussion about the image at Archive 12. --Midnightcomm 21:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Well, we have this guideline about not being censored. Aside from all that the artist is mainstream legit, and the image is hardly more risque than what comes over the tube these days. I think it quite easily passes that quaint old test of "redeeming social value". More importantly, the work says something that I find very apt in this context, and I had been planning to exegize what it says a little bit under the head of "truth in art", until I got busy with other things. Jon Awbrey 21:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

You do have a point Jon about the work sending a message to the viewer. I wholeheartedly agree. But I think many younger readers might find it uncomfortable to see that sort of image. Also, parents might not approve of letting their children have access to this website if such images are shown.

-Jarrad from the United Kingdom

JA: My mother being an artist, I learned to see these things differently from an early age. It's what's in the mind of the viewer that puts the finishing touches on an image. My natural desire is to try and make other people comfortable, but then the dutious part of me is forced to consider the consequences of any given course of conduct. WP is a big place. If we remove the freely chosen image here for the sake of some viewers' comforts, will they not just move on to the gallery of artists' works and insist on the same consideration there? It seems very likely that some would. And then where would we end up? Pretty soon, no WP atoll. Jon Awbrey 16:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

RN: At the Louvre I was interested to see classes of schoolchildren sitting on the floor, looking up at huge pictures of nudes, while their teacher lectured them on the painting. It is only in fundamentalist countries, such as Arabia and the United States, where nudity is considered harmful to children. I see no reason for Misplaced Pages to pay any attention to such nonsense, which is more Victorian than Christian in any case. Rick Norwood 18:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is nudity in an article about truth/Truth. Personally, I would have no problem with the image in an article about the painter. I would hate to see Misplaced Pages banned in many schools in the United States (due to percived inaccuracy and nudity in articles such as this one). --Midnightcomm 20:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Nobody went out looking for a random nude to paste on the front page, by way of selling more copies at 0¢ per. The image was already used in the Icelandic version, where I'm sure that nudity is not taken lightly, if you catch my (snow-)drift, and I'm guessing that it was thought appropriate there because the painter evidently had something to say about Truth, in the way that painters do. But I missed the part about "inaccuracy". What was that about? Jon Awbrey 03:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

RN: Some schools ban Misplaced Pages due to supposed "inaccuracy". In fact, I think bans due to inaccuracy are fairly common. I've never heard of any bans for nudity. I do remember a school banning a web page about Robert Frost because it contained the line "the little horse must think it queer". But giving in to censors only makes them more rabid. Rick Norwood 21:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Physical Symbol Systems

JA: I have added a head — that's 3, but who's counting? — for approaches to symbol systems that take the physical properties of symbols into account, using the rubric that AI researchers borrowed from semiotics. I suggest that it is better to take up these questions under a separate heading, as opposed to confounding the discussion of sentences and propositions in their more usual linguistic and logical terms with what are excessively distracting notions, if not utter category confusions. Jon Awbrey 14:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm wholeheartedly in favor of such a section, and believe it will improve the article. Having written a farily widely sold book related to audio theory/technology/practice (no I'm not divulging which one), this section has a definite place in my own heart. So I' m not disinterested and completely objective about this preference for inclusion, though such a section seems to have a very legitimate place in the article. But I'd like to move the section so it's not plopped in with the "major theories", OK? ... Kenosis 15:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

No misleading edit summaries please

To Jon Awbrey and others: Don't make a lot of edits in a single edit and then provide an edit summary that makes it appear you changing much less. (Did you perhaps revert back to an older version than you intended? )--Nate Ladd 18:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC) Let me elaborate a bit: You wiped out the bibilography and made substantial changes to a large number of paragraphs spread throughout the article. (Your edit summary did not alert people to all these changes, so most of your edits were unexplained. (See here .) You don't need advance permission to make an edit, but you do need to explain them. If edit summaries don't give you enough space, then use the discussion pages.--Nate Ladd 18:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Me again: On further review, it looks like something weird happened around that time and a very old version of some the article got edited back in, so apologies if you were only trying to fix that. But the main point still holds, your edit summary should have mentioned that you were doing that. --Nate Ladd 22:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Massive destruction of recent work on the article

Whoever keeps reverting to the version of the article from well over a month ago neglects to consider the cautious analysis and work of many editors that went into bringing the article to its current form from that of six weeks ago. This has happened twice today...Kenosis 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the following sentence made succinct by Nate Ladd ("Truthbearer, in the context of modern philosophical discussion, is never applied to a person or group of persons; rather, the term is applied to the kinds of entities above because they are deemed specific enough to reasonably be subjected to a close analysis of whether or not they are true.") and the section relating to truthbearers generally: The controversial modern term "truthbearer" is relegated to its own section presently, with a link to the Stanford Encyclopedia discussion, because the term is not universally accepted. Rather, it is one way that a number of writers use to identify entities, that is, specific propositions or thoughts or judgments, etc. that are specific in their character. This is different than asserting anything that is "capable of being true or false". This is why the particular sentence currently is written the way it is. ... Kenosis 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

1. I don't think anyone has deliberately gone back to a version that is over a month old. But let's work forward from the present version.

2. I don't understand your defense of your wordy sentence. Whether the term is universally accepted or not has nothing to do with that sentence, in either your version or mine. The sentence simply points out that, unlike a waterbearer, or lawyer, or shoemaker, or some other kind of "-er" noun, this one does not refer to a person; it refers to a thing. I know that's what the sentence is trying to say, because I wrote it originally. It was put in a long time ago because we discovered that readers were taking "truthbearer" as a reference to God. If you want to add another sentence that means something else (such as that the term "truthbearer" is not universally used), please do so; but we still need the existing sentence in a non-wordy way. Otherwise, people use that paragraph as a justification for adding all sorts of theological junk to the article.

3. For my own enlightment, could you cite a published work that objects to the term "truthbearer"? I can't find a single writer (about truth) on my shelf that does not use that word.

--Nate Ladd 21:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Point by point (roughly):

• (1)Re "But let's work forward from the present version.": Fine, yes that is how it should be done.
• (2)Re the "wordy sentence": Truthbearer, among those writers who choose to use the term, refers not only not to people or gods, but also does not apply to whole paragraphs with 20 or 34 different points within, let alone to whole books (non-fiction or fiction? autobiography or memoir?, etc.). It applies to entities reasonably specific enough to be subjected to a specific analysis-- one point at a time, so to speak. For the uninformed reader who is interested enough, daring enough or foolhardy enough to dive into our minefield on truth here, this needs to be stated, just as it needed to be stated that a truthbearer is not a person or a god.
• (3)Re "could you cite a published work that objects to the term "truthbearer"?": Can't find one for you at present, but it is clear from the secondary resources such as the Stanford Encyc. article link you saw before, that it is a modern term not wholly accepted (at least not as of yet). Further evidence of the possibility that the term "truthbearer" may never find full agreement (or perhaps may even end up being a passing fad) may be found in the disagreement about what kinds of entities belong in the category of "truthbearer". I suppose time will tell... Kenosis 01:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: IMWBO (in my worker-bee opinion), Nathan Ladd's conduct in his recent sorties of drive-by shoutings is just plain vandalism, and should be reverted until he learns to respect the admittedly hard-won consensus process that had until lately resulted in a steadily improving article. The constant "I read a book (Kirkham 1992) on truth once" attitude, on top of the overall ignoratio with regard to the most basic elements of the subject matter and the general campaign of disinformation, has turned the article into a mass of sophomoric confusions that is no longer of any service to the unsuspecting reader. Jon Awbrey 23:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I wish I could say I'm surprised that you resort entirely to name-calling and have not once given a rational argument to justify disagreement with any of my edits. Those who have done that in the years I've been on wiki will tell you I'm often convinced by rational argument. But I'm never intimidated by bullies, which is what you are. You're going to have to include me in your "concensus" like it or not. --Nate Ladd 00:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Peirce and James should not be together

Peirce's and James' theories have virtually nothing in common, as Peirce himself pointed out. They should be in separate sections. I'll do that soon unless someone can make a case here that they should remain together. --Nate Ladd 00:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I would assert that we should follow the standard procedure here, which is that classes of things that are classed together by virtually all writers and commentators should not be reinterpreted by the writers of Misplaced Pages. Pragmatism is so called by virtually everyone because it has common threads, just as "science" has common threads, and "religion" has common threads despite the wide variety found within these classifications. F.C.S. Schiller once said that "there are as many forms of pragmatism as there are pragmatists". Note carefully that he used the words "pragmatism" and "pragmatists", and was not arguing that, say, "half the so-called pragmatists here are not really pragmatists". The three major pragmatists, Peirce, James and Dewey, are recognized as having the common thread that the truth value of people's concepts is developed, verified (or refuted) and honed in an interactive process within communities of inquirers. Truth, partial truth and falshood are discovered in practice by the observed results of implementing one's concepts in real life. Peirce is actually the original common thread (from "How to Make Our Ideas Clear, 1878: "There is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice.") James and Dewey follow from the same. Charles Peirce cannot posthumously change this, nor should the Misplaced Pages editors-- Peirce tried while alive and failed to separate himself...Kenosis 01:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Kenosis, for giving a specific reason for disagreeing with one of my edits. You've convinced me with "classes of things that are classed together by virtually all writers and commentators should not be reinterpreted by the writers of Misplaced Pages". --Nate Ladd 19:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Nathan Ladd's statements are simply false. Peirce took exception to James with regard to very specific issues, ones that James sometimes expressed in rough accord with Peirce and other times did not. Most of the differences had to do with differences in their expertise — James knew little and cared less about the issues of logic and math that Peirce wrestled with — and differences in their intended audience — James often wrote what were expressly described as "popular lectures" and would often sacrifice precision for the sake of a catchy phrase. Despite how intense humans being can get about the devils and the details, they had more in common than they differed about. Jon Awbrey 03:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

And thank you, Jon, for the same reason; even though every sentence in your remark after the first one is evidence that what I said is true. ;-) --Nate Ladd 19:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: If you think that a statement like "they had more in common than they differed about" is evidence for a statement like "Peirce's and James' theories have virtually nothing in common", then I fear that your judgment of virtue is beyond repair. Jon Awbrey 19:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

What was Kirkham (1992) thinking?

Re: Paragraph removed from "Signs, sentences and propositions" and placed in the section on "Truthbearers": The following material was just added to the paragraph explaining propositions to the reader which is now in the Truthbearer section: "But postulating abstract entities -propositions- is not the only way to account for this phenonemon. It has been argued, by Kirkham for example, that sentence-tokens; the actual physical embodiment of a sentence as a collection of ink molecules or sound waves, can be truthbearers. Since the two utterances are different physical entities, we escape the contradiction of calling the same entity true and false. [Ref to Kirkham, 1992)"

An obvious limitation to Kirkham's supposition is that it is now impossible to say the same sentence twice. (Could you say that again? Er, no.)...Kenosis 02:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC) I should also point out that this sentence I just wrote regarding Kirkham's view is a different sentence on my computer than it is on yours. Are we talking about the same thing here? Am I actually reading what I wrote before I clicked on "Save page"? Er, no...Kenosis 02:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, Kenosis. But you should put your criticisms, which are OR, into a journal article. Kirkham is a respectable philosopher who wrote a peer-reviewed book published MIT Press. His views can be cited here, whether you or I agree with them or not. If you can find another published philosopher who has made your criticism of Kirkham (or some other criticism), then by all means add that in. But you can't veto a source I've cited because you personally have an unpublished, un-peer-reviewed, criticism of him.

