You can’t check a claim independently of understanding it, for which contextual knowledge is necessary. It’s as simple as that.
I know you can’t check a claim without understanding it. I’ve said as much (the qualifier you keep mentioning). My point is that, given you do understand it, you can check it.
I am also confused as to why your think all claims are empirically verifiable, i.e. if X is Y and Z is X then Y is Z. Most language is not world-referent.
I don’t think that all claims are empirically verifiable—that was my mistake in writing. However you still haven’t explained how someone’s belief structure could affect objective reality (outside of their own state of mind).
Firstly, when I say “evaluate a claim” I mean checking that it matches with objective reality—NOT understanding what the claim means in it’s linguistic context
I responded:
You can’t check a claim independently of understanding it, for which contextual knowledge is necessary.
You responded to my response:
I know you can’t check a claim without understanding it. I’ve said as much (the qualifier you keep mentioning). My point is that, given you do understand it, you can check it.
You are flatly contradicting yourself. You keep doing this: stating the unqualified version, then upon my response, admitting the qualification, and the all of a sudden reverting back to the unqualified version.
My point was that you can’t, besides bare particles of sense experience, interpret the external world independent of a belief structure, but as stated—given the length and circularity of this debate—I don’t want to turn this into a second discussion.
You are misrepresenting the statement-response structure.
I simultaneously say two things:
1) You must understand a claim to check it, else you wouldn’t know what to check.
(we both agree here, I think)
2) Given that you can understand a claim, it can be checked
You say “Hold on, you can’t understand a claim without the context!” And I agree.
In the practical reality that we must face on a daily basis, you can’t really ever avoid the fact that we must communicate via language and we also often imply some additional details, such as time/location.
Let’s say I claim “Il pleut.” (in French it means “it’s raining”).
There are several things in the context that matter:
a) You need to either speak my language or have it translated into your own.
b) In context, the claim is really that “It’s raining in this area at this time” (this is important, as it might not be raining elsewhere or in the past/future here).
Even if you didn’t know what I said, it is in fact either raining at this place and this time or it is not. You need not understand my claim in order to see if it’s raining. However, you also wouldn’t check in the first place because you didn’t know it was claimed.
What I’ve been trying to do this whole time, which you seem not to have grasped yet, is that I am separating the truth of the claim (a statement about reality) and the baggage that we must actually deal with when we communicate such a claim to each other (hence my distinction between understanding a claim and checking a claim).
I have understood you the entire time. I think you have confused yourself.
I broadly agree with (1) and (2), and have never suggested otherwise (except that all claims aren’t susceptible to ‘checking’).
The entire point has been that you have consistently said that you can evaluate utterances independently of contingent features of the speaker and context. That is to say, you seem to be under the impression that ‘evaluating a claim’ does not require any knowledge about that claim. Which is obviously absurd, you can’t evaluate something you know nothing about. In reality, I don’t think you mean ‘evaluate a claim’ at all, you mean ‘evaluate some set of world-referent information which happens to be in the claim’.
Let me state this in rough propositions:
a. evaluation is a judgement of aspects of things relative to criteria
b. a claim is an utterance
c. utterances can contain information about things and their aspects
d. utterance intelligibility depends on knowing contingent things about the speaker and context of utterance
e. ergo, evaluation of a claim must follow these steps: to judge aspects of things related to a claim requires utterance information, which requires utterance intelligibility, which requires contingent knowledge about the speaker and context of utterance.
That is to say, evaluating a CLAIM requires that contingent knowledge.
You have consistently stated otherwise:
“I guess the main thing I am trying to say that directly ties into your post is that we shouldn’t really care how someone formed their beliefs when evaluating the veracity of a claim”
The reason I said “we shouldn’t really care how someone formed their beliefs” is because the words that followed are “when evaluating the veracity of a claim,” i.e. whether or not it is accurate. This is entirely independent of the person’s reasons for making the claim
You don’t need to know how I came to that conclusion in order to evaluate my claim.
