Peter Holmes wrote: ↑August 13th, 2020, 1:27 am
And there's the myth of propositions at work - as it is in the JTB truth condition: S knows that p iff p is true.
???
"S knows that P IFF P is true" is not true per the JTB theory of knowledge (I assume you mean the "justified true belief" theory). Per that theory "S knows that P" is true IFF 1) S believes that P, and 2) S's belief that P is justified, and 3) P is true. That theory has well-known problems, as I'm sure you know.
There's no such thing as propositional belief and knowledge.
Are you dismissing Russell's distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description?
There are only beliefs and knowledge-claims expressed by means of propositions, which are nothing more than factual assertions - linguistic expressions.
Only beliefs and knowledge claims? Where/when/how does
knowledge enter the picture? Perhaps you can explain your understanding of what constitutes knowledge.
Also, please explicate this "myth of propositions."
What we mean when we say we know something constitutes what we call knowledge - and there's no other metaphysical court of appeal.
Are you saying here that meanings --- presumably of true propositions -- constitute knowledge?
And if we communicate what we know linguitically, what we communicate is not linguistic knowledge. That idea mistakes what we say for what we know.
Well, I'd agree there --- I think. I would understand "linguistic knowledge" to mean knowledge of the syntax, semantics, evolution, etc., of a language or language family. But the knowledge gained via description --- which constitutes most of what we know --- is not a distinct type, or category, of knowledge. The "by description," or "linguistic," adjective merely denotes the means by which we gained it.
Notice 'I use the term...' I'm explaining the distinction between a factual and a non-factual assertion. The function of factual assertions is to communicate what you and Russell call knowledge by description of states-of-affairs or features of reality - what philosophers often call facts, to distinguish them from propositions.
The distinction between a "factual assertion" and a non-factual one is that the former is true and the latter false, or perhaps undecidable.
Yes, there is a distinction between a state of affairs and the proposition asserting it, the former being the "fact" asserted. All propositions assert some state of affairs; whether it is "factual" depends upon whether that state of affairs exists, i.e., whether the proposition is true or false.
Again, I'm explaining a different use of 'factual', to mean 'claiming something about reality that may or may not be the case'. I do this because the term 'proposition' - apart from denoting an abstract fiction - fails to distinguish between factual assertions with truth-value and non-factual assertions, which have no truth-value.
An assertion that has no truth value is not a proposition. It will only fail to have a truth value because one or more of the terms is undefined (and so how to go about confirming or disconfirming it is unknowable), or because it is ill-formed, i.e., it violates some semantic or syntactical rule. The truth value of a proposition may be indeterminate, however, if verification of the asserted state of affairs, though possible in principle, is currently impossible in practice ("There is life on Mars").
And here's the inevitable mistake. You think that a moral or aesthetic axiom or postulate is a claim that must be or be taken to be true - that it has a truth-value: this is the standard of goodness / beauty. But that obviously isn't a factual assertion with a truth-value.
Oh, no. No axiom
must be taken as true, if you mean there is some logical necessity compelling it. That could only be the case if the axiom was a tautology, in which case it would be vacuous. The axiom in question merely sets forth what the term "morality" is thought (by many people) to entail, what is its aim. That it is so understood (by those people) is a "fact," and a proposition so asserting is true. So the question then becomes, "What principles, rules, further that aim?" Those answers will also have truth values; they will be "factual."
Nothing, of course, compels anyone to that understanding of "morality," or that aim in constructing one.
You also seem to misunderstand the concept of a "standard." Like axioms, propositions asserting standards are
posited to be true. Hence they are. They are the "fixed point" against which something else is measured.
To deny it is merely to reject that standard - and perhaps posulate another standard, which will also not have a truth-value.
Well, standards
per se, not being propositions, don't have truth values (only propositions have truth values). But propositions asserting them do --- by hypothesis.
And it follows that 'X is morally wrong' and 'Y is ugly', deduced from the postulate or axiom, are not, as you claim, 'true, factual, and objective'. What is indeed true, factual and objective is that those derived assertions are consistent with the postulate or axiom. But nothing more.
Nothing more is needed. All that is being claimed is that "X" and "Y" are inconsistent with some axiom or standard. That they are or not is a "fact;" and the propositions asserting either that they are or not are either true or false. You seem to be assuming that "X is wrong," to be true, must express some law of nature, some physical, empirically verifiable state of affairs, or perhaps some transcendental "reality." But all that it asserts is that X is or is not compatible with a certain axiom, does or does not further a certain goal. Moral "oughts" are thus instrumental "oughts," just as is, "If you wish to drive a nail, you ought to get a hammer." But of course, you won't need a hammer if you have no desire to drive a nail. Similarly with moral constraints and duties --- if you have no interest in the aim set forth in that axiom you are free to ignore them.