(By the way, I don't think your criticism is very strong. Kirkham doesn't say that there are no such things as sentences in an abstract sense (sentence types); so he does not have to deny that two utterances can be the "same sentence" in some sense. He is simply adding that there is another sense of "sentence" (sentence token) in which any two utterances have to count as different sentences. The latter he argues is the kind of thing that has truth or falsity.) --Nate Ladd 19:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact that these observations are casual and unsourced is consistent with my offering them here on the talk page-- and I have no intention of publishing counterarguments to Kirkham at present. Further qualifications to Kirkham's firsthand argument about tokens, may well fit quite handily in this new section Jon just opened up. Don't really know how it'll play out, as folks frequently confuse theories of truth with theories generally. For instance, one of our editors here just recently confused the continental rationists views as being called coherence theories of truth, when in fact coherence theory describes, characterizes, or distinguishes their thought systems. It's an easy mistake to make. But as to Kirkham's supposition about tokens solving the problem, they don't, because one frequently needs to go outside the literal sentence and describe the context in which the sentence was offered, asserted, demanded, questioned, speculated, etc., in order to properly analyze it. (That's a substantial part of the value of the article's paragraph about propositional attitudes by the way.) The statement "i am a football fan" is different when I utter it than when you utter it not because they are different sound waves or electron patterns on a screen, but because I uttered it rather than someone else. Kirkham's supposition simply does nothing but confuse the issue and render such things as photocopies, books, and all restatements and reproductions meaningless (imagine if one of your professors rejected a printout of a research paper because it wasn't the original set of electrons you had used to write the paper?). No matter how one parses it, we end up with some concept like what is understood as "propositions" (some sign, symbol, representation, or potentially meaningful combination thereof that is offered as having truth value to the person to whom it is being offered--how's that for OR? on the talk page of course). ... Kenosis 04:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm still unconvinced, but I don't want to belabor the point, since this page is for discussing the article. No amount of analyzing the sentence tokens is going to change the fact that they are physically distinct. This is all that's needed to escape contradiction when calling one true and the other false. Nothing else your going to discover about the two sentence tokens no matter how, or how long, you analyze them is going to change that fact. I don't understand your remarks about photo copies. Photocopies just illustrate Kirkham's point. There is a sense in which two copies of this page are "the same page", but there is also a sense (physical) in which they are not the same page. This perfectly ordinary fact makes it clear why there's nothing extraordinary in saying exactly the same thing about sentences. At any rate, have we settled the question of whether the Kirkham book can be cited? --24.17.191.142 13:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with citing to Kirkham. But a section on "physical symbol systems" was just carved out to deal with this issue that is sufficiently complex not to be offered as a "handy solution" to the "I am an initiate" or "I am a football fan" example". The question of the truth of such a statement as "I am a football fan" is resolved by intuitively or explicitly analyzing the questions such as "Who said that?" (e.g., "Nate said it"), "When did they say it? (e.g., "Well, that was long ago and is no longer true")", "Was the person serious or just kidding?" (e.g., "Oh yes, he was quite serious"), "Has anyone ever seen him at a football game or watching football? (Er, no), etc., and not resolved by asking "What set of sound waves was it?, (e.g., Oh, but it was a particular set of sound waves as evidenced on a printout of a spectral analysis). What Kirkham proposes is not a solution to the problem. In some ways Kirkham's proposal doesn't cover the breadth of the issues. If a police officer gives you his uniform and badge and you wear it does that make you a cop? No, it makes you an impostor, despite the fact that you're using the exact same token, the exact same electrons (give or take a few stray particles lost or gained in the exchange). In other ways Kirkham's proposal is so broad as to render his own distinction meaningless. If you follow him and start thinking that the issue is what set of sound waves, electrons, ink on the paper, etc., it ends up, you might say, costing $1000 to try to save a nickel, when there are far simpler ways to escape the ancient conundrum of how "I am an initiate" is a statement dependent on who said it in order to evaluate its potential truth. ...Kenosis 16:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Further, the movement of the entire paragraph into the "Truthbearers" section now conflates the flow of the rest of the explanation that was put in having to do with introducing the reader to the idea of "Signs, sentences and propositions". From an editorial and organizational standpoint, that proposed move is counterproductive in light of the fact that the contribution "I am a football fan" was integrated into the article for use as an example showing that "it is not the literal sentence to which truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states." This is far more relevant to introducing the meaning of propositions than to introducing the concept of "truthbearers" in my estimation ...Kenosis 16:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Kirkham is a 2nd or 3rd hand source for this material, and it is easily possible to do much better. The type-token distinction is a rather ancient idea, but Peirce is generally recognized — by those who read — as the one who did the most to bring it into contemporary discussion. And we don't need to read Kirkham to know what Peirce — or in another connection, Tarski — wrote about anything. As I indicated before, I added a new head for dealing with this entire class of issues. It will add nothing but confusion to muddle it into the critical distinction between sentences and propositions. Jon Awbrey 02:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, only the type/token distinction is 2nd hand. The argument for sentence-tokens as truth bearers is Kirkham's. --Nate Ladd 19:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC) Addendum: Since many criticisms of "sentences" as truth bearers presuppose that sentences are not physical entities, we do a disservice to our readers by not making the distinction betweem types and tokens. We need to distinguish propositions from both sentence-types and sentence-tokens. --Nate Ladd 19:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The problem is to explain how sentences with indices like I, here, now, this, that, yonder, etc. make different propositions in different contexts, while other sorts of sentences do not have that property. Resorting to the haecceity of the individual utterance — the moving finger that writes and moves on — gets you nowhere with that problem, since every utterance has just as much "thisness" as any other, whether it contains a word like "this" or not. Jon Awbrey 05:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Glad to see you have decided to grasp the issues rather than hurl insults. And because you have, we've made progress of sorts. Because I can see that we've had different ideas of what the problem is. You haven't described the problem of indexicals for the concept of truth. What you are describing is a problem in the philosophy of language, and its only a "problem" for those who believe propositions exist. I, on the other hand, am writing about the classical problem that confronts one who takes sentence-types as truth bearers: One and the same sentence can be true and false. The (unsourced) argument presently in the text uses this problem as the basis for an argument in favor of taking propositions as truth bearer. If that argument is left standing alone, then we have a POV discussion of truth bearers: one which has an argument for propositions but no argument for sentence tokens, or sentence types, or beliefs, etc. To restore NPOV we need to either delete that argument or add to it at least one argument for another candidate truth bearer. (Actually, to be fair we should have at least on argument for every proposed type of truth bearer.) I can go either way. What I can't accept is a POV discussion of truth bearers. NPOV is the heart and soul of wikipedia. --24.17.191.142 13:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on the details above, but I notice there is no footnote to the Kirkham book in the article as of today. But the article does refer to Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles that are decades old. What is wrong with this picture? --Wylie Ali 04:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Nathan Ladd had the unfortunate habit of mass deleting previously consensual text in the process of adding his own bits, so the Kirkham refs probably got lost in the process of reverting his unjustified deletions. On a related note, what's been wrong with the WikiPicture for a long time now is a general lack of sourcing and an excess reliance on 2ndary sources like Kirkham and 3rdary sources like other encyclopedia articles. They come in handy when you're in a hurry, but they often lead to mush in the long run, and so it's best to gradually replace them with primary sources as you get the time. Jon Awbrey 04:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Having looked at the edit history it now seems to me that your description of what happened with Mr. Ladd is inaccurate and self-serving. Looks to me like he was the victim here. --Wylie Ali 19:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §1. Toward a more balanced perspective

JA: The article on Truth currently suffers from an acute POV problem that I have remarked on periodically, but not yet tried to address in any bolder or more direct way. But the 1-eyed character of the Encyclops in question, and the distortions imposed by a 2-dim map of the relevant terrain, now threaten to become a permanent block in the road of inquiry and a source of continuing disservice to all those who inquire after the best thoughts of our kind on the subject of truth. That is something that must now be addressed. Jon Awbrey 11:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The current POV of the article is fairly described as a "linguistic-analytic point of view" (LA POV). This is a POV that arises out of the logicist-atomist-empiricist-positivist philosopy (LAEPP) that was popular in some quarters during the 1900's. The fact that several other POVs are accorded token mention in the article does nothing to balance the LAEPP-sidedness of the article, as the other POVs are all described as they appear from the LA POV. The fact that a very minor theme of this nominal philosophy is used as the major axis for classifying other approaches to the subject is only one of the more striking bits of evidence for its lack of balance. On top of that we have the fact that many traditionally recognized aspects of the subject cannot even be intelligently discussed from the LA POV. Jon Awbrey 11:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Jon, as I recall, you yourself put in additional material concerning the LA emphasis. Of course it is emphasized--indeed this slant dominated and continues to affect the character of the philosophical discussion for a whole century. Other slants provided by other editors were based on modern reactions to the LAEPP and derivative LA slant, most conspicuously the "deflationary" theories. We've actually discussed this before in attempting to sort through the immense confusion, and made great headway in presenting the major theories as a result. I would certainly agree that it would be beneficial to provide better balance in the article, though it should be done cautiously and with some interactive planning if possible so as to potentially achieve this aim successfully. Haack's foundherentism, for instance, is a worthy slant (even if not particularly an advance over the pragmatists' perspective). So do other noteworthy slants, including the constructivist and consensus theories--I believe these were earlier tagged as stubs, and would not object to tagging them again as an incentive to expand them to equivalent length as some of the other sections. Appreciate your comment here...Kenosis 15:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: It is one of the POVs in the mix of contemporary conversation on meaning and truth, though not as dominant outside certain parishes as some would have us believe. And I have been tolerant of the article's bias so long as it was providing a coherent account of how things look from the "lonely wooden towers" of one peculiar POV. But if the canversation (= can'o'worms) is opened up yet again to include concrete-physical-sign-token-vehicles, as various and sundry semioticians have long discussed them, then I cannot sit still for yet another raft of unnecessarily vague neo-logicist terms on a par with "truthbearer", not when there is a vast literature of prior wisdom on the subject. Jon Awbrey 15:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

OK then, so let us call this to the attention of Banno, RNorwood, JimWae and other regular participants and see if there is a reasonable guideline for what's notable among the modern experiments, of which there are many, and some of which are so obscure that they perhaps best belong in the Truth theory article but not here. We just ran into a classic example of an ill-considered "solution" to the problem of positional statements in the form of Kirkham's resurrection of the physical token. Your (JA's) attempt at a solution by providing a section for this appears to be potentially very useful to readers. A token (e.g. a coin) has certain identifiable characteristics analogous to a proposition (leading us, of course, back to the LA concepts of "sentences" and their underlying propositions). A quarter is identifiably different than a nickel, two different quarters generally say the same thing even though not the same physical object. The shape of a quarter has a monetary truth value connected with it, though doesn't of itself settle the question of who the quarter truthfully belongs to, nor the question who last gave the quarter to whom with what intent. This section has potential, though right now I don't have the sources in hand myself. Maybe I'll order a few books and be able to help in a week or two...Kenosis 16:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

So, what do you propose to add to the article?...Kenosis 16:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The spasmodic constriction in depth and horizon that overtook certain quarters of philosophy beginning with the early years of the 1900s was due in large part to a spate of eliminationist movements that are in fact very typical of the fads that arise every time the calendar ticks overs a couple of double-aughts — and this is of course a tenfold cautionary tale for the times and the morés of our triple-aught ticking off. There was in those years a kind of industrial revolution that occurred in philosophy — academic factories sprang up that put the lately automated mechanisms of syntax to work on cranking out new ∧ improved (limited warranty) "truths" on a mass-production basis. Bold tycoons of philosophy proposed to return us to the tabula rasa, wiping the slate of our collective historical consciousnes clean of all the benighted somnambulist mysticism of our aboriginal pre-scientific dreamtime. They were doing us a favor — we know because they wouldn't stop telling us so. Jon Awbrey 13:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The fact is that philosophy has a life before, around, and after analytic philosophy, and this is no longer news anywhere but in certain parochial backwaters. I see no reason why WP should continue to languish in that backwatered-down condition. So I will begin to propose a few specific ways that this backwardness can be amended. Jon Awbrey 14:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: One of the distinctive features of the linguistic-analytic POV continues to be the idea of "Logic Through Syntax Alone". The excessive enthusiasm for what could be achieved through syntactic analysis led the early slate-wipers to put out of mind all of the previous generations of progress that had been achieved on the broader fronts of semiotics, including what was later re-invented under the neo-logicist heads of semantics and pragmatics. With the so-called progress of spasmodern times, when the unbalanced excess of stress on syntax began to wane, certain quarters of academic literature had quite literally managed to forget that there had been a vast resource of work done on aspects of meaning, signficance, and truth that previous thinkers were never so 1-dimensional as to dream could be reduced to syntax. What was thought well-lost was not so well-lost, but a continuing attitude of "we're too modern to do stuff like homework" made them try to recreate fragments of the loss from scratch. Scratch indeed. Jon Awbrey 14:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

RE. "One of the distinctive features of the linguistic-analytic POV continues to be the idea of "Logic Through Syntax Alone": I could not agree more. Future improvements in the article should indeed reflect this limitation of what you've termed LAEPP and its stepchild LA...Kenosis 17:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Back to the unidentional format, as I dislike the steadily narrower writing that comes out of the other way of doing things, and I don't like the prospect of losing an argument simply by dint of being slammed up against the wall of the Forum — plus I suspect a political bias in the fact that it's always the far-right wall. Jon Awbrey 16:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: First off, the deliberately vague neologism of "truthbearer" is a prime example of LA Philosophie "reinventing the wheel but making it square", simply because they disdained to read the history of what had gone before, the level of sophistication of which they are far from grasping even as we speak. But at least we could work around that with a gloss of the pertinent variety that fell under its umbrella. But the umbrella turns inside out when exposed to truthbearers of genuine physical force, and that makes it all the more necessary to do some of the long-post-poned homework on those more pragmatic folks who dealt with these problems from the start. Indeed, many of the same issues eventually got forced on the attention of researchers in numerous fields, from linguistics — the whole Chomsky–Skinner debate was largely about this — to artificial intelligence, where one of its forerunners, W.S. McCulloch was well aware of both the Scholastic and the Peircean traditions, to the theme of categorical perception in cognitive science, to the theme of indexicality in several of the just-mentioned fields. And there are already several not-always-aware-of-each-other voyages of re*discovery in the literatures that followed on classical semiotics without always knowing who had gone before. Jon Awbrey 17:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The theme of indexicality is discussed at somewhat x-cruciating length in Peirce's semiotics, (or semeiotic), where it arises in connection with his classification of signs into icons, indices, and symbols, and also in relation to his categories (cf. the stub work in progress "On a New List of Categories". A lot of this discussion refers in turn to Aristotle's "On Interpretation" and to the Scholastic concept of haecceity. Jon Awbrey 19:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The discusion of physicality in symbol systems long ago passed the level that folks have so far been willing to tolerate in this introductory article. Anything that approaches an up-to-date account would have to cover 5 or 6 decades worth of work in automata theory, formal languages, information theory, and systems theory. The state of the art in this area long ago ceased to consider things like individual tokens as the main items of discussion, since they are viewed as nothing more than aspects of the primary reality of a system, which is that system's state. So the least we can do here is to try and avoid saying anything radically misinformative or just plain silly in comparison to current levels of thinking. Jon Awbrey 20:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The most pressing need at this point is to relocate the article in the broader context of long-standing discussions about the inseparable subjects of expression, inquiry, meaning, and truth. Two specific needs in this regard are (1) to overcome the hopelessly POV-bound peculiarites of the term "truthbearer", and (2) to find a less POV-centric way of classifying theories than the eliminationist criterion of whether the predicate "ISA_TRUTH" is amenable to periphrasis in canonical linguistic contexts. Jon Awbrey 15:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §2. Consensus changes