2+2 = 4… You don’t know my belief structure. Is it true?
“How they came to the conclusion” addresses the logic by which they arrived at a particular belief—such as A & B therefore C. “You don’t need to know how they came to the conclusion ” addresses whether C is correct. A & B are not involved in the evaluation; the only time context enters into it is understanding what C means.
when I say “evaluate a claim” I mean you go and smell the rose yourself,
Firstly, when I say “evaluate a claim” I mean checking that it matches with objective reality—NOT understanding what the claim means in it’s linguistic context.
The entire point has been that you have consistently said that you can evaluate utterances independently of contingent features of the speaker and context.
You are putting words into my mouth. Note that I have never even used the term “utterance” to this point in my statements.
Also note that you don’t get to define the terms that I’m using—I do. I’m glad that you listed these propositions in several point, since it makes this easier to deconstruct:
Let me state this in rough propositions:
a. evaluation is a judgement of aspects of things relative to criteria
b. a claim is an utterance
c. utterances can contain information about things and their aspects
d. utterance intelligibility depends on knowing contingent things about the speaker and context of utterance
e. ergo, evaluation of a claim must follow these steps: to judge aspects of things related to a claim requires utterance information, which requires utterance intelligibility, which requires contingent knowledge about the speaker and context of utterance
Here are my responses/restatements to/of each point:
a) In this context, I use “evaluation” to mean comparing a statement about reality with reality itself.
b) In this context, I use “claim” to mean a statement about reality.
b’) Also critically important is that you understand that “a statement about reality” is a pure and independent concept, free of the burden of language. Perhaps a better phrasing would be “a concept of reality” or “a conceived state of reality” rather than a statement. A statement about reality is not to be confused with the utterance of a claim)
c) The utterance of a claim is an attempt to make a statement about reality.
d) The intended meaning of an utterance (i.e. the conceived state of reality in this case) often incorporates contextual and implied contextual information (e.g. when one says “It’s raining,” one also means that the statement pertains to here and now)
e) Ergo in order to evaluate an uttered claim one must: 1) fully understand the claim, incorporating all relevant contextual meaning, 2) evaluate the claim, i.e. compare the conceived state of reality with reality itself.
The second part of (e), comparing a conceived state of reality with reality itself, does not involve the context or the belief structure of the claimant; however, given that we are bound by language, you must necessarily go through step 1 to get to step 2.
For instance, take the claim
A = A
Now, if you aren’t familiar with mathematical notation, then you could not understand the claim and therefore could not proceed to step 2 because you were unsuccessful at completing step 1. However, the agreement between reality and the conceived state of reality (which cannot be purely expressed as such, since we are bound by language/notation when communicating interpersonally) can be evaluated regardless.*
-* I realize that for some claims we do not have the knowledge/resources/possibility to check their correspondence to objective reality. Ignore this during our discussion to minimize unnecessary qualification.
“a statement about reality” is a pure and independent concept, free of the burden of language”
This is a false premise. There is no such thing.
i.e. to claim something is to give motion for or against a given thought or action through utterances according with the relevant conventions of language. This is a linguistic practice perforce.
A conceived state of reality is something that happens in your head, not in writing or spoken aloud. The utterance of a claim is an attempt to convey this conceived state to someone else. You seem to be bordering on rejecting objective reality altogether; if there are no minds in the universe is a rock still a rock? In such a universe there would be no language, but you would agree that A still equals A, right? If you were alone and had no one to talk to, could you not still understand your surroundings via internal models of reality?
Edit: in short the fact that A=A, the concept that A=A, and the utterance A=A, are all unique things and to try to combine the latter two is unjustified.
I think this idle circularity flows from your non-ordinary use of ‘claim’ and ‘statement’, which you seem to be using in special ways.
The Google definitions of each given as the first return from the search-function:
Statement, “a definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing”.
Claim, “state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof”.
