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Nov 21st, 2016
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  2. "The point of the theory is that there is a meaningful correspondence between our language and the world, and that a statement is made true by the fact that it connects to existent objects in a particular way."
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  5. No, it doesn't have to correspond with our language, it has to <i>be possible</i> to correspond with our language: if 'we' turn to talking gibberish, or, like, creating inner landscapes to share, or for ourselves, -or otherwise do not use language in a way that corresponds with reality, that has nothing to do with the merits of the correspondence theory of truth.
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  7. And it doesn't have to be connected to <i>distinct</i> objects, just to reality, which we often use ideas of distinct objects to approximate, though the reality is usually (but not always) at least somewhat more fuzzy:
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  9. 'That chair' might be a fuzzy delineation, for a really stringent definition of ~'not-fuzzy'; but there's still something there, with a certain shape. -That will hold you up if you perform-the-motions-approximated/delineated-by-the-word-'sit' on it, aka 'sit' on it, aka sit on it, -or there isn't.
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  11. If I say, 'I will sit on that chair', and successfully undertake the procedure slightly more fully described above, am I not entitled to say, that I said I would and that I did?
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  15. If:
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  17. -I say I'll sit on the chair
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  19. and..
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  21. something I gesture to with the word 'I', attempts to do something I approximate with the word 'sit', 'on' -meaning on the opposite side of something to the pull of gravity, a single phenomenon whose singleness is indicated by the word 'the' (for ease of parsing), -the thing I think I see with the vertical part for my back and horizontal part for my weight joined together, which I call a chair.
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  23. (not the perception, but the thing itself. -I assume that the perception corresponds to something which exists in a wider reality not dependent on my beliefs, feelings, -or others'- in any mystical or religious way.)
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  25. Or to put it another way,
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  27. 'I' 'sit' 'on' 'the' 'chair'
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  29. -And for whatever reason drop the quote marks that might remind me I'm approximating something to less than 100.00000000..% accuracy, out of some combination of epistemelogical laziness, and, because- when no better approximation is available, (or perhaps conceivable), and we have time constraints, energy constraints, and purposes, -sometimes important ones, which we prioritise above decorating everything with inherent-uncertainty-of-existing-and-observing markers.
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  31. Which is a shame if you ask me, but I think a perfectly defendable way to prioritise things.
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  33. -then where's the problem? Where's the lack of correspondence, or lack of meaning? Where exactly?
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  37. It's also interesting to note that 'the correspondence theory of truth', -or to put it in a less arms-lengthing way, the idea that there is greater independent reality and that we can describe/approximate it to a high degree of fidelity using language, numbers, etc, is the 'theory of truth' with the greatest capacity to pass all other theories' requirements just by seeking to fulfill its own criteria.
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  39. Can having a good map of reality be useful? Yes, so it passes the 'pragmatic theory of truth', or whatever grand name was missapropriated for the idea that if a belief benefits you it is 'true', as if there wasn't already a word for BENEFICIAL -beneficial. (The scientologist's 'theory' of truth.)
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  41. Can a good map of reality be highly coherent within itself? Yes. In fact it has to, -as an absolute minimum requirement. A map can't say that a thing is here and also not here.
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  43. can the correspondence theory of truth be confirmed in a narrow constricted positivist manner? Yes. Unlike the positivist 'theory of truth'. (LOL)
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  45. Can the correspondence theory of truth make you feel good, and even confident? Yes, learning what you can about your world is an enjoyable and worthwhile thing to do, and being a worthy and respectable thing to do, can help a person view themselves more highly, as it does in fact correspondingly elevate them to some extent.
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  49. Anyway, 'true' is the word used for 'highly corresponding to reality', in common parlance, and there is no other word which will do the job. Even if we cannot approximate wherever and whatever it is that words like 'reality' gesture at, the namespace in the language is taken, and there isn't a good alternative. Unlike, the other 'theories of truth', which tend to have preexisting words that already point to exactly the property they want to use the word 'truth' for: e.g. 'coherent' 'beneficial' 'comforting', etc.
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  51. This ignores pragmatic arguments like 'look at these skyscrapers how do you think they were built', and 'why do we waste so much time discussing and contemplating in pretending to approximate some shared reality, if there isn't one? Why should anything anyone else says about the world be of any use or relevance to you if you do not share some common reality, and if that reality cannot meaningfully be explored using language?
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