I think there's a misunderstanding by some editors of this page about the role of concensus. Prior to the recent activity of Kenosis and Jon Awbrey, the article had changed little in a long time. That's because it embodied a concensus of those who were watching it. JA and K were right to make changes where they thought they could improve on it. It would have been wrong for anyone to stop them on the grounds that they were changing something that had consensus agreement (even though that is exactly what they were doing). By the same token, no one now can reject a change merely on the grounds that it changes a preceding concensus. Particular reasons have to be given for and against each change in terms of what's good for the article. It is a hallmark of Wiki that no decision is ever final. Concensus isn't something that is reached once on wiki and then left unchanged. Concensus has to be re-reached on an almmost daily basis as new editors become active and old ones move away. --Nate Ladd 19:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Once again, the majority of Nathan Ladd's statements are simply false, and exhibit a lack of due attention to the facts. Anybody who was here at the time knows that the article went through major extensions and revisions, all of which were raked over in detail on the discussion page, and what remained had every line gone over multiple times by multiple editors. That kind of consensus deserves respect, and is not to be trashed in a trice by anyone who gets back from Spring Break or something and simply can't take the time to deal with what's there. Jon Awbrey 19:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Once again with the namecalling. Your remarks don't address the point. There's never a consensus that's permanent. As the pool of editors changes, so too the consensus must be established and reestablished. There have been many many "at the times" when the article was gone over my many editors long before you were ever on wikipedia. You cannot pick a particular date in the past and declare it to be a consensus which cannot be deviated from by anyone else. (And if that were allowed, I'd be entitled to do it with the version last edited before you got involved!) Moreover, the logic of your position is that ANY change, even those you make, are bad because of course all changes deviate from yhour arbitrarily chosen consensus date. Its transparently obvious you are just trying to immunize yourself from being edited by declaring your views to be a consensus which is not made of concrete. Your not fooling anyone. --Nate Ladd 12:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Several editors have repeatedly given reasons, both philosophical and organizational, as to why the indexicality and physicality issues should not be confounded with the commonly recognized important distinction between sentences and propositions, and we have introduced a new heading where those questions can be taken up, with all due consideration to the various literatures that have addressed those topics over the last 150 years at least. Jon Awbrey 20:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

No one wants to "confound" the sentence/propositional distinction with other distinctions. I want the article to discuss sentence tokens as truthbearers in addition to discussing propositions and sentence types. You have not given any reason why we should have a POV discussion of truth bearers that leaves unmentioned one kind of truth bearer. --Nate Ladd 12:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Both I and Kenosis, just in STM, have addressed this issue and given ample reasons why the indexicality and physicality issues should not be visited on the hapless reader in the process of trying to convey the key distinction between propositions and sentences, by that or any other name. This is not a POV issue. All of these topics, including the thesis that you mistakenly originate with Kirkham, have an extremely long history in numerous specialized literatures. They are all quite fascinating topics, some of them having occupied me personally for at least three decades, just in LTM, but that does not give them primary pertinence to the topics that are most pressing to introduce at this point in the article, or even immediate materiality to what you of all people have insisted remain at the level of an introductory article. Insert ironicon here. Jon Awbrey 13:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: There is no question of immunity. It is simply a matter of weighting each statement in the text with the quantum of BTT&S extruded toward a mediate consensus about its current state. It is simply a question of giving due regard to the labors of others. So where's the question? Jon Awbrey 15:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §3. Real theories & Nominal theories

JA: I thought that I had lit enough flares and sounded enough horns to alert every equestrian and pedestrian in the vicinity, but my use of "real" versus "nominal" merely returns us to the time-honored tradition of calling spades spades. It is "substantive" and "deflationary" that are the diversionary neo-logicisms on this scene, though it's okay by me if we retain them in passing as sops to the tragically hip. Jon Awbrey 17:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The whole truth business is tragic, and the current intro to the article is quite correct. There are, however, "major" theories, and "minimalist" theories appear to me to deserve mention under that head, for lack of a better title to date. What I am having a bit of a problem with at the moment is the introduction of the neo-classical or "substantive" theories as "realist" theories. This is because not all of them are "realist", while all five classifications are substantive. Perhaps we're better off defining what is meant by "substantive" than by retitling the subsection head as "realist". Consensus and constructivist theories are not realist theories, and coherence theory generally also is not "realist" because of the inherent problem of justification that attaches. This leaves us with correspondence and pragmatic, with an issue about how to organize the rest.... Kenosis 03:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Sure, but I just started at the top of the section and will probably take a while to munch my way through. The point that I've been trying to articulate for many moons now is that the article currently employs a classification scheme that is in fact one of the goggle-reticles of a partisan POV. No way to cleanse all the doors of perception of course, but we can certainly brush off some of the mustier cobwebs from the threshold of the article. Jon Awbrey 04:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Re-reading your comments, I realize that I probably need to emphasize 2 or 3 points. The word "substantive" is not likely to get a standard definition, as we only started using that as a stop-gap replacement for the greater evil, POV-wise, of "inflationary". But the use of "realist" has been pretty well defined as I gave it, with only a slight adaptation, from ancient times (Methuselah, 2348 BC). A careful reading of the definition will reveal that coherence and consensus theories are not necessarily excluded from being realist in this sense. It depends on the details of the particular formulation. The main question to ask is this: Do well-formed questions have objective answers, in the sense that all observers who pursue a question are destined to come to the same answer? Asked another way, is there something that causes inquiries to gravitate toward a determinate end? Even if you don't start out assuming real objects, a positive answer to these questions is the moral equivalent believing in an objective reality. Jon Awbrey 04:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Substantive" is as opposed to "responsive" which characterizes the basic nature of the minimalists, though we don't dare call them "responses and objections" here, because they are so widely called theories (or do we dare characterize them as "responses and objections to the major theories"?). "Deflationary" or "minimalist" is as opposed to the "X is true" or "Y is not-true" fomulations of the problem by Russell et al. So your criticism is fair enough. But I requested that we approach this earlier on with something more explicit than hinting in the introduction about "touchstone for distinguishing" some of the theories of truth. Even the slight concession towards directness to the reader that you (JA) acceded to at the time was, shall we say, reluctantly accepted. Best we be more explicit about what the deflationists are responding to, per the rather extensive comments you made above about the straglehold Russell developed in the philosophical discussion that only began to abate after he died in 1971. ...Kenosis 05:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I haven't looked at it in a while to see if it's still there, but we did once have a fairly careful reading of Ramsey to see exactly what he was about, shorn of all the secondary source chatter. That is what always works best for me. The argument that Ramsey used basically just adapts a very old technique of nominal thinkers everywhere, known as periphrasis. Supposedly, if you can explain a word away by talking your way around it in "every", but really just every context you wish to think about, then the word and its concept are otiose. This clearly puts the last court of appeal for every concept squarely within the jursidiction of LA. Jon Awbrey 05:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

And I don't necessarily object to the use of "realist" in the sense that consensus and constructivist theories are realist about the social phenomena that they argue give rise to what is regarded as "truth". In that sense of the word (which I currently imagine to be probably dead meat in a serious OR debate here) "realist" does not stand together with the modern use of the term "anti-realist" in the context of "truth" analyses. But I'd need to do some further research on that. I'll get back to ya' on it. ... Kenosis 05:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Speaking of baloney, since I do not confuse the "modern predicate" with the "truth predicate", its use here only prompts me to ask "Where's the beef?" Jon Awbrey 05:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no beef, only baloney (and an occasional sausage). 'Night...Kenosis 05:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I can dig up some references more recent than Methuselah if you're worried about the risk of personal genesis on my part, but the fact is that the term "realism" long time passing had but one sensible definition in philosophy, and that was Platonic or Scholastic realism, a thesis that things like essences, generals, hypostases, potentials, properties, qualities, universals, und so weiter could be real, where the word "real" meant "having properties all its own". One did not need a term-of-art "realism" to say (1) "I believe that there is a reality" or (2) "I believe that real things are real", since there is no art to the sophomoric solipsism that would say otherwise. At the turn of the 1900s, however, sophomoric solipsism acquired a whole new raft of PR-men to tout its putative virtues, and the former terms-of-art have been all but tooted out of hearing by the new-fangled terms-o-fart. Jon Awbrey 12:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough then. I'm OK with "Realist (substantive) theories..." as a description for the "big five" for lack of a better overarching term. The parenthetical "substantive" gives credit for some modern classifications of these difficult-to-classify groups and matches the format of the parenthetical "minimalist" farther down. Let's see how it plays. Frankly, I think it'd deserve a strong and convincing argument, or some approach where we all say "Aha! That's it!", to overrule such an approach. I still caution, though, about the quirksome use of "anti-realist" in recent truth discourse. ... Kenosis 17:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Just so you don't get too comfy, then, here's the next thought. If there are realist and not-so-realist varieties of POVs like coherence theories and consensus theories, then maybe that distinction is not such a good one to pick for the initial partition of Gaul, and maybe we should consider another. Jon Awbrey 17:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How about the "Iraq method"-- three countries according to ethnicity?. Maybe "traditional substantive theories" works after all. Only complaint I have at the moment is that the developing description is beginning to meander again. How soon can I and others get in there and distill the work without vehement objection? (Gotta go--talk later) ..Kenosis 17:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: A due respect for the rack'n'pinions of history demands that it be called the Treaty of Versailles (TOV) method, on account of all the interesting history that it catalyzed. But a review of those histories is leading me to believe that it might be better to focus on the never-say-die-ing questions and the oft-overlapping spotlights that traverse the "field of view" (FOV), rather than the old turf'n'serf divisionary-re-visionisms — "the territory is however we colo(u)r the map" — techniques of partition'n'publish'n'perish that gave us such a Gutzeit in the Cold2Cryogenetic Wars of n-humane past×, if you catch my paradigm shift in spite of all the semantic drift. Jon Awbrey 13:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §4. Material removed for discussion and analysis

I have removed the following material for further analysis and discussion as to its value to the article...Kenosis 04:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"The latter terms imply that the property or relation in question exists independently of individual opinion or perception, and thus can be inquired into with a reasonable expectation of arriving at a definite answer. To speak of objectivity and reality in regard to truth is not to say that truth exists exclusively of mind in general or separate from all mention of conscious agents."04:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Two points. (1) I'm not the one who raised the twin spectres of indexicality and physicality in this setting, but if we're going to take them up in a serious way, then there's some background material that will need to be patched in. I'm doing that where it occurs to me, recognizing that some reordering may have to happen later on. (2) I was working up a proper treatment of realism in its own right. I'm not convinced that its main purpose is to classify the theories that are currently placed under the head of realism, so I'm not tailoring it to fit around them. Jon Awbrey 04:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No harm, no foul, no sweat at present...Kenosis 04:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: One more point. The statement that you deleted is essential for avoiding a number of very popular but very false dichotomies. Jon Awbrey 04:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No matter, the form of "explanation" I removed doesn't explain anything of relevance in its current form; perhaps in more articulate form they belong in the truth theory article. ...Kenosis 04:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: There's a very common misapprehension out there that people who say nice things about objectivity and reality must somehow be denying the subjective relational side of experience in the very same breath. It is necessary to stress that the forms of realism worth having do not require this. Jon Awbrey 05:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §5. Making a mess of an article

What is going on here. After a large amount of work and a great deal of lengthy discussion, there was an article on truth that gave reasonable explanations/summaries/synopses of the major slants on truth. Admittedly it was capable of being improved. Jon Awbrey split off the obscure slants into an article called truth theory, and gave for all to see an argument that there was a place for a "simpler" set of explanations about "truth" and a separate, more technical one. That article on truth theory (the more technical one), despite the lack of "interference" from editors other than Jon Awbrey, currently is a mess of disorganized, confused and extremely lengthy meanderings interspersed with highly technical jargon without direction or balance in both content and style. Now it's happening to the article on truth again. Please stop and put it back so there is a reasonable lead-in and then discussion of the major perspectives on truth. No doubt we can continue to work on it bit-by-bit from there. ... Kenosis 16:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: (DIYD) all over again. Just a few days ago there was this hue and cry that the article had become too stable and stodgy, and there was this persistent insistence that we shove a whole new layer of more physical logs under the abstract pyramid so tortoisoid in its infinitesimal momentum, and now, after spending a week in advance notification and discussion about what sorts of springs and catches would have to be arranged in order to budge it off the status quo, now, all of sudden it appears that the immunity is on the other foot. What good does it do to discuss things in advance on the talk page if nobody is taking the trouble to read it, or taking the proposals seriously when they do? There's not a single thing here that I haven't reiterated for months and months now. Do I really have to put a POV tag back on the article just to convince you that I really mean it? What is this, the "maintainance tag theory of truth"? Jon Awbrey 17:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

There was no such persistence. One editor comes along and asks a few questions (actually reasonable ones based on published material by Kirkham), and JA goes off on a Joycian tear. Ridiculous...Kenosis 17:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Point 1. Despite the de(con)structive style of critique, I took those criticisms seriously, and I have laid down some of the caissons and shorings that it would take to address them responsibly, and not just as a desultory fillip inserted as diversionary material in the midst of other important topics. Jon Awbrey 17:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Despite this assertion just made by JA, the persistent outcry from numerous editors has been "too obscure! too technical! too much meandering! lacking in focus!" etc. along the same lines. To which I would add: "lacking in balance of other equivalently technical perspectives! non-parsimonious!". And, sure enough, here we go again. A new article was created to deal with this stuff and justified accordingly by JA. Please use it accordingly as well...Kenosis 17:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Look, I was there. There was a persistent re*version of any version that did not mention a particular pet idea in the particular place of choice. So I provided a place to potty train that pet idea. I resisted taking it in because I know from some acquaintance with its grandsires and grandbitches that it takes some care and feeding if you don't want a mess all over the yard. If it turns out, as very often happens, that the e-thusiasts in question lose interest in the stray idea that followed them home once they realize that caring for it might actually involve some BTT&S, then, yes, I'll gladly find a more responsible home for it, but right now its still imprinted on the place. Grow up and let grow up, that's my motto. Jon Awbrey 18:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kenosis completely with what he says in this section. --Wylie Ali 04:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Although I do not agree with a lot of other things he says on this page. It is right to say this article is a mess. --MengTheMagnificent 03:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §6. Meta-analytical section removed

This metaphilosophy does not belong in this article. That's why the truth theory article was created. If it fits there, please put it there. ... Kenosis 18:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Any attempt to address a subject so deeply entangled with all human forms of expression and inquiry and so wide-ranging in the complexities of its issues must begin by identifying a few points of focus for the initial setting out and a few lines of likely direction for organizing the account.