The object of our disagreement, ‘evaluating a claim’, if we follow ordinary language, means passing judgement over a linguistic statement, an obvious condition of which is finding that utterance properly intelligible.
When you say “A statement about reality is not to be confused with the utterance of a claim” [where confusingly, you define ‘statement about reality’ and ‘claim’ synonymously] you simply redefine the terms of the problem and discussion. As I have said all along, you are misusing words.
I don’t want to go into—because it’s a red herring—the possibility of pure and independent access to reality, suffice it to say that it’s philosophically absurd.
Also note that you don’t get to define the terms that I’m using—I do.
do you not understand?
I know I am using non-standard definitions in the context of this discussion in order to make my points more clear.
Your argument has boiled down to “MY definition of your words says that you are saying X, which is wrong” when I am in fact saying Y, which you have not responded to. I don’t care about what you (or Google) say evaluating a claim is supposed to mean, because what we are discussing is what I mean when I say it. The “idle circularity” flows from your failure to acknowledge different uses of words in the context of this discussion and respond to my actual points. If you want to get somewhere, perhaps you should reread my definitions and actually consider what I am saying.
I know you can’t check a claim without understanding it. I’ve said as much (the qualifier you keep mentioning). My point is that, given you do understand it, you can check it.
I don’t think that all claims are empirically verifiable—that was my mistake in writing. However you still haven’t explained how someone’s belief structure could affect objective reality (outside of their own state of mind).
I’m sorry, but this is getting absurd.
You said:
I responded:
You responded to my response:
You are flatly contradicting yourself. You keep doing this: stating the unqualified version, then upon my response, admitting the qualification, and the all of a sudden reverting back to the unqualified version.
My point was that you can’t, besides bare particles of sense experience, interpret the external world independent of a belief structure, but as stated—given the length and circularity of this debate—I don’t want to turn this into a second discussion.
You are misrepresenting the statement-response structure.
I simultaneously say two things:
1) You must understand a claim to check it, else you wouldn’t know what to check. (we both agree here, I think)
2) Given that you can understand a claim, it can be checked
You say “Hold on, you can’t understand a claim without the context!” And I agree. In the practical reality that we must face on a daily basis, you can’t really ever avoid the fact that we must communicate via language and we also often imply some additional details, such as time/location.
Let’s say I claim “Il pleut.” (in French it means “it’s raining”).
There are several things in the context that matter: a) You need to either speak my language or have it translated into your own. b) In context, the claim is really that “It’s raining in this area at this time” (this is important, as it might not be raining elsewhere or in the past/future here).
Even if you didn’t know what I said, it is in fact either raining at this place and this time or it is not. You need not understand my claim in order to see if it’s raining. However, you also wouldn’t check in the first place because you didn’t know it was claimed.
What I’ve been trying to do this whole time, which you seem not to have grasped yet, is that I am separating the truth of the claim (a statement about reality) and the baggage that we must actually deal with when we communicate such a claim to each other (hence my distinction between understanding a claim and checking a claim).
Do you follow me?
I have understood you the entire time. I think you have confused yourself.
I broadly agree with (1) and (2), and have never suggested otherwise (except that all claims aren’t susceptible to ‘checking’).
The entire point has been that you have consistently said that you can evaluate utterances independently of contingent features of the speaker and context. That is to say, you seem to be under the impression that ‘evaluating a claim’ does not require any knowledge about that claim. Which is obviously absurd, you can’t evaluate something you know nothing about. In reality, I don’t think you mean ‘evaluate a claim’ at all, you mean ‘evaluate some set of world-referent information which happens to be in the claim’.
Let me state this in rough propositions:
a. evaluation is a judgement of aspects of things relative to criteria
b. a claim is an utterance
c. utterances can contain information about things and their aspects
d. utterance intelligibility depends on knowing contingent things about the speaker and context of utterance
e. ergo, evaluation of a claim must follow these steps: to judge aspects of things related to a claim requires utterance information, which requires utterance intelligibility, which requires contingent knowledge about the speaker and context of utterance.
