Philosophical Question (on truth)

[AmericanPride]

I'm looking for a term or phrase to describe the following concept.

1. There is a sky. This is a true statement wherever we go.

2. The sky is blue. This is just as true of a statement as the above when it is true.

What is the term that describes the concept behind the second statement? I do not think "conditional", "relative" or "situational" apply because those terms imply that the truth is relative to the observer instead of the conditions that make it true. When the sky is blue, it is "blue" to all observers.

The relevancy of the distinction? IMO, it relates to the characteristics of assumptions and accurate judgment. If I were to argue for a thing's necessity, for example, the implications of that necessity and thing would change between the first concept and the second.

[Danny]

Goodness. What on earth are you getting so detailed about that you need to pose this question? No, on second thought, don't tell me.

There are a whole host of things that could impinge on this question such as modality, but in order to keep it simple, let's distinguish between universal and particular propositions. A particular proposition is when the subject is not taken according to its whole extension; that is, when the term is limited and restrained to some one or more of those species or individuals whose general nature it expresses.

As for there being a sky, this is a universally true proposition, as long as one is on earth. As for the proposition that the sky is blue, this is true to the person who poses it where s/he is and at the time it is posed, as long as it obtains and coheres with the facts. It isn't universally true, and there is no law of logic being violated by saying that there are conditionals for this proposition to be true. The primitive laws of mathematics and the laws of logic are true without conditionals. That the sky is blue is not.

So now, I am tired and need to go to bed. This is a true proposition, but only particularly so, not universally so. As I go to bed, you have to stay up late writing. You can decide whether you feel that this is particular or universal when you have your first cup of coffee after having no sleep.

Best, HPS
http://www.captainsjournal.com/

[Ken White]

...2. The sky is blue. This is just as true of a statement as the above when it is true.

What is the term that describes the concept behind the second statement? I do not think "conditional", "relative" or "situational" apply because those terms imply that the truth is relative to the observer instead of the conditions that make it true. When the sky is blue, it is "blue" to all observers. (emphasis added / kw)

Not if, as you yourself point out, the observer is in a position where conditions make the sky appear to not be blue. Seems to me that makes it a conditional statement...

See also this LINK, scroll to 'Ultra Condensed.'

[120mm]

The Color of "truth" is Gray.

[davygamm]

Isn't this about ontology AP ? You make a claim that something exists ( Sky) and then you make a claim about a property that it has (blueness).

Isn't the truth of both statements contingent ? On there being a Sky and that Sky being blue ? I don't know how you would show that with formal Logic ?

Sorry if that's not much help.

[wm]

Isn't this about ontology AP ? You make a claim that something exists ( Sky) and then you make a claim about a property that it has (blueness).

Isn't the truth of both statements contingent ? On there being a Sky and that Sky being blue ? I don't know how you would show that with formal Logic ?

Sorry if that's not much help.

Caution: What follows is a lot of formal philosophical mumbo jumbo.

Thuis may be about ontology but it need not be. We can make claims without making any assertions about the actual existence of the subjects/objects of those claims. Another way of saying this is that "is " has multiple uses: it can be the "is" of existence or the "is" of predication (as well as the "is " of identity or equality).
Both are claims that are best expressed formally in quantified logic--the first is, as Danny point out(but applied to the wrong claim I believe), a particular claim of the form
EG: "There is some thing such that that thing is sky."
The second claim is a universal claim that embeds a conditional of this form:
UG: "For all things, if those things are sky then those things are blue."
(I'd show these as a formula but don't know how to import logical operators into this site's charactewr set)
However the rest of AP's discussion suggests that his second claim is more than just a sentence. He seems to to imply that we have an enthymeme the conclusion of which is "The sky is blue". If that is so, then my UG claim above is one premise, and a second premise is:
UI': This thing is sky.
The conclusion follows in the enthymeme by applying modus ponensas a rule of inference after instantiating the UG claim:
UI'': If this thing is sky, then this thing is blue.

Of course all of the above is just one way of translating all this natural language into a formalized structure. One could do it other ways too, like "there is something such that it is sky and it is blue." Pragmatic considerations about what one is doing and why enter here. Since I am not privy to the ones that bother AP at present, I won't belabor this any more. (A great sigh of relief is heard from the audience)

[Fuchs]

"descriptive"

[John T. Fishel]

philosopher and logician, President Bubba aka Bill Clinton, "It all depends on what the meaning of "is" is."

Cheers

JohnT

[wm]

philosopher and logician, President Bubba aka Bill Clinton, "It all depends on what the meaning of "is" is."

Cheers

JohnT

See how valuable an Oxford education can be?

[William F. Owen]

Come and live in the Middle East. Here we have three truths

Yours, Ours, and Theirs.

[jkm_101_fso]

Come and live in the Middle East. Here we have three truths

Yours, Ours, and Theirs.

If that ain't the truth...

[wm]

Come and live in the Middle East. Here we have three truths

Yours, Ours, and Theirs.

I thought you were going to channel for Mark Twain and say lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[Van]

Come and live in the Middle East. Here we have three truths

Yours, Ours, and Theirs.

And the subsets of Ours; Our truth for me, our truth for my immediate family, our truth for our extended family, our truth as told to close, non-related acquaintances, our truth as told to casual... Oh well, you get the picture.

And for $.02... "blue" is, in fact, subjective and contextual depending on the observor. Ask fashion sensitive women what color the sky is on a clear day, and you will hear a dozen words other than 'blue' (turquoise, robin's egg, duck's egg, etc). Ask a physicist, and you'll hear discussion of absorbtion and transmission spectra and angstroms and other things that upset my digestion. Ask someone who is colorblind, and he'll shrug.

[AmericanPride]

Thanks for the input everyone. I should have taken more philosophy in school....

[Ron Humphrey]

Up side- You can believe whatever you want whenever you want about whatever you want

Down side-
So can everyone else

[Van]

AP,
Philosophy is great if you don't take it or yourself too seriously.

"Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is an excellent intro to philosophy. The most important thing to remember is that the answer is unimportant. How you structure the argument to support your answer is everything.

[wm]

AP,
Philosophy is great if you don't take it or yourself too seriously.

"Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar" is an excellent intro to philosophy. The most important thing to remember is that the answer is unimportant. How you structure the argument to support your answer is everything.

For what it's worth Wittgenstein once ruminated on the possibility of doing philosophy through nothing but a series of jokes. I think it has ag reat deal of merit. For example (and a bad one I admit):

Rene Descartes goes into a restauarant and orders a meal.
The waiter asks: "Would you like soup with that?"
Descartes replies, "I think not" and disappears.

[marct]

For what it's worth Wittgenstein once ruminated on the possibility of doing philosophy through nothing but a series of jokes. I think it has ag reat deal of merit.

LOLOL - I wonder of Wittgenstein ever got into Buddhism? There are at least two fairly major strands of it that take a similar position (jokes, paradoxes, etc.).

[William F. Owen]

And the subsets of Ours; Our truth for me, our truth for my immediate family, our truth for our extended family, our truth as told to close, non-related acquaintances, our truth as told to casual... Oh well, you get the picture.

For sure, and I'll elaborate.

Our truth that we alter for a wider consumption, because our real values are unacceptable/cannot be understood to/by the wider audience, because they have their own version of the truth, that ignores their own history... and ours!

I play this game regularly with tour guides in Jerusalem. I'm pretty good at it!!