As a practical matter, academic studies and everyday discussions of truth always begin by acknowledging, either tacitly or expressly, a particular horizon for their activity. That is, they accept a number of limitations on the subject matter and a variety of restrictions on the methods and styles that are considered in bounds of sensible proceedings. The alternative, an attempt to proceed without bounds of any kind, typically results in discursive chaos and intellectual paralysis. Though practical methods depend on observing the practical limits of a given horizon, it is still possible under the right conditions to integrate the bits of data from localized frames of reference into more comprehensive and consensual views of the subject matter. This strategy of integration has been given a number of different names in different fields, notably by Michael Polanyi, who called it the principle of mutual control, referring to the way that domains of personal and disciplinary expertise form "chains of overlapping neighborhoods" (Polanyi 1966, p. 72).

These considerations lead to the following pair of questions to ask about any discussion or investigation of truth:

• Aspects. What sorts of subjects and predicates are considered within bounds? Is the discussion concerned with a broader or a narrower domain of subject matters and a deeper or a shallower spectrum of things that can be said about these subjects?

• Approaches. What attitudes, methods, and styles of discussion are characteristic of a given approach to the aspects of truth that are acknowledged by the approach in question? All human approaches to absolutes are just that, approximations to desired levels of accuracy and completeness that are yet to be achieved. Depending on the application, an approach to a subject may be nothing more than a hazy impression of the area, or it may be so advanced as to admit of an axiomatic theory.

NPOV Dispute §7. Conceptual problems

The following is the current form of the introduction to the five major theories, not counting the "deflationary" theories. What is this all supposed to mean to a reasonably intelligent but previously uninformed reader?. Platonic realism in the link from "realism"? Anything more current? What about consensus and constructivist theory in this proposed schema? What do the four "definitions" intend to refer to? These "definitions" of what a "realist" theory is doesn't explain anything meaningful, at least not as an intro for a previously unexposed reader to the five major classes of substantive theories of truth. We just went over this argument, and JA held that the rightful place for the more technical article was truth theory... Kenosis 18:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Realist (substantive) theories of truth

A realist theory of truth treats truth as a meaningful concept, having reference to a property or a relation that exists objectively or in reality. The terms "objectively" and "in reality" imply that the property or relation in question exists independently of individual opinion or perception, and thus can be inquired into with a reasonable expectation of arriving at a definite answer. To speak of objectivity and reality in regard to truth is not to say that truth exists exclusively of mind in general or separate from all mention of conscious agents.

In this variety of perspectives, the concept of truth may refer to any or all of the following types of things:

1. A property of a meaning-bearing element that it possesses in and of itself.
2. A definable relation among meaning-bearing elements.
3. An identifiable relation among meaningful elements and other types of objects in reality.
4. A specifiable relation among meaningful elements, objects in reality, and interpretive agents.

It is an assumption of realist theories that ascribing truth to meaning-bearing elements says something significant about them. Theorists working within realist conceptual frameworks analyze truth as a descriptive property with a character that can be discovered through philosophical investigation and reflection. The task for such theorists is to explain the alleged character of truth. Appreciating what these theories say and what they do not say is critically dependent on understanding the concepts of formal independence and formal invariance. In particular, it is crucial to observe the distinction between relations of independence or invariance and relations of exclusion or separation.

A quick hint of the main ideas involved here can be had by way of analogous ideas that emerged during the 20th century revolutions in physics. One theme that was placed in high relief by this process was the idea that all observation is participatory observation and thus involves an active relation between the objective world that is being observed and the subjective agent that is doing the observing. This has consequences for the kinds of objectivity that can be achieved and the means by which they can be achieved. It means that invariant laws and objective truths are not obtained by throwing out all relative data, or seeking data that has no shade of subjectivity, but only by using this data, the only kind of data that we ever really have, as the ore from which laws and truths are mined. Likewise, merely including interpretive agents in the transactions among meaning elements and objective realities does not in itself ruin the chances of truths having objective reference to mind-independent realities.

JA: The preliminary and transitional material that I added, the stuff that you called "meta-artchitectonic irrelevances", is precisely the sort of field-cultivation that is needed to take up comparative and critical analyses of the Big Five, an independent perspective that the article at present sorely lacks, since it's POV is stuck fast in LA, with a few feeble feelers out toward COR. But the added material is designed to do more than MC 5, and only those. It is intended to open up the space of consideration to many of the topics that are currently relegated to the dags — excuse my Aussian — of the article, mostly on account of the circumstunt that LA has never had anything remotely interesting to say about them. Jon Awbrey 21:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. that's what the truth theory article is for. Please keep this mind-poison out of the article on truth...Kenosis 22:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §8. When NPOV means the Gospel according to JA

Fine, leave the POV tag. This is disingenuous, because we just went over these issues very recently. JA decides that because one editor recently made some points above about Kirkham's perspective, the whole level of obscurity and meandering attempts to define the elements slated for the truth theory article should now be re-imposed on the article on truth. The justification so vehemently given by JA for the truth theory article was for a place where overarching and meta-analytical terms relating to the subject could be discussed. Why do this?...Kenosis 18:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You know by now that anything I write can be documented in the hard-copy published literatures of those who have addressed the subject matter in question. Or else I will withdraw it. If there is some locus where you suspect me of a fiat lux, then kindly place one of those handy {fact} tags, and that will remind me to go look it up for you. I suspect that the only reason why some people, present company x-cepted, do not do this more often is that their desire is not to know, but not to know. Jon Awbrey 18:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §9. Unwarranted Charges of Original Research

JA: Kenosis, this is a matter that I take very seriously. There are very, very many insufficiently sourced statements in most WP articles, the article on Truth especially, but the assumption of good faith means that we let most of them pass unless we simply cannot do otherwise, due to conflicts with what we otherwise know. A lack of familiarity with a subject on one person's part does not constitute an excess of originality on another person's part. Do not delete good faith edits and do not charge original research unless you have asked for citations and been steadfastly refused them after a decent interval.

JA: If I meant to allude to the "linguistic turn" that Rorty blazoned, then I would have said precisely that. The term "linguistic-analytic" is one in general use, it is self-explanatory, and it accurately describes a particular approach to meaning and truth that goes back to the dawn of philosophy. If you want a head to include more than that then you have to allow more than that under the head in question. Until then, best practice dictates using heads that fit their contents. Jon Awbrey 22:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I sure wouldn't want to falsely accuse JA of OR. I sure hope this reshuffling results in a better article. Maybe it will, but this remains to be seen.

Among other things newly brought onto the table here, there is still better concision and somewhat better clarity to be sought in the intro to "realist" (substantive) theories. And I still vaguely suspect that when I check the literature we will find that the use of "realist" in truth discourse typically refers to something different than what is currently being referred to in the article on truth when theorists dare to use the term "realist"-- but that remains to be seen also...Kenosis 00:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: When you do finally dip into the literature(s), be sure to let me know. For my part, been there, read that, got the T-shirt, so do let me continue to continue while I wait. Jon Awbrey 02:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I smell OR here, and I smell it strong. But I'd be happy to be wrong upon consulting relevant sources among the thousands available on the subject...Kenosis 03:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC) ... Where I particularly sense OR is in the proposed use of "realist". I'd be willing to bet a nickel at even odds, and also be happy to lose the bet. ... Kenosis 03:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: ORdure is in the gnosis of the gnosis-be-holder. When it comes to main article pages, I believe I honor the Not-Up-Making-Stuff (NUMS) policy 10 to 20 times better than what's in the breaches of most WifiPu articles that I have on my Snifflist, and that's a lot. There's a standard mechanism for requesting freshness data if you get a whiff of something you think is fish. I won't mind a bit. I'd very much prefer it to having three days worth of tabula rased just because you scent something unfamiliar. But I can't possibly guess in advance all of the things that some folks are e-stranger to. Jon Awbrey 03:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yep, no kidding about the WikiSnifflist. One or more things at the moment, to the extent that I might give a whoot about a "good result" in this article (whatever exactly a "good result" might be): ...Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1) what I already said about the use of "realist". Like the use of "analytic" and the use of philosophae, it has different meanings in different times and contexts. I'm ascared of it, and would like to see some sourcing on the use of it if possible. Thus far I only see the use of "anti-realist" in some literature....Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Wha'happened is fairly easily explained if anybody's really interested, but since I've already explained it several times alright already on this talk page alone, with no apparent recog from you of that fact, my initial assumption of it being a bona fide question has since been updated to probably rhetorical. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1) I'm also ascared of another JA writing tear which requires a microparsing and teardown to arrive at something like a summary or synopsis of specific slants....Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1) I'm also ascared of using additional original slants to deal with the question of CHARLES PEIRCE again in the context of semiotic approaches, while keeping integrated the basic pragmatic slant. Maybe differentiating in one sentence between Peirce the pragmatist and Peirce the semioticist will be required....Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Same guy. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1a) I'm also ascared of the current use of "analytic" and "linguistic analytic". It has in it the following problem. Analytic refers to much of what is currently known as philosophy at least from Heraclitus forward....Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: On that disheartening note I'll just retire, and probably whimper myself to sleep. Jon Awbrey 05:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1b) Then again, it gets wrapped up in the linguistic turn. Then again it gets contorted in the concept of analytic and post-analytic philosophy. Is "post analytic" intended to refer to what? everyone just stops thinking? It's a new one to me. If the article is going to deal with this issue, best we clarify it quickly, source it, and integrate accordingly. ...Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Done. Jon Awbrey 21:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• 1) "This section is a stub; you can help by expanding it (but not too much, lest this become an article about everything in the world)"...Kenosis 04:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §10. Deck Chairs, No Music

JA: After all that shuffling and gibing, you have basically re-instated the same POSH arangement as before, Port Out, Starboard Home, and everything that isn't T and analytic philosophy in tucked out of sight in steerage. But nobody made you captain on this 3-hour cruise, so I don't need your leave to contribute here, and I'll walk that plank another time, all your cruise direction notwithstanding. Jon Awbrey 02:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

See: Misplaced Pages:Guide to writing better articles, especially sections 2 and 3. Earlier, one paragraph about what the deflationists were responding to would have done it. Now it's a complete mess again. In addition to the above concerns, here's another. Correspondence theory is the historical "realist" theory, and an important cornerstone for pragmatic theory built substantially on the foundation of correspondence. At this point, the attempt to break the whole explanation up according to "analytic" and "post-analytic" contorts virtually everything in the article. Spend $100 to try to save a buck. When previously we had five major theories to introduce to readers, pretty much up front. ...Kenosis 19:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You're confusing realism, a long-established term of art in philosophy, with Realpolitik. It's a common mistake, but no less a misteak for a'that. Long before I washed ashore in WikiParador, the WikiPandas had already found it necessary to create a Pragmatism (non-technical usage) article so all those ${\displaystyle \star }$Trekkies who had just found out about wha'happened to the lost moon Praxis of the Klingon homeworld Qo'noS would have a guestbook wherein to scribble their graffiti of earnest condolence to Worf. It's so hard to please everybody, but you gotta try. Jon Awbrey 20:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Gotta go. better things to do right now. Curmudgeonry here. By the way, the additional category of Truth in specialized contexts is an excellent idea. Bye....Kenosis 20:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §11. Irrelevant sections

I'm inclined to delete the paragraph, quoted here, because it has no relevance to the paragraphs that precede or follow it. For that matter, it doesn't have any obvious relevance to anything in the article. If anyone wants to keep it, please add something to it so that readers can see what its relevance is. --Nate Ladd 18:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

"Difficulties in human communication often arise from the fact that persons are capable of taking up different attitudes, called propositional attitudes, toward what they think, say, or write, and may express their different stances in widely different linguistic modalities. Propositions can, for example, be accepted, asserted, believed, commanded, contested, declared, denied, doubted, enjoined, exclaimed, expected, imagined, intended, observed, proven, questioned, suggested, or wished to be true. Differentiating among the various attitudes and modalities a person can take toward a proposition can be critical in evaluating truth. Due to the many factors involved, the analyses can be quite complex, and the philosophical discussions generally reflect this complexity."

Actually the entire section this paragraph is in "Signs, sentences, and propositions" and the section "Physical symbol systems" don't seem to have any relevance to the the topic of truth. Someone add something to them to show their relevance or I'm going to delete them. --Nate Ladd 22:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. And also the section "Approaches independent of analytic philosophy" which is all unsourced original research. Much of the organization of this article into sections does not match any traditional organization of this subject. At best it is a kind of original research proposal for reconceiving the subject. The proposal should be made at an APA convention, not in introductory encyclopedia article. --MengTheMagnificent 03:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: An admission of unfamiliarity with the topic on your part does not constitute originality on my part. The standard procedure for addressing doubts about the groundedness of any statement is to request citations for the specific statement that you have questions about, either on the discussion page or by using one of the handy {fact} tags on the statements in question. Jon Awbrey 03:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I do know the subject. (And I never said or implied otherwise.) That's how I know that the organization of this article includes subordinate topics that have no connection with the main topic of the article. The original research I'm complaining about is not a statement, it is the idiosyncratic organization of the article. Or perhaps I should say the idiosyncratic inclusion of irrelevant topics. How would you suggest that I "{fact}" the structure of the article? (Put a {fact} on the title?) But now that you mention it, there are a lot of original research statements in this article too. -- MengTheMagnificent 04:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You seem to be saying that the inclusion of anything that might fall under the heading of "approaches to the subject of truth that are independent of analytic philosophy" is idiosyncratic and irrelevant to the subject of truth as you so well know it. That is a well-known POV, but that is all it is, a particular POV, and the fact that some people do not accord consideration to alternative POVs is the very reason that the article currently bears a POV tag. To say that any other POV is "irrelevant" is your POV. To say that the alternative POV is "idiosyncratic" is to say nothing more than the moral equivalent of a singular individual shares that alternative POV, and that is simply a false statement. To say that the alternative POV is "original research" is to say that it orginates with the present contributor of it, and that is simply a false statement, as can amply be documented if you so desire. Jon Awbrey 04:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

By all means, please cite published discussions of theories of truth that divide the subject into Analytic and non-Analytic theories, and which contain material in the latter section that is substantially the same as what is now in the "Approaches independent of analytic philosophy" section of this article. --MengTheMagnificent 05:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Thank you, I will bring more primary sources to bear on the topics. Please note, however, that I very deliberately avoided casting things as a dichotomy of AP versus Non-AP. Post-AP developments include some that promote or extend AP views and others that more or less sharply depart from them, but they all pretty much stay within the slate of questions that were put on the ballot by AP. No doubt many of the passed on APs would spin in their graves if I mentioned the name of Hegel in this connection, so I will. Jon Awbrey 05:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice sleight of hand, Jon; but I spotted it. Primary sources is not what you said you could "amply" document and it is not what you were challenged to do. You said you could show other discussions of truth that divide the subject into Analytic and non-Analytic theories and which contain material in the latter section that is substantially the same as what is now in the "Approaches independent of analytic philosophy" section of this article. It is secondary souces which divide topics into broad schools. No primary source says "here is my analytic theory and in section two below you will find my non-analytic theory." --MengTheMagnificent 14:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh heh. Way to call his bluff Meng! --LogicMan 17:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with the remarks of Ladd and Meng at the top of this section. The article sections in question are not relevant to the topic and should be removed. --Wylie Ali 17:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the section titled "signs, sentences and propositions" refers to three very widespread ways in which theorists have dealt with defining their terms (we left "utterance", "symbol" and a few others out), to which has been added the term "truthbearer" in more modern discussion within the last several decades (still a widely debated and often disputed term that seemed to earlier editors of the article to deserve its own brief section). I wouldn't oppose removing the section on "signs, sentences and propositions", but if it were removed I'd want to see pretty much that whole first section including "truthbearers" taken out too. And I'd want to quickly reimpose some introductory discussion of basics either before or after summarizing the major "substantive" theories and the minimalist theories. Another thing that needs to be made clear to the reader in my estimation, either before or immediately after the major theories, is the importance of the propositional attitude of the person making any kind of statement, utterance, theory, sentence or proposition being assessed for its truth value. This all has to do with explaining the importance of getting beyond the literal interpretation of people's statements and explaining to the reader in some reasonable way why the discussion is so complex and why scholars disagree so heartily about these difficult issues, or at least explaining the reader to watch out because the discussion is quite complex and diverse in the literally thousands of sources on the subject.

