Between False and Meaningless

Against arbitrariness in philosophical axioms, Rand wrote: "When he declares that an axiom is a matter of arbitrary choice and he doesn't choose to accept the axiom that he exists, he blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one's mouth, expound no theories and die" (AS 1040).

Against arbitrariness in modern empiricism, rationalism, and philosophy of science (Feyerabend): "Its exponents dismissed philosophical problems by declaring that fundamental concepts—such as existence, entity, identity, reality—are meaningless; they declared that concepts are arbitrary social conventions . . ." (KvS, 2nd paragraph).

More generally:"There is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man, least of all in his method of cognition . . ." (ITOE 82).

One setting in which Rand raised her objection to the acceptance of arbitrary assertions was in her definition of mysticism, which includes “allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason.”

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There is a controversy of logic standing in the relevant background for correct characterization of arbitrary claims. There is a tradition from Boethius, Abelard, and Buridan that any universal affirmative or particular affirmative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal negative and particular negative statements. Within this theory, we can argue:

1. Affirmative statements concerning nonexistent subjects are false.
2. Assertions of the existence of a subject for which there is no evidence is presumptively false; the existence of such a subject is presumptively false. (Onus of Proof)
3. Arbitrary assertions are assertions for which there is no evidence (no validation, so no evidence).
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Therefore: Affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily asserted subjects are presumptively false.

It would surely be correct to drop the word presumptively from 2 and from the conclusion when the arbitrary assertion is one that cannot be invalidated in principle.

From the Buridan et al. view of truth concerning nonexistent subjects we get presumptive falsity and unqualified falsity for affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects. Whether negative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects would be meaningless rather than assessible for truth is unsettled on this view, but they are not automatically false.

There is another tradition (P.F. Strawson and H.L.A. Hart) that instead takes existence of the subject to be presupposed in any universal or particular affirmative or negative statement. Under this approach, we get that arbitrary assertions are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) neither true nor false. They are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) meaningless.

(Strawson would object to my use of the word meaningless here, which he would reserve for a use more narrow. He would call such statements spurious or failures to refer. All the same, he would agree that his approach casts all such statements, and singular statements such as "The King of Texas has a Cadillac," as not assessible for truth.)

There is a third tradition, the one predominate today, in which any particular affirmative or particular negative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal affirmative and universal negative statements. (On these three traditions and a fourth, see Laurence Horn’s A Natural History of Negation [1989]).

Determining which of these three approaches fits best with Rand’s philosophy is work remaining to be accomplished. I would examine the first and third as they look when their not-definitely-false pairs on the square of opposition are taken as meaningless.

Notice that all statements having the proper noun God as subject are particular.

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There is an article on the treatment of arbitrary claims in Objectivist literature by Robert Campbell in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (V10N1). See also.

Post 1

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 5:29pm

I would say that the third view is correct. The statement "The King of Texas has a cadillac" is false, because it is meaningful. A meaningless sentence would be something like Lewis Carroll's jabberwocky, e.g.,`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe." Therefore, since we know the meaning of the phrase, "the King of Texas," we know that such a person does not exist. The statement "The King of Texas has a cadillac" is, therefore, false, because it implies a falsehood; it implies that there is a king of Texas, which there is not. The truth value of a statement is governed as much by what it implies as by what it states explicitly.

Post 2

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 5:50pm

Bill,

Good point.

Here is another way to say the same thing. Sometimes I examine sentences very simply: What is being predicated of this subject? That approach says, there is no such subject. The concept becomes meaningless in that there is no purpose served by attempting to predicate of nothing. But the statement is false because there is no existent to predicate of - it is indistinguishable from this: "Drives a Cadillac." Where is the subject? It doesn't exist.

Post 3

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 6:14pm

Steve,

Just a small quibble. The statement "The King of Texas drives a cadillac" implies (and can therefore be translated as), "There is a King of Texas and he drives a cadillac." Spelled out in this way, we can see that the statement is false. However, that statement is not the same as "Drives a cadillac," since the latter does not state anything, and is neither true nor false.

Post 4

Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 10:27am

Bill,

I agree with what you said. And your expanding the "The king of Texas" into "There is a king of Texas" is an excellent approach.

Once you expand it, and then resolve it to be false (there is no king of Texas), it is equivalent to zero, to nothing, to non-existence. It is grammatically correct and there is an understandable subject and predicate. And if there were a king, one assumes they are a person and people are likely to be able to drive.

In algebra we create a symbol to stand in for something alleged to be real. Let X represent the king of Texas, and P represent "drives a Cadillac." X ~ P. Then when X resolves to be zero, nothing, then all that is left is P. But that is in terms of the outside, in the world referents, and not a statement about the concept, the assertion.

I think this issue arises because of the fact that our minds can hold concepts of things that don't exist - like unicorns or Santa Claus. Or, the king of Texas. I should have said "don't exist OUTSIDE OF OUR MINDS or mind's fictional products."

But in terms of logic, on this quibble, I think you are totally right. It is best seen as an assertion that is false.
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I started thinking, What are the conditions that allow a logical classification of a sentence as "meaningless"? Meaningless is a concept clearly appropriate for gibberish. If you cannot resolve a word into a referent at all, there is no meaning to be had.

