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June 08, 2005
logicnazi moves out
I don't know whether any of you guys are interested in, you know, logic, or philosophy, (or even math(s)), but should you be, you'll be happy to learn that frequent (and appreciated) commentor logicnazi has started a new blog called "Computational Truth." He writes:
The name computational truth refers to my two majors areas of interest. My mathematical interest in computability/recursion theory and my philosophical interests in truth and representations thereof. Well really my philosophical interests may be closer to the theory of mind but that is only because I think answers to the puzzles of truth (like the liar) and representation lie in the theory of mind.
To which I say, to the first part: cool interests, and to the second part: huh?
The idea that the answer to the Liar lies in the philosophy of mind reminds me (unfairly, I'm sure, since logicnazi hasn't elaborated) of trying to explain the Liar to someone in a club once (you think I'd learn...) and getting the response: but that doesn't seem hard to figure out; lots of people can just tell when someone is lying. (I suppose the idea was that we utter the sentence in conversation with one of them and they will be able to assign the appropriate truth-value based on our shifty demeanour or lack of such.) But, other problems aside, this is to be distracted by inessential features of the paradox (like the fact that it's called "the Liar" and that one traditional way of setting it up involves a Cretan claiming that all Cretans are liars) for the paradox itself. We can recreate the paradox without any mention of anyone lying, using only classical logic and our favourite unrestricted disquotational T-schema, and so the paradox seems squarely located in logic and the philosophy of language. Something has to give, either in our logic, or in our theory of truth. Since we have the paradox without commitment to any particular principle in the philosophy of mind, how could getting principles in the philosophy of mind right help us here?
Well, probably I'm not using enough imagination. I suppose work in mind might give us an error theory of our acceptance of one of the principles or argument forms (notice how I managed not to write "inferences"? I really am trying to be consistent about the inference/implication thing) that land us in the paradox, in the sense that it might explain how we came to accept them, even though they aren't true or valid. That would be a non-trivial role for philosophy of mind (or at least, for psychology) in the solution to the paradox, but still, there would have to be a solution in logic or the theory of truth for it to support.
But enough confused speculation. logicnazi's new blog promises to be very intriguing...
Posted by logican at June 8, 2005 11:15 PM
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» Liar and Mental Representation from Computational Truth
So Gillian Russell over at logicandlanguage.net very nicely mentioned the birth of this blog. She also expressed a great deal of puzzlement at my claim that philosophy of mind offers an explanation of problems like the liar. Well I suppose... [Read More]
Tracked on June 9, 2005 01:31 PM
Comments
Maybe what is meant by "theories of truth (like the liar) and representation lie in the theory of mind" is that they *lie* (not tell the truth) in the theory of mind. At least the homunculi may be charged with such claims--a theory that is gaining much ground in communities of little people.
Posted by: lumpy pea coat at June 9, 2005 01:07 AM
Well when I get a chance I will post a longer version of my thoughts on my blog but in short here is what I mean.
Yes, I agree that to deal with the liar we need to make changes in our theory of truth. The change I support is adopting the view that it is neither sentences nor propositions which are the inherent bearers of truth values. Rather it is mental representations which inherently have truth values and sentences only have truth values derivatively.
So basically the idea is that I deny that the sentence of the liar (and strengthened liar) correspond to the right sort of mental representations. Thus we have no more reason to demand they have a truth value than we do of goobldegook or those crazy non-sensical chomsky sentences.
Posted by: logicnazi ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.logicandlanguage.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 9, 2005 12:53 PM