There are many ways of doing it of course, and it certainly can be done far more effectively so as to allow the "generally educated" reader to leave with some meaningful material without needing to read the entire article. I definitely wouldn't oppose a single, simpler introductory section and moving right into a summary of the major theories. Trying to split up the major theories in the way currently being attempted (according to "analytic philosophy", "post-analytic philosophy" and "independent of analytic philosophy") is in my opinion doomed to failure. The major theories should be summarized high up in the article, and specific more obscure slants should, if mentioned at all, come later in the article in very brief summary form, with appropriate links to the main articles on those slants. Indeed the article on truth theory was created and justified in a lengthy set of arguments by Jon Awbrey as a way of dealing with such more obscure slants.

Although there can be reasonable disagreement about how to define the "major" theories, there are about five basic theories, or classes of theories: Correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, constructivist and consensus, all of which currently have at least reasonable summaries already in the article at present. These five classes of theories really do explain to a generally educated reader the basic slants on the subject. There are about three or four identifiable classes of "deflationary" or minimalist theories. The deflationary theories are interesting, and introducing them to the reader is as good a place as any to explain that the deflationists were responding (1) to positivist formulations of truth theory and the widespread use of the "truth predicate" (the words X or Y 'is true' or its equivalent) in philosophical discussions of truth especially in the first half of the 20th century, and (2) reacting to increasing overlap of epistemology into philosophical discussion of "truth", really a widespread argument about philosophical territory, so to speak. In my estimation all of these basic theories should be accessible to the reader very close to the beginning of the article. It would be quite plausible to reformat the approach to define terms such as "propositions" and "truthbearers", along with important practical issues, in one or more sections after presenting the basic theories... Kenosis 18:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with those who say these sections are irrelevant. (Mr. or Ms. Kenosis could you cite someone who "debates" or "disputes" the term "truthbearer? I'm not aware of anyone who does. It has been a term of art for decades.) --AnnMBake 19:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Good to see some fresh perspective here. I would look to see a more accessible and balanced article resulting from your involvement. Here's a reasonable link on "truthbearer", just off the top of my head: .

Agreed that it has been a term of art for some time, very roughly the same length of time as "utterances", joining with propositions, signs, symbols, etc., that are more longstanding to varying degrees. The debate I referred to is mainly about what is the acceptable range of entities qualifying as a truthbearer. Dispute about the term's use is mainly by default and choice not to use it--perhaps I should have said "not universally accepted" as I did earlier on. As I said just above here, it seems to me if we strike propositions and a general explanation of the range of signs, symbols, etc that are in play in phlosophy of "truth", we should also strike truthbearers. But, in my estimation we should immediately create a place to explain it later in the article after introducing the major theories and giving the reader a perspective on the basic slants. ... Kenosis 20:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The material you link to does not "debate" or "dispute" the term "truthbearer." It makes some points about truthbearers, but it provides no support for your claim that the very use of that term is controversial. --AnnMBake 22:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm a bit disturbed by the blanket removal of some kind of introduction to the more traditional use of "propositions" in truth studies. If anything can be said about "truth bearer" it is that it does not have a monopoly on the discussion (at least not yet). But it seems to me far more important to bring the article under some level of manageability and readability to a "generally educated" reader. Will put the removed material on the talk page for later parsing and consideration of certain portions of the content. Thanks for your help... Kenosis 15:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: There seems to be a difficulty with the reading and the comprehension of the following statement that I made above:

JA: You seem to be saying that the inclusion of anything that might fall under the heading of "approaches to the subject of truth that are independent of analytic philosophy" is idiosyncratic and irrelevant to the subject of truth as you so well know it. That is a well-known POV, but that is all it is, a particular POV, and the fact that some people do not accord consideration to alternative POVs is the very reason that the article currently bears a POV tag. To say that any other POV is "irrelevant" is your POV. To say that the alternative POV is "idiosyncratic" is to say nothing more than the moral equivalent of a singular individual shares that alternative POV, and that is simply a false statement. To say that the alternative POV is "original research" is to say that it orginates with the present contributor of it, and that is simply a false statement, as can amply be documented if you so desire. Jon Awbrey 04:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: MengTheMagnificent has interpreted this paragraph in the following way:

You said you could show other discussions of truth that divide the subject into Analytic and non-Analytic theories and which contain material in the latter section that is substantially the same as what is now in the "Approaches independent of analytic philosophy" section of this article.

JA: I do not find the phrase "non-Analytic" in my statement, and I know as a matter of fact that I took some pains to avoid using it in my realignment of topics, so I cannot imagine how any careful reader could read MengTheMagnificent's reading into what I wrote. Jon Awbrey 19:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood her. The only thing she said about the your quotation of yourself is that it was a sleight of hand. The quote from her that you call her interpretation of your paragraph is actually her summation of earlier exchanges between you. It seems essentially accurate to me. You did seem to be claiming that your way of organizing this topic and what you include as relevant was not original and that you could amply document it. (And it does now appear that you are trying to weasel out of that.) --AnnMBake 19:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

RE "non-analytic": that's one of the numerous things I was ascared of before: "independent of analytic philosophy" means what? non-positivist? maybe no anlysis necessary?, just presto?, eureka, aha! I got it?, etc. ... Kenosis 19:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Another thing here: So, what the article is currently saying is that pragmatic theory (perhaps along with constructivist epistemology and consensus theory) is the only place the positivists generally didn't get involved except as critics? What about constructivist views that were pre - analytic philosophy? What about correspondence views that were pre - analytic philosophy? How about Aristotle (a pretty good correspondence-mode thinker as I recall)? Aquinas (who used the Latin version of "correspondence" as a descriptor)? How do you explain the continental rationalists (coherent thought systems) that were pre - analytic philosophy to the reader? maybe by saying "well, the analytic philosophers arrived at coherence theory, but it applied retrospectively to the continental rationalists in describing their thought? (Sure this one's do-able but ought be unnecessary in the summary) This organizational schema is fundamentally unworkable. The major theories are properly presented as a group way up front in the article so the reader can review them and get a basic idea of the major slants, followed by the minimalists. ... Kenosis 19:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I count 6 people in favor of deleting this material, and no more than 2 who may want to keep it, so I'm going to remove it now. (One or more of the sections may have been renamed or moved around since this part of the discussion page was started.) --Wylie Ali 07:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §12. The Current POV of the Article

JA: I have placed a POV tag on the article. I have tried my level best to work without that device, but my cries for balance have gone unrecognized and my repeated attempts to create a more balanced article have been obstructed by a POV-bound stance so entrenched and unreflective that it cannot even acknowledge that it is a POV. So we are just going to have to work on that. Jon Awbrey 18:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Since I have made these same objections on a recurring basis since first coming to this article, I will state them more briefly than usual, for ease of assimilation.

JA: The article in its current state presents its subject matter almost entirely from a single POV and it largely ignores any of the traditionally recognized aspects of the subject matter about which that POV has little to say.

JA: The current POV of the article can be recognized as according overwhelming favoritism to a pair of related outlooks on the subject, namely, the "Linguistic-Analytic POV" (LA POV) and the "Correspondence POV" (COR POV).

JA: The fact that other POVs are mentioned in the article is no evidence against this charge. It is easy to recognize on examination that the theses of the other POVs are presented almost solely as they are seen from the LA and COR POVs.

Yes this is correct to an extent. Most people like some correspondence with reality attached to their notions and discussions of truth. For the dedicated solipsist, there's always some preferred internally coherent version (amazing how internally consistent some schizoprenics can be at times). For the dedicated cynic of social matters there's constructivist theory, which is of course presumed to have some correspondence with the actual social-constructive facts of the matter. So too, consensus can be observed, however difficult it is to quantify and put into a nice neat formula--still, we like to hold our consensus theorists to having some bearing, some correspondence, with the facts of the matter. Yes, that is a reasonably accurate observation. As to the LA POV, this too is correct. If you can't deconstruct and analyze a sentence, and place it in context to argue what its underlying content is intended to say to the rest of the human race, why bother to analyze?.. Kenosis 19:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Aside from this, the lopsidedness of the article in favor of this combined POV is evidenced by the fact that it simply fails to address in any responsible or significant way any of the established questions or topics under the heading of truth that are not commonly treated as worthwhile subjects from the LA and COR POVs. Jon Awbrey 19:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I recognize that even the most parochial of observers can still be honest observers, and that most of the lacks in their POV, the fact that they do not even recognize it as a POV, is simply due to their not getting out of their parish often enough, or not having read widely enough. But these are insufficiencies that can be supplied in a parishioner who truly wants to know.

JA: One of the rational courses for gaining a wider perspective is literally-figuratively to "stand back" a little ways from the familiar illuminations of texts and grindstones of thought, and try to look at the familiar doctrines from a fresh angle, with a field of view that takes in a few new landmarks of comparison. Oh yes, your cohorts in the monasterile gardens may mock what they call your Icharian hubris for its "meta-architectronic" flying buttresses, but that is just one of the many crosses that you'll have to bear for the sake standing on the shoulders of strange new giants. So to speak. Jon Awbrey 19:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Since I have never given any indication of thinking that the LA POV or the COR POV should not be given all due exposition in the article, a lot of what you say above is simply unjustified nonsense. The question to which I have time and again tried to draw your attention is the question of what it takes to present a POV with all of its best feet forward, but without stepping all over every other POV in town. That is the question. What does it take? Jon Awbrey 19:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: One of the "best" ways of *not* achieving a balanced presentation of something that approaches the uncensored wholeness of the subject matter is to use a pet issue of a single POV — namely, the pet issue of the deflatus vociferaries as to whether a particular chunk of syntax can be analyzed away from their pet linguistic contexts — as the main line in the sand for outlining the heart the article. I have said this often enough to recognize that unwitting true believers in the importance of this LA criterion have the greatest difficulty pulling their heads out of the LA POV long enough to recognize what a very tiny umbilicus it truly is to everybody else. Jon Awbrey 20:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: In (mediate) summation, it is clear that these very serious problems with the balance of the article simply cannot be addressed without a major restructuring. I realize that any work of real transformation is a task fraught with frustrations, not to be entered lightly, but I see no other way of resolving the stresses that have accumulated on the surface of the article and also here in its pasted-over depths. That is precisely the reason why I took a full week to discuss the issues here ahead of time, and why I have crept foward with incremental baby steps. But there will be a change in the current topology of the article. Jon Awbrey 20:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Something there is that does not like a maint, er, custodial tag, and I always remove them as soon as it looks like there's any hope at all. I see that I jumped the gun this time. I thought Kenosis was joking with that analytic philosophy is all philosophy crack, but I guess he wasn't. At any rate, until the general usership is disdelusioned of that fond but utterly unfounded notion, it looks like we'll have to maintain that darned ole Damocletian POV tag hanging over our otherwise all too sleepy heads. Jon Awbrey 20:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, a misquote (or a mis-italic, just enough to come in under the radar there, eh?) gets my attention again here. The problem, as you might already suspect in some way, is in the contorted use of the terms "post-analytic" and "other than analytic" philosophy. Not only that, "analytic philosophy" is itself a vague enough term to be questionable for use to put in such a predominant scheme without explaining what on earth it is. Moreover, when I placed a reference to "positivist" influence JA quickly removed it, so it's fairly obvious that's too close to home, so to speak. I suppose it is preferable, once again, to intentionally befuddle the reader under the pretense of real pedagogy.

Yet another problem here, in addition to the above: although B. Russell appears to have made "correspondence theory" famous by the name "correspondence", this theory is not the sole domain of positivist or analytic philosophy. Same with coherence theory. Coherence theory may describe a preferred method of many positiists in approaching truth, but obviously is not the sole domain of positivist philosophy. What the deflationists were responding to, however, was the excessive use of positivist analytic philosophy in discourse about truth, most particularly the widespread formulations of the problem as a formal logical one using "X is true if-and-only-if Y is not equal to Yada divided by Yada" and the like. This approach of locking certain major theories of truth into the head of "analytic philosophy" in an article far broader than mere analytic vs. "post-analytic" and "non-analytic" is OR, confusing, biased, and quite frankly, fairly typical of the editor who is pushing the approach right now...Kenosis 14:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Just for the record, what you actually wrote, modulo the obvious typo, was:

Analytic refers to much of what is currently known as philosophy at least from Heraclitus forward.