But you can also be able to resolve each word in a 'sentence' yet not be able to find any meaning because the sentence has severe grammatical problems. Like, "The are of what won't muster." If you can't make it into a subject and predicate you can't get enough meaning to make a thought.

There is still another level where it can be a meaningless assertion: You can resolve words into a sentence but still declare it to be meaningless if the predicate clearly isn't applicable to the subject. Like "The dogs were bubbling." Without a context your mind becomes blocked from making meaning because dogs don't bubble - that isn't a predicate that can be applied to that subject.

Without a clarifying context, like a story where 'dogs' represents hot dogs cooking in a pot of water, that would not be meaningful sentence.

So, I'm thinking that the measure of meaningless (in logic) is that a statement cannot, as stands, become a coherent thought. And the specifics reasons that it couldn't become a thought would include of gibberish words, grammatical failures, and a failure of subject-predicate to relate without a clarifying context, or ever.

"The king of Texas drives a Cadillac" doesn't meet any of those criteria so it has meaning, but is false.

There would be an objective measure of meaningful when applied to a sentence, and there might be a subjective measure of meaningful, since some people may be able to resolve a concept because they understand a technical word, whereas another person doesn't. But that would about psychological or practical application and not about logical examinations.

Post 5

Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 11:51am

A standard doctrine in modern philosophy of language is that sentences containing non-denoting singular terms (like "the king of Texas") have no truth value (i.e. are neither true nor false). How this and the Objectivist line on the arbitrary sync up would be a good dissertation topic; maybe it already has been.

Post 6

Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 9:46pm

Steve,

Good analysis.

Peter,

What is the logic behind the modern linguistic view? Is it that if there is no King of Texas, then the sentence cannot be evaluated as either true or false, because in order to be so evaluated, one has to identify whether or not its subject drives a cadillac, and there is no subject that can be identified as either driving or not driving a cadillac?

If so, I can see that there is a certain plausibility to that view. It's not that the sentence is meaningless and therefore has no truth value. The sentence is still meaningful; it's just that it's impossible to assess its truth value, because in order to do so, the subject must exist and in this case it does not.

Post 7

Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 11:28pm

All this reminds me of Aristotle's "sea battle."

As I recall, it is impossible to -- today -- ascertain the truth of the sentence: "There will be a sea battle tomorrow." This is because truth is just "correspondence to reality" and the future (according to me) has no reality. The future is not real in the sense that the present -- or even the past -- is. The future doesn't exist because it isn't expressing its identity (and existence is the temporal expression of identity). The reason it isn't expressing its identity is because it has no identity (i.e., no reality) to express.

I agree with Bill's analysis that propositions, besides having explicit meaning, have implicit meaning as well -- and both can be used in order to ascertain the truth/falsehood of any sentence which is grammatically logical. If Obama tomorrow knocks over his teleprompter, rips the microphone off of the stand, jumps in front of the cameras and says:

"I'm King of the world!"

... then he would be uttering a proposition which has an ascertainable truth-value. Even though the sentence is not explicitly meaningful (because there is no such existing thing as a "King" of the world), it does have implicit meaning. Under the meaning implied (i.e., Obama "runs" the whole world from his bully pulpit) -- it is false, and ascertainably so.

Ed

p.s., I just heard today that the "king" of China was listed as being more powerful or important than the present president of the United States (in Time Magazine, or some other such publication).

;-)

Post 8

Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 11:52pm

Ed,

You wrote that the truth of the statement, "There will be a sea battle tomorrow" cannot be ascertained because the future has no reality.

Maybe it isn't the future that is in question as such, but the causal relationship between the element of the battle.

Take the statement, "The sun will come up tomorrow." It depends upon the understanding the astronomical principles involved.

The assertion is about the principles and the facts.

I'm guessing that the expanded version of your statement would be, "If my understanding of the current facts and of the principles that apply to them is correct, then a prediction of a sea battle tomorrow is rational."

Post 9

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 7:13am

Steve,

The assertion is about the principles and the facts.

I'm guessing that the expanded version of your statement would be, "If my understanding of the current facts and of the principles that apply to them is correct, then a prediction of a sea battle tomorrow is rational."

But Aristotle's response, I recall, is to say that while every other statement/proposition can be shown to be either true or false (principle of bivalence) -- statements regarding future contingencies are the sole exception. You are looking at the issue biocentrically, in terms of:

What am I?
Where am I?
How do I know?
What should I do?

... and what you have to say is reasonable and proper. But these logic issues sometimes go beyond what it is that is important to man living on earth -- and they start to address things as if they had intrinsic importance. This might be one of those times.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/05, 7:14am)

Post 10

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 6:12pm

Ed,

Let's see if we really disagree on this. Let's say that professor in a course on astronomy finishes a lecture on orbit calculations, supernovas and says, "That is why I can say that the sun will rise tomorrow."

Is that a false statement? Are you going to say that it can't be a true statement because tomorrow is in the future?

Post 11

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 10:37pm

Steve,

I'm not denying the possibility of contextually-absolute foresight (a predictive capability that is 100%, but is 100% across a very 'narrow' scope). A sentence like this:

Existence will exist tomorrow.

... is such a sentence. Because it is so general, it can be known, not just beyond a reasonable doubt -- but beyond the shadow of all doubt. It has 100% certitude. Aristotle was