That is to say, evaluating a CLAIM requires that contingent knowledge.
You have consistently stated otherwise:
You are putting words into my mouth. Note that I have never even used the term “utterance” to this point in my statements. Also note that you don’t get to define the terms that I’m using—I do. I’m glad that you listed these propositions in several point, since it makes this easier to deconstruct:
Here are my responses/restatements to/of each point:
a) In this context, I use “evaluation” to mean comparing a statement about reality with reality itself.
b) In this context, I use “claim” to mean a statement about reality.
b’) Also critically important is that you understand that “a statement about reality” is a pure and independent concept, free of the burden of language. Perhaps a better phrasing would be “a concept of reality” or “a conceived state of reality” rather than a statement. A statement about reality is not to be confused with the utterance of a claim)
c) The utterance of a claim is an attempt to make a statement about reality.
d) The intended meaning of an utterance (i.e. the conceived state of reality in this case) often incorporates contextual and implied contextual information (e.g. when one says “It’s raining,” one also means that the statement pertains to here and now)
e) Ergo in order to evaluate an uttered claim one must: 1) fully understand the claim, incorporating all relevant contextual meaning, 2) evaluate the claim, i.e. compare the conceived state of reality with reality itself.
The second part of (e), comparing a conceived state of reality with reality itself, does not involve the context or the belief structure of the claimant; however, given that we are bound by language, you must necessarily go through step 1 to get to step 2.
For instance, take the claim
A = A
Now, if you aren’t familiar with mathematical notation, then you could not understand the claim and therefore could not proceed to step 2 because you were unsuccessful at completing step 1. However, the agreement between reality and the conceived state of reality (which cannot be purely expressed as such, since we are bound by language/notation when communicating interpersonally) can be evaluated regardless.*
-* I realize that for some claims we do not have the knowledge/resources/possibility to check their correspondence to objective reality. Ignore this during our discussion to minimize unnecessary qualification.
This is a false premise. There is no such thing.
i.e. to claim something is to give motion for or against a given thought or action through utterances according with the relevant conventions of language. This is a linguistic practice perforce.
A conceived state of reality is something that happens in your head, not in writing or spoken aloud. The utterance of a claim is an attempt to convey this conceived state to someone else. You seem to be bordering on rejecting objective reality altogether; if there are no minds in the universe is a rock still a rock? In such a universe there would be no language, but you would agree that A still equals A, right? If you were alone and had no one to talk to, could you not still understand your surroundings via internal models of reality?
Edit: in short the fact that A=A, the concept that A=A, and the utterance A=A, are all unique things and to try to combine the latter two is unjustified.
I think this idle circularity flows from your non-ordinary use of ‘claim’ and ‘statement’, which you seem to be using in special ways.
The Google definitions of each given as the first return from the search-function:
Statement, “a definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing”.
Claim, “state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof”.
The object of our disagreement, ‘evaluating a claim’, if we follow ordinary language, means passing judgement over a linguistic statement, an obvious condition of which is finding that utterance properly intelligible.
When you say “A statement about reality is not to be confused with the utterance of a claim” [where confusingly, you define ‘statement about reality’ and ‘claim’ synonymously] you simply redefine the terms of the problem and discussion. As I have said all along, you are misusing words.
I don’t want to go into—because it’s a red herring—the possibility of pure and independent access to reality, suffice it to say that it’s philosophically absurd.
What part of
do you not understand?
I know I am using non-standard definitions in the context of this discussion in order to make my points more clear.
Your argument has boiled down to “MY definition of your words says that you are saying X, which is wrong” when I am in fact saying Y, which you have not responded to. I don’t care about what you (or Google) say evaluating a claim is supposed to mean, because what we are discussing is what I mean when I say it. The “idle circularity” flows from your failure to acknowledge different uses of words in the context of this discussion and respond to my actual points. If you want to get somewhere, perhaps you should reread my definitions and actually consider what I am saying.