JA: It being well past the whiching hour at the reading thereof, I naturally gave that statement the more charitable interpretation of a "tongue-in-cheek" e-quipitude, as opposed to the less charitable interpratation that would involve the rather more contortionist juxtaposition of anatomical parts. Jon Awbrey 15:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's be at least halfway real about this earlier set of exchanges, OK? You already know that "analytic philosophy" is a highly imprecise synonym for "logical-positivist philosophy" (or some close variation) and the attempt to use various prefabricated logical formulations, often mathematically based and since dead by advances in the same often=mathematical sword, to pin down precisely and once-and-for-all what is true and what ain't. And despite vague agreements that the term "analytic philosophy" refers to the positivists, not much else can positively be said about it except to drop the names of a bunch of people who are also widely called "logical positivists". it is, more closely to what I intended to say above (you got my statement accurately this time), as much a misnomer as the current attempt in the article on truth to co-opt the word "realist" to mean certain slants you happen to agree with as corresponding to what you see as "objective reality". The costs here overwhelmingly outweigh the gains. I'm actually inclined to retract the "I smell original research" comment above because the writers who say, as I just did, some version of "let's be ... real" really mean "what I say corresponds to objective reality better than what you say" Understood? And like I also said before: "Whatever!"... Kenosis 05:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, another thing here: What are you trying to "say" with the present restructuring of the Categories in the article, that CHARLES PEIRCE came before "analytic philosophy" but is "independent of analytic philosophy"? That all Pragmatic theory of truth (god I love that name, sounds so practical, realistic objective) is independent of analytic philosophy, but that correspondence and coherence are products or the sole domain of "analytic philosophy"?...Kenosis 05:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Of course there is sense in which your statement is an obvious truism, namely, that all serious philosophy involves a component of analysis. But you know as well as I do that this has no bearing on the question of whether "All Philosophy" (AP₀) ≡ "Analytic Philosophy" (AP₁), any more than the fact that all chemicals are substances in Nature justifies, in compliance with applicable statutes concerning "Truth In Advertising", the merchandising of any given mix of chemicals on your A&P shelf as "All Natural". So let's get serious here. Or maybe wait till Monday to do so. Jon Awbrey 16:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The term "analytic philosophy" is what it is — that's logic as ∀ good ol' boys from Aristotle to LW₀ knew it — and it is a convenient term for that 1-room school that changed its name so frequently and fervently over the course of its fluorescing in the 1900s. I supplied you with the requested reference to show that "post-analytic philosophy" has been in literate use for ≥ 20 years. There was a ½-line definition-in-passing of their relationship, but that can easily be expanded if you think ∃ some need to do so. Jon Awbrey 16:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: BR famously advertis/zed himself as the prime mover of many things that were already in motion before he happened to happen on the scene, but attentive readers of the pragmatic theory of truth article, to mention but one of many, will know that neither the substance nor the name of the "correspondence theory" are accountable to his paternity. So I don't get where you're coming from there. Jon Awbrey 20:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The term "post-analytic", which I did not make up — I can tell you that if I had my druthers I would druther have dubbed the developments in question by the name of "epi-analytic-philosophy", so you can thank your Lucky ${\displaystyle \star }$'s that I had no hand in its holy water on christening day — refers to all those afterschlocks, echoes, reverbs, shades, or shadows of AP that came after it, but which, whether they say Yeah! or Neigh! to its main thrusts, are still deriven of the impetus that it instigated in the first instunts. But not all philosophy is either Pro-AP or Con-AP, and much there is that is either pre-AP or simply AP-athetic. So that is the sense of the coordinate term "independent of AP". Jon Awbrey 22:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The fact that there are AP and PAP movements in philosophy is well documented. The fact that there are movements in philosophy that precede the formation of the (1+P)AP axis and that proceed largely independent of its attentions and its concerns is also well established. I have done nothing more than remove some of the latter from the prison of the former. If you believe that other inmates of that facility are unjustedly incarcerated, or otherwise deserving of parole from its confines, then there is a due process for commuting their sentences, or propositions, as the case may be. Since I have been saying all along that a classification based on the question of whether a given bit of syntax is redundant in a given assertoric context is hardly the sort of distinction that deserves to be elevated to a Papal Demarcation of a Whole New World, the possibilty of unjust imprisonments in these cases will hardly be news to me. But duly deputed authorities have detained the alleged ⊥'s there, and so it demands a renewed appeal to the courts of common sense before these hopefully remediable errors in judgment can be vacated. Jon Awbrey 03:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Too late in the day for detail work, so I will just make a general observation that may serve as a bridge between what I begin to see as different cognitive styles. After all these years of hyping the hypergods of hyperlinkosity to the skies, it seems that the natural human tendency is still to seek to order the world into linear, pyramidal, mutually exclusive chambers, compartments, and tombs. I tried to introduce a more cross-cutting overlapping topology the other day, echoing some themes that were emphasized by Polanyi, Rawls, and many others, but it was to no avail. I'm not the one who is saying that Theory X is necessarily bounded by Paradigm Y. I am merely noting the cases where the sample of material that we currently have in the article under Theory X happens to fall quite snugly within Paradigm Y. Why that is, I pretend no hype. Jon Awbrey 06:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §13. Continuing Insistence on a Single POV for Truth

JA: Creating new section to reduce edit conflicts. Answering the last by Kenosis here:

JA: I guess I don't see the problem. "Analytic philosophy" is a generic term that is standardly applied to a broad movement in philosophy that Dummett traces to its infancy in earlier influences but most people know from its puberty with Russell and so on. "Logical positivism" is usually taken in a more specific sense to refer to a particular phase in the life of analytic philosophy. There are many other perspectives in and out of philosophy that have something to say about meaning and truth that developed long prior to analytic philosophy in any of its phases, and there are many other perspectives, which however parallel in time they may be, have always operated independently of any significant influences from analytic philosophy, discussing different questions and evidencing no compulsion to take a position one way or the other on the sorts of problems that analytic philosophers devote so much of their time and energies to. Is this not abundantly clear? Jon Awbrey 19:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I suppose I forgot to include Derrida et al. My mistake. This organizational schema is fundamentally unworkable. Please let us get off the darned experiment and give the reader the major theories up front, with only a brief and accessible introduction first (or in whatever way this turns out to be as reasonably agreeable as possible to the various editors). Then we can carve out a section where the editors can summarize in accessible language the basics regarding terminology such as propositions, truthbearers, and the range of entities involved including pictures, symbols, etc. etc. along with some perspective on the range of debate amongs scholars without excess technical language. Assuming of course it's agreeable among new editors that apparently have some prior familiarity with the subject and a desire to make this topic as accessible as possible to the "generally educated". ..Kenosis 20:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You can dismiss whole populations of philosophers and others if you wish. That is a mark of your POV. Heaven knows, I may even agree with you on certain points, but all that means is that our respective POVs have points of agreement. That may render both of us unqualified to present the POVs in question in any fair light, but it does not qualify us to prevent the discussion of those POVs in an article on a subject about which whole populations of philosophers and others have something to say. That is called censorship, and we supposedly don't do that here.

JA: After many days of discussion, you still fail to grasp the point that the style of organization that you prefer presents all POVs on meaning and truth from the POV of a single POV. And that is called bias. Jon Awbrey 20:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, you bet there's a POV here. The POV, as you have chosen to call it, is in fact a correspondence POV, and to whatever degree you are trying to replace it with "realist" or "objective" or whatever your next personal preference will be, that "POV" is intractably interwoven in discussions of truth (with the possible exception of a hypothetical "pure" coherence theory sans justification to reality, and even in this case most all persons including most all philosophers look to see if there is a correspondence between what the truth theorist is describing and what the coherence struture in fact is).

As to this organizational schema you have forced upon the article at present, it is a far too flawed to stand up for long. Sooner or later a sufficiently knowledgeable combination of editors will succeed in giving the reader something reasonable here. Like I said, correspondence and coherence are not properly categorized under the head of any widely recognized distinction of analytic philosophy vs. "pre-analytic", "post-analytic" and/or "non-analytic" or "independent of analytic". The involvement of analytic philosophers in the discussion, it is true insofar as true can be pinned down in a categorical way, did develop something of a stranglehold on philosophy of "truth", and on philosophy generally for a time earlier on. But that is not a reasonable way of organizing this material for readers! Correspondence and coherence theory are not properly categorized as falling under analytic philosophy because they extend far beyond the bounds of what we generally refer to as analytic philosophy. Pragmatic theory belongs right up front for readers to see along with constructivist and consensus theory (perhaps these last two grouped together, perhaps not depending on how it's chosen to be presented). The minimalist/deflationary theories are sufficiently prevalent in the truth literature that they need to be given proper accord for the reader right up front in the article too.

Also, earlier on we chose to follow Blackburn et al 's Oxford readings in calling the major theories "substantive" and "robust", and you've chosen to replace it twice with varying alternatives, when in fact "substantive" is as good a descriptor as any for those theories, and "robust" was quite credibly sourced. A one or two sentence offering to the reader of what is meant here by "substantive" would have been quite adequate, and still would be far more reasonable. A one or two sentence explanation of the difference between the scope of truth as originally distinguished from epistemology and how the distinction has come to increasingly be blurred or even eliminated, would have been adequate. And such an explanation still would be helpful to "generally educated" readers in the context of differentiating substantive from deflationary theories. This we can still do, and more, difficult as this subject is. ... Kenosis 21:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Answering the following comment by Kenosis:

Another thing here: So, what the article is currently saying is that pragmatic theory (perhaps along with constructivist epistemology and consensus theory) is the only place the positivists generally didn't get involved except as critics? What about constructivist views that were pre - analytic philosophy? What about correspondence views that were pre - analytic philosophy? How about Aristotle (a pretty good correspondence-mode thinker as I recall)? Aquinas (who used the Latin version of "correspondence" as a descriptor)? How do you explain the continental rationalists (coherent thought systems) that were pre - analytic philosophy to the reader? maybe by saying "well, the analytic philosophers arrived at coherence theory, but it applied retrospectively to the continental rationalists in describing their thought? (Sure this one's do-able but ought be unnecessary in the summary) This organizational schema is fundamentally unworkable. The major theories are properly presented as a group way up front in the article so the reader can review them and get a basic idea of the major slants, followed by the minimalists. ... Kenosis 19:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I think that I have already commented on some of this, but things are getting a little dense, so you may have missed it. I initially made some effort to avoid using school-bound terms like "analytic philosophy" (AP) in preference to using terms that described the slants in question in operational terms, like "linguistic analytic" (LA), meaning any approach that focuses on the analysis of linguistic forms, either formal or natural language, though historically speaking progress was first made with very un-natural formal languages. This tactic affords a more cross-cutting classification, as many different approaches may indeed make use of some LA as a part of their mix of methodologies. Any time you want to return to operational definitions like that I will be open to it, but the last time I tried this it seemed to give you fits, so I naturally tried a different "experiment", being by nature an experimental type. Jon Awbrey 21:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well then the use of the term should once again be avoided, at least as an overarching classification for this article. ... Kenosis 21:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Answering this comment by Kenosis:

Exactly, you bet there's a POV here. The POV, as you have chosen to call it, is in fact a correspondence POV, and to whatever degree you are trying to replace it with "realist" or "objective" or whatever your next personal preference will be, that "POV" is intractably interwoven in discussions of truth (with the possible exception of a hypothetical "pure" coherence theory sans justification to reality, and even in this case most all persons including most all philosophers look to see if there is a correspondence between what the truth theorist is describing and what the coherence struture in fact is). Kenosis 21:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Good. This brings us to the heart of the matter. Have to go to dinner though. I'll be back. Jon Awbrey 21:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, we need to put the major widely acknowledged theories back up front for the reader, ideally right up front before getting caught in the terminological quagmire. This way the reader can get a useful perspective before drowning in the near-certain confusion about the superposition of signifier and signified and other such difficulties, and at least have some perspective on the topic. The limits of correspondence are reasonably explained in the current section on correspondence theory, and perhaps can be improved further. But like it or not, the reader will still look out at the world, and/or review their own experience, and expect this article or any article to present some correspondence, correlation, connection, or relationship between the various theories the article attempts to explain and what actually happens in "real life" . This is, of course, a difficult subject. Good day. ... Kenosis 21:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Kenosis, I take you to be an honest person, misguided, perhaps, but honest, and I can tell from your manner that you sincerely believe that the Correspondence POV is really the only rational POV. That is fine. But there is a rather long history of philosophical discussion on this issue with which you exhibit no familiarity, to judge from the things that you say. A very efficient way to get misguided in a hurry is to take the statements of one side of a dispute at face value, and to shut your ears to anything except what that one side will no doubt assure you is "The One True Opinion" (TOTO). This is a good way to "Keep It Short And Simple" (KISAS), as they say, but it is not a good way to "Keep It Grounded And Verifiable" (KIGAV). The symptom of taking this path to easy virtue is that of constantly asserting things as facts which anybody who has listened to more than side can tell you are just the story as told from one POV. Of course, some people will just never listen to people who tell them that, perhaps because it would destroy that beautiful simplicity. But I know that you are not like that. So I feel that my persistence will eventually be rewarded. Jon Awbrey 00:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You apparently read somewhere that Aristotle had a correspondence theory of truth. And so you believed it. There is a general problem with all such statements. It is that until people define exactly what they mean by "correspondence" an assertion like that says nothing at all. Having studied what Aristotle wrote, I could I tell you that he did not argue for a correspondence theory of truth, at least not the kind that contemporary writers argue for, when and if they define it at all. I could tell you that, indeed, I added quotations from Aristotle to illustrate what kind of theory he did suggest, but those were deleted on the grounds that we should not confuse readers with the facts. Jon Awbrey 01:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Widely acknowledged from the POV of what is rather more widely acknowledged to be an exceedingly narrow POV. Yes, the Argumentum Ad Populum always goes that we must not confuse the "generally educated populace" with the details. Which is why, historically speaking, one finds so many "generally educated" and even "enlightened" folks enlightening the night at book-burnings. Jon Awbrey 22:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)\

