Suppose you have two models of the earth; one is a sphere, one is an ellipsoid. Both are wrong, but they’re wrong in different ways. Now, we can operationalize a bunch of different implications of these hypotheses, but most of the time in science the main point of operationalizing the implications is not to choose between two existing models, or because we care directly about the operationalizations, but rather to come up with a new model that combines their benefits.
I see what you’re gesturing at but I’m having difficulty translating it into a direct answer to my question.
Cases where language is fuzzy are abundant. Do you have some examples of where a truth value itself is fuzzy (and sensical) or am I confused in trying to separate these concepts?
Yes, this separation is confused. “Bob is bald” is true if Bob is contained in the set of bald things, and false if he is not contained in the set of bald things. But baldness is a vague concept, its extension is a fuzzy set. The containment relation is a partial one. So Bob isn’t just either in the set or not in the set. To use binary truth values here, we have to make the simplifying assumption that “bald” is not vague. Otherwise we get fuzzy truth values which indicate the degree to which Bob is contained in the fuzzy set of bald things.
What happens when Bob can be found in or out of the set of bald things at different times or in different situations, but we might not understand (or even be well aware) of the conditions that drive Bob’s membership in the set when we’re evaluating baldness and Bob?
Can membership in baldness turn out to be some type of quantum state thing?
That might be a basis for separating the concept of fuzzy language and fuzzy truth.But I would agree that if we can identify all possible cases where Bob is or is not in the set of baldness one might claim truth is no longer fuzzy but one needs to then prove that knowledge of all possible states has been established I think.
Suppose you have two models of the earth; one is a sphere, one is an ellipsoid. Both are wrong, but they’re wrong in different ways. Now, we can operationalize a bunch of different implications of these hypotheses, but most of the time in science the main point of operationalizing the implications is not to choose between two existing models, or because we care directly about the operationalizations, but rather to come up with a new model that combines their benefits.
I see what you’re gesturing at but I’m having difficulty translating it into a direct answer to my question.
Cases where language is fuzzy are abundant. Do you have some examples of where a truth value itself is fuzzy (and sensical) or am I confused in trying to separate these concepts?
Yes, this separation is confused. “Bob is bald” is true if Bob is contained in the set of bald things, and false if he is not contained in the set of bald things. But baldness is a vague concept, its extension is a fuzzy set. The containment relation is a partial one. So Bob isn’t just either in the set or not in the set. To use binary truth values here, we have to make the simplifying assumption that “bald” is not vague. Otherwise we get fuzzy truth values which indicate the degree to which Bob is contained in the fuzzy set of bald things.
What happens when Bob can be found in or out of the set of bald things at different times or in different situations, but we might not understand (or even be well aware) of the conditions that drive Bob’s membership in the set when we’re evaluating baldness and Bob?
Can membership in baldness turn out to be some type of quantum state thing?
That might be a basis for separating the concept of fuzzy language and fuzzy truth.But I would agree that if we can identify all possible cases where Bob is or is not in the set of baldness one might claim truth is no longer fuzzy but one needs to then prove that knowledge of all possible states has been established I think.