JA: As far as realism goes, all I did is refer to the definition of realism that was standard in philosophy right up until the late lamentable "loss of classical knowledge" (LOCK) that affected certain quarters of philosophy, by no means all, beginning in 1900 or so. The thesis of realism asserts the possibility that some general terms, by no means all, can have reference to general properties that are really real and not just figments that the general terms delude us into thinking are real. More recently, solipsism has become such a popular philosophy on the popular front that some people feel the need of a word to say that ordinary things in the world are really real, and so it has become popular to use the word "realism" to declare a faith that there really are any real things at all in the world. But that is an utterly non-technical use of the word, and philosophers of past and present who display any grasp of reality at all would regard that as the waste of a word for a no-brainer position. Jon Awbrey 02:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Here's yet another thing that you keep saying I said, but that I keep telling you I never said and would not say. I have never said that all of the perspectives currently listed under the (1+Post)AP axis, taken at the full, necessarily fall under that head, just as I never said that I could not imagine both nominal and real flavors of each of them. I am only saying that the ebb-tide, shallow, 2-dimensional renderings of those theories that we currently find in the article do fall within the strain of nominal and syntactic reductionist preparations of them. It may be possible to flesh out those anorexic frames quite a bit more, but so far the popular hue and cry has been to pare them to the bone. Jon Awbrey 03:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, but this is nonsense. Lacking significant evidence of one or more other major theories of truth, the five theories (or four if you lump consensus with constructivist, or rule out constructivist as belonging in epistemology but not truth) belong in a single section appropriately titled. That immediately settles the POV "problem" you allege above. I now feel a bit silly for not having immediately resisted this proposal of yours and trying instead to work with your proposed schema. Unfortunately it does not "work". ... Kenosis 04:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: There are several important perspectives on meaning and truth that cannot be intelligently discussed within the bounds and blinders of the AP, LA, and COR POV that is present in the leading sections of the article. I tried to do that for a long enough time to know that it cannot be done in the way that you and others keep insisting that it must be done. By way of attempting to arrange a modus vivendi, I kept trying to generalize the elementary terms of discussion so that the pragmatic theory of truth could fit into that setting, but people just kept on re-tightening the screws on the Procrustean embedding, and so it became clear that the pragmatic theory simply could not rest there. You may now have your precious "substantive" all to yourself, and feel free to make up whatever meaning you want for it, as there is no longer any need to try and stuff the pragmatic theory full of that uncontrolled substance, which kept forcing a backassward anachronism on Peirce, just for starters. Jon Awbrey 04:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I am going to say this even though I know in advance that it is totally WikiPerishable, as WP is not the sort of place where WikiPeople give a F about anybody who actually knows anything. I have studied Peirce's work for 40 years. When it comes to your opinions about Peirce, you don't know Diddley. I have a lot of respect for people who want to learn more, and that is what I used to think WP was for. People who don't want to learn more, that's okay, I'm pretty indifferent either way. But people who block inquiry and prevent others from learning more I take great exception to. I am beginning to take great exception to you, Kenosis. Jon Awbrey 06:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Inquiry is one "Thing," "Category," or whatever the H you prefer to call it depending on who in the world appears to be confusing what with what else at this conceptual point in time. Explanation to "generally educated" readers is another. ... Kenosis 06:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Considering the audience is a good thing. WP is supposedly trying to be a Premier Internet Resource (PIR), and so it's audience is everybody on the Internet. Think about that audience. Since most folks here have no data on their average reader, and I've never seen any interest in gathering any, I'm guessing that most folks assume that the generally educated reader is somebody just like them, only slightly less experienced. So most folks are talking to one of their former selves, I guess. Frankly, I'd prefer talking to one of my future selves. Adding sourced data to articles should be a fairly straightforward and enjoyable process, because you get to learn new stuff yourself in the process, even when it's revisiting stuff you thought you knew. But it's not progressive and it's not fun anymore, largely because of all the WikiPeople who are constantly screaming "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA, I don't want to know anymore". I hope WP survives, but if it dies, that'll be a Big Why. Jon Awbrey 07:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §14. Removed material

• This material started out as an example of the ancient conundrum "I am an initiate", Nate Ladd changed it to "I am a football player" and, in either form, it appears to explain little that a first grader today doesn't already know. ... Kenosis 04:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Sentences with demonstrative terms and indexical pronouns, words such as "I", "it", "now", "here", "this", "that", and so forth, can be true when uttered by one person but false when uttered by another, or even by the same person in a different place and time. For example, "I am a football fan", is true for some persons in some contexts and false for others. ... 04:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• This paragraph removed and placed here for future reference and possible use in a non-introductory context. ... Kenosis 05:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"The treatment of meaning and truth in analytic philosophy, along with the post-analytic perspectives for which it sets the agenda, begins with a focus on meaning and truth as expressed in formal languages and formal systems, in some of its branches continuing through a series of ordinary language movements that attempt to expand the use of logical analysis to natural languages." 05:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Section removed by Wylie Ali, placed here for future reference: ... Kenosis 15:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

====Signs, sentences, and propositions====

In some branches of philosophy and fields of science, the set of potentially meaningful entities may include almost any kind of informative or significant element, described by the generic terms sign or representation. Such entities may include words, pictoral representations, logical or mathematical symbols, etc., and also may include a wide variety of meaningful combinations or clusters of signs. Analytic philosophy, which exerted a dominant influence on philosophical discussion of truth throughout the 20th century, commonly begins with a focus on the words and syntax of a sentence, from which an attempt is made to determine its meaningful content, referred to as the corresponding proposition. A proposition is the content expressed by a sentence, held in a belief, or affirmed in an assertion or judgment. For example, it is not the literally interpreted sentence to which truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states. ... 15:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Many different attitudes, called propositional attitudes, can be used by persons toward what they think, say, or write, which also can be expressed widely different linguistic modalities. Propositions can, to give a few examples, be accepted, asserted, believed, commanded, contested, declared, denied, doubted, enjoined, exclaimed, expected, imagined, intended, observed, proven, questioned, suggested, speculated, said with sarcasm, or wished to be true. Differentiating among the many attitudes and modalities that persons are capable of taking toward a proposition can be critical in evaluating truth. Due to the many factors involved, the analyses can be quite complex, and the philosophical discussions generally reflect this complexity. ... 15:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• This sentence removed from section intro (currently Basic concepts) as it appears unnecessary in light of the above removal along with several other recent removals. ... Kenosis 03:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

"Most of the modern terms introduced immediately below are characteristic of what may be termed the "linguistic-analytic" school that is predominant in modern philosophical discussion." 03:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §15. Do Not Remove Custodial Tags

JA: Do not renove either the WP:POV or the WP:VERIFY tags. The current state of this article is quite literally far worse with respect to both of these issues than when I initially placed them. The situation on the Truth and Talk:Truth pages at the present juncture is such that there can be no meaningful assumption of either WP:CONSENSUS, WP:FAITH, or WP:NPOV about anything. Jon Awbrey 14:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §16. Disputed replacement of POV tag

So what's the problem now? There apparently are two issues here. (1) An alleged sockpuppet issue involving Rick Norwood and several new usernames currently being analyzed on Talk:Charles Peirce, which same usernames were involved in some kind of vote to remove material against my stated preference. (2) An alleged POV issue in the article on truth. The POV was alleged to be (2a) a Correspondence theory POV. This was resolved by putting the five major theories including Coherence, Correspondence, Constructivist, Consensus, and Pragmatic into a section together. The longest section there is only the longest because Jon Awbrey, the complainant, made it so two days ago with the insertion of a lengthy blockquote from Immanual Kant, which I have already stated to be arguably too lengthy. Without Jon's last addition to that section, Pragmatic theory (including Charles Peirce) is the lengthiest, followed by Consensus and Correspondence theory. (2b) Jon also alleged there was a linguistic-analytic POV, and references to this POV were since removed. What is left is a balanced, plain English summary of the prominent theories of truth and an introduction to some commonly used concepts in the literature on truth. One editor has no more right to keep such a tag in place, after having been addressed and responded to, than another has to remove such a tag. Nonetheless I will leave the tag and instead consider a request for arbitration on Jon's continuing insistence to clog up this article with technical obscurities far beyond what is necessary to lay out the basic theories for reasonably intelligent readers. ... Kenosis 14:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I have made no allegations, as it is a complex issue that I am still investigating, and I certainly did not mention Rick Norwood's name (do you know something I don't know?). I am beginning to suspect, however, that some other person may be impersonating User:Kenosis, as he/she appears so rational and sensitive at times, and at other times appears quite otherwise. But there are far too many anomalous phenomena for me to sort out within my current paradigm, and so I will defer, not block, inquiry into these anomalies until some future opportunity. Jon Awbrey 15:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well pardon me for daring to argue with Jon Awbrey after numerous attempts at concilation and reconciliation, but there are some genuine issues on the table here. ... Kenosis 16:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

RE "I have made no allegations": What Jon says here is disingenuous and completely misleading. Jon is in fact rendering a sockpuppetry argument on Talk:Charles Peirce. Among other things:

• (1) In fact Jon provided on Talk:Charles Peirce a direct link to Rick Norwood's contribution with consistent misspelling of the word "consensus" every time it was used by him.

• (2) Jon used the words "A week ago I couldn't even spell "concensus: and now I are one"

• (3) Jon has provided in consecutive order the names of at least four new usernames that immediately and simultaneously descended on disputed areas of Jon's editing and contribution in both truth and Charles Peirce.

• (4) Immediately above this information provided by Jon in Talk:Charles Peirce was a conspicuous use of the same misspelling by user "AnnMBake". If Jon believes this was pure coincidence (which of itself is possible, of course) then why state these things?.

• (5) These parties, appearing at first to be independent, have since been said by Rick Norwood to know one another personally and we are already told by Rick to expect them to come from the same IP address. So it gets interesting, and the evidence continues to build, and of course we all continue to assume good faith.

Either way the current situation is, so to speak, quote oderiferous, because I happen to believe that as a general thrust the assertions of these users is by far the more correct approach despite many quibbles with his/their position. Yet it would be quite disturbing if what Jon is is true. Because if these implications/allegations/arguments/investigations have any merit, it would certainly be a very wrong way to achieve what I seek vis-a-vis Jon Awbrey's highly obscure verbosity, which is an article that is readable and understandable without excess technical jargon, lengthy digressions, and various other unnecessary challenges to the reader of this or any other article on a subject of common interest. (Truth is not to be expected to be of the same level of technical obscurity as cladistics or truth theory, for instance.) Thus, either way I am justifiably displeased by this turn of events here.

But for JA to try to tell me that Rick Norwood was not part of his "investigating" from the getgo? Gimme abreak here. How strange this all is, incidentally, is what I was attempting to parody on that talk page with my own remarks, in case it wasn't obvious. ... Kenosis 16:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: This is too bizarre. My suspicions of someone impersonating Kenosis are gaining weight. Unless my <find on page> is broken, "Rick Norwood" does not even appear on Talk:Charles Peirce. For my part, I'm going to defer further discussion until the real Kenosis comes back. Boy! Is he or she going to be PO'd !!! Jon Awbrey 16:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I haven't ruled out future attempts at reconcilation either. But you bet i'm PO'd right now. ... Kenosis 16:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I am •ing K's points for later discussion. Jon Awbrey 15:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• (1) An alleged sockpuppet issue involving Rick Norwood and several new usernames currently being analyzed on Talk:Charles Peirce, which same usernames were involved in some kind of vote to remove material against my stated preference.

JA: I believe that the customary phrases are: (a) "Rick Norwood is not currently a person of interest" — apologies, Rick, it is of course intended in the most innocent of possible senses — and (b) "I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation".

JA: I believe that it is customary to replicate these phrases as often as necessary, until such time as it may become possible to update them. Consider them replicated. Jon Awbrey 17:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• (2) An alleged POV issue in the article on truth. The POV was alleged to be:

JA: I will make a few generic comments here and then respond to the more specific points below. Many readers who are generally familiar with this page, and its last few archives — by "reader" I always mean a person who has a sufficient level of reading comprehension that he or she can MeMirandize what he or she read a few minutes, hours, or even days ago — will find these remarks utterly familiar, and suitable for skipping. So I address these remarks mainly to Kenosis and other actual or virtual newcomers. Jon Awbrey 15:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The number of typos that I'm making at this time tells me that I need more coffee. While I'm taking a short break, perhaps Kenosis and other readers who are generally unfamiliar with their contents would like to review the Policy and Guideline pages that I noted above, namely, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:FAITH, WP:NPOV, WP:POV, and WP:VERIFY, exercising due care in the reading, of course, to discern the differential weights of emphasis attaching to the official Policies versus the more informal Guidelines. Jon Awbrey 16:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• (2a) a Correspondence theory POV. This was resolved by putting the five major theories including Coherence, Correspondence, Constructivist, Consensus, and Pragmatic into a section together. The longest section there is only the longest because Jon Awbrey, the complainant, made it so two days ago with the insertion of a lengthy blockquote from Immanual Kant, which I have already stated to be arguably too lengthy. Without Jon's last addition to that section, Pragmatic theory (including Charles Peirce) is the lengthiest, followed by Consensus and Correspondence theory.

JA: This statement, too, is so bizarre that I have trouble comprehending how any-1 could assert it with a straight face — and you can minimize the physiognomic predicate qualifier "with a straight face" if you so wish, but I for 1 intend it with a full-blooded, real, robust, ruddy, and substantive mien. You have basically returned the article to the same organization that it had before I was compelled so reluctantly to tag it, except for a whole host of necessary qualifications that have in the meantime been deleted by who knows who, or by who knows how many persons unknown. Jon Awbrey 02:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The main complaint has nothing to do with the comparative length of the sections, as I have said many, many, many times already. All of these sections have been pared to the bone by an editorially syndicated philosophy that mistakenly believes that laconicity is next to clarity in virtue. Far from it, as any votary of the Oracle at Delphi would elect to tell you, that is, if any such a votary were voting here today. Then again, who's to say? Indeed, since a responsible scholarly treatment of the various and sundry approaches to truth would no doubt result in statements that weigh both pro and con on the pans of each perspective, the length of the corresponding text, so long as it is balanced, carries no onus of favoritism. Jon Awbrey 03:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• (2b) Jon also alleged there was a linguistic-analytic POV, and references to this POV were since removed. What is left is a balanced, plain English summary of the prominent theories of truth and an introduction to some commonly used concepts in the literature on truth. One editor has no more right to keep such a tag in place, after having been addressed and responded to, than another has to remove such a tag. Nonetheless I will leave the tag and instead consider a request for arbitration on Jon's continuing insistence to clog up this article with technical obscurities far beyond what is necessary to lay out the basic theories for reasonably intelligent readers. ... Kenosis 14:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §17. Resubmission of assertions about POV issue

Let's try it again with the correct username. Rick Norwood you have my sincere apology for the mistake above.... Kenosis 17:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC) So what's the problem now? There apparently are two issues here. (1) An alleged sockpuppet issue involving Nathan Ladd and several new usernames currently being analyzed on Talk:Charles Peirce, which same usernames were involved in some kind of vote to remove material against my stated preference. (2) An alleged POV issue in the article on truth. The POV was alleged to be (2a) a Correspondence theory POV. This was resolved by putting the five major theories including Coherence, Correspondence, Constructivist, Consensus, and Pragmatic into a section together. The longest section there is only the longest because Jon Awbrey, the complainant, made it so two days ago with the insertion of a lengthy blockquote from Immanual Kant, which I have already stated to be arguably too lengthy. Without Jon's last addition to that section, Pragmatic theory (including Charles Peirce) is the lengthiest, followed by Consensus and Correspondence theory. (2b) Jon also alleged there was a linguistic-analytic POV, and references to this POV were since removed. What is left is a balanced, plain English summary of the prominent theories of truth and an introduction to some commonly used concepts in the literature on truth. One editor has no more right to keep such a tag in place, after having been addressed and responded to, than another has to remove such a tag. Nonetheless I will leave the tag and instead consider a request for arbitration on Jon's continuing insistence to clog up this article with technical obscurities far beyond what is necessary to lay out the basic theories for reasonably intelligent readers. ... Kenosis 17:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

In response to Jon's assertions above: "JA: I have made no allegations, as it is a complex issue that I am still investigating, and I certainly did not mention Rick Norwood's name (do you know something I don't know?). I am beginning to suspect, however, that some other person may be impersonating User:Kenosis, as he/she appears so rational and sensitive at times, and at other times appears quite otherwise. But there are far too many anomalous phenomena for me to sort out within my current paradigm, and so I will defer, not block, inquiry into these anomalies until some future opportunity. Jon Awbrey 15:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)":

Well pardon me for daring to argue with Jon Awbrey after numerous attempts at concilation and reconciliation, but there are some genuine issues on the table here. ... Kenosis ... Kenosis 17:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

RE "I have made no allegations": What Jon says here is disingenuous and completely misleading. Jon is in fact rendering a sockpuppetry argument on Talk:Charles Peirce. Among other things:

• (1) In fact Jon provided on Talk:Charles Peirce a direct link to Nate Ladd's contribution with consistent misspelling of the word "consensus" every time it was used by him.
• (2) Jon used the words "A week ago I couldn't even spell "concensus: and now I are one"
• (3) Jon has provided in consecutive order the names of at least four new usernames that immediately and simultaneously descended on disputed areas of Jon's editing and contribution in both truth and Charles Peirce.
• (4) Immediately above this information provided by Jon in Talk:Charles Peirce was a conspicuous use of the same misspelling by user "AnnMBake". If Jon believes this was pure coincidence (which of itself is possible, of course) then why state these things?.
• (5) These parties, appearing at first to be independent, have since been said by Nathan Ladd to know one another personally and we are already told by Nate to expect them to come from the same IP address. So it gets interesting, and the evidence continues to build, and of course we all continue to assume good faith.

Either way the current situation is, so to speak, quote oderiferous, because I happen to believe that as a general thrust the assertions of these users is by far the more correct approach despite many quibbles with his/their position. Yet it would be quite disturbing if what Jon is is true. Because if these implications/allegations/arguments/investigations have any merit, it would certainly be a very wrong way to achieve what I seek vis-a-vis Jon Awbrey's highly obscure verbosity, which is an article that is readable and understandable without excess technical jargon, lengthy digressions, and various other unnecessary challenges to the reader of this or any other article on a subject of common interest. (Truth is not to be expected to be of the same level of technical obscurity as cladistics or truth theory, for instance.) Thus, either way I am justifiably displeased by this turn of events here.

But for JA to try to tell me that Nathan Ladd was not part of his "investigating" from the getgo? Gimme abreak here. How strange this all is, incidentally, is what I was attempting to parody on that talk page with my own remarks, in case it wasn't obvious. ... Kenosis 17:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Just a brief generic remark. As of this writing, I honestly do not know whether the BrownSock (BS) issue is on-topic for this page. I can see how it might become so, but I just don't know for sure at present. On the Charles Sanders Peirce talk page I presented it as an exercise in abductive reasoning, and that subject is very much on-topic in that setting. So I'd have much less in the way of topicality qualms about discussing it there, but only as a speculative illustration, at least for the time being. Jon Awbrey 20:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewriting History

JA: Due to multiple edit conflicts on this large a page, there was some difficulty reverting to the point before Kenosis began his no doubt unintentionally deceptive alterations to my remarks on the talk page. I think we have a tabula, er, bona fide now. Jon Awbrey 17:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, so much for attempts at reconciliation in the midst of contentious argument, at least for now. Fine, if the mistake can't be corrected, it is resubmitted immediately below. ... Kenosis 17:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Dab Note. Reconciling people is one thing. Reconciling accounts is another. Either way, keeping a double set of books is a practice to be sensured. Jon Awbrey 17:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

See it however you like. If you refuse to acknowledge the intended point and allow the correction, I resubmit. The edit history stands ad infinitum either way.. Kenosis 20:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I still regard you as an honest person, more misguided in your missals than ever, but honest for a'that. I'm sure that if you had thought ahead, or thought twice, about it, you would've thought of all the reasons why that sort of, er, "substantive" alteration is not a good idea. But I'm just as sure, well, relatively sure, that the next time you think of doing that you will think again, and think more otherwisely. Jon Awbrey 20:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §18. Resubmission of points Re: Disputed replacement of POV tag

Submission as above with correct username. My sincere apology to Rick Norwood for confusing his username above with that of Nathan Ladd. My points are the same with the exception of that error which is duly noted. ... Kenosis 17:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC) RE: the POV tag: So what's the problem now? There apparently are two issues here. (1) An alleged sockpuppet issue involving Nathan Ladd and several new usernames currently being analyzed on Talk:Charles Peirce, which same usernames were involved in some kind of vote to remove material against my stated preference. (2) An alleged POV issue in the article on truth. The POV was alleged to be (2a) a Correspondence theory POV. This was resolved by putting the five major theories including Coherence, Correspondence, Constructivist, Consensus, and Pragmatic into a section together. The longest section there is only the longest because Jon Awbrey, the complainant, made it so two days ago with the insertion of a lengthy blockquote from Immanual Kant, which I have already stated to be arguably too lengthy. Without Jon's last addition to that section, Pragmatic theory (including Charles Peirce) is the lengthiest, followed by Consensus and Correspondence theory. (2b) Jon also alleged there was a linguistic-analytic POV, and references to this POV were since removed. What is left is a balanced, plain English summary of the prominent theories of truth and an introduction to some commonly used concepts in the literature on truth. One editor has no more right to keep such a tag in place, after having been addressed and responded to, than another has to remove such a tag. Nonetheless I will leave the tag and instead consider a request for arbitration on Jon's continuing insistence to clog up this article with technical obscurities far beyond what is necessary to lay out the basic theories for reasonably intelligent readers. ... Kenosis 14:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

RE: "I have made no allegations": What Jon says above is disingenuous and completely misleading. Jon is in fact rendering a sockpuppetry argument on Talk:Charles Peirce. Among other things:

• (1) In fact Jon provided on Talk:Charles Peirce a direct link to Nathan Ladd's contribution with consistent misspelling of the word "consensus" every time it was used by him.
• (2) Jon used the words "A week ago I couldn't even spell "concensus: and now I are one"
• (3) Jon has provided in consecutive order the names of at least four new usernames that immediately and simultaneously descended on disputed areas of Jon's editing and contribution in both truth and Charles Peirce.
• (4) Immediately above this information provided by Jon in Talk:Charles Peirce was a conspicuous use of the same misspelling by user "AnnMBake". If Jon believes this was pure coincidence (which of itself is possible, of course) then why state these things?.
• (5) These parties, appearing at first to be independent, have since been said by Nathan Ladd to know one another personally and we are already told by Nate Ladd to expect them to come from the same IP address. So it gets interesting, and the evidence continues to build, and of course we all continue to assume good faith.

Either way the current situation is, so to speak, quote oderiferous, because I happen to believe that as a general thrust the assertions of these users is by far the more correct approach despite many quibbles with his/their position. Yet it would be quite disturbing if what Jon is is true. Because if these implications/allegations/arguments/investigations have any merit, it would certainly be a very wrong way to achieve what I seek vis-a-vis Jon Awbrey's highly obscure verbosity, which is an article that is readable and understandable without excess technical jargon, lengthy digressions, and various other unnecessary challenges to the reader of this or any other article on a subject of common interest. (Truth is not to be expected to be of the same level of technical obscurity as cladistics or truth theory, for instance.) Thus, either way I am justifiably displeased by this turn of events here.

But for JA to try to tell me that Nathan Ladd was not part of his "investigating" from the getgo? Gimme abreak here. How strange this all is, incidentally, is what I was attempting to parody on that talk page with my own remarks, in case it wasn't obvious. ... Kenosis 16:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §19. Policies, guidelines, essays, and personal agendas

JA: One component of the dispute that currently invests the article Truth is the extent to which recent editorial proceedings have been in compliance with the principal policies that define positive participation in WikiPedia. The pages on WP:POLICY identify the three defining and non-negotiable policies as WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:VER, reiterating three times over on each of their dedicated pages, with no substantive variance, the following norm of legitimate participation in WikiPedia:

These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.

JA: This triple ultimatum has practical consequences that cannot be set aside by those who affect to be editors in good standing with WP. I ask the participants on this article in particular to review the contents of the above three pages so that we may proceed to deduce a few of their more salient consequences, and by that deduction I do not mean to imply a purely theoretical interest, but a very real concern to apply those principles in practice. Jon Awbrey 12:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Another statement occurring in all three WP:POLICIES that determine content is this:

Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should therefore try to familiarize themselves with all three.

JA: I think that these policies reflect the innate or inured intuitions of all responsible scholars and accurate reporters, and in a sense they are really just three facets of the very same rule, what I grok and express purely for the sake of euphony as the maxaim of "Not Up Making Stuff" (NUMS), if you'll excuse me making up a neo-acronymism to express it. Probably not. At any rate, the idea behind grounded or sourced research is that statements have to be grounded in sources that are commonly accessible to anybody who wants to check what we say. We all have practical limits in regard to the journals and the libraries that we can access, of course, but this is becoming less and less of a problem every day. Jon Awbrey 21:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: "The three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus.": Uh... Well, yes. The current assertion that the article violates WP:NPOV is based on original research and one editor's opinion that does not meet reasonable interpretations of WP:VER . Most or all of the relevant major POV's (theories) are already included and reasonably well summarized at present. No doubt there's also a place in the article for Heidegger's assertion below. Same with other relevant slants, assuming they are notable, significant, relevant, reasonably verifiable and concisely summarized with links to the relevant main articles. The only POV under any longstanding dispute is JA's POV at present. .. Kenosis 23:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Heidegerrian Truth?

The definition of truth according to one extremely famous and celebrated non-analytic philosopher:

"truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge"...........from a pro-Nazi speech at Heidelburg University. --Lacatosias 13:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §20. Synopsis

JA: I will collect in this section brief statements as to what I believe are still the most serious aberrations of the article on Truth with respect to achieving a neutral point of view. Jon Awbrey 04:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: It might help to explain to heart of the problem by thinking of the following analogy. Suppose that you are trying to write an article for the English Misplaced Pages on the Theory of Poetry. One of the first things you have to decide is whether its coverage will be limited to English poetry, or whether you want a synoptic theory that speaks of poetry in many languages. If you decide to try and tackle the more generic task, then you will naturally have difficulties at any point where you have to work with translations of non-English poems into English. You can take a French poem and find or make a good translation of it into English. You can talk about the virtues of the French original as a French poem, you can talk about the fidelity of the translation and the felicity of the English translation as an English poem in its own write, but if you try to judge the virtues of the French original in any definitive or final way based on the English translation, literati on both sides of the Channel are just going to laugh at the sheer presumption of it. There's a lesson in that. Jon Awbrey 04:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

VERIFY §1. Improving the Verifiability of Truth

JA: I am creating this section as a place for discussing the continuing need to improve the status of the current article on Truth with respect to the WP:POLICY of WP:VERIFIABILITY. Jon Awbrey 11:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

FAITH §1. Actions that Contribute to a Crisis of WP:Faith

JA: I am creating this section as a place for discussing issues that are pertinent to the WP:POLICY of WP:FAITH.

JA: My present take on it. I think that any mature person who reads the WikiPage on Assume Good Faith cannot help but to be inspired by the intuitive wisdom recounted there, and yet living up to this maxim of theoretical wisdom in practice, without being exploited by unscrupulous persons unknown, is no Candide or Pollyanna task in these times that load one odious fardel after another On the Soul. For that reason, I am personally putting the issue on the back burner for just a few more days, but I do need to memorandize the fact that it keeps coming up.

JA: In particular, the current last paragraph of WP:FAITH states the following:

This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Things which can cause the loss of good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, sockpuppetry and edit warring. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, it only means that one should not ascribe said action to malice. Automatically accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith regardless of their motivation is failing to assume good faith in itself.

JA: I am by no means certain that this can remain the last paragraph forever. Jon Awbrey 12:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• NA-Class Philosophy pages
• NA-importance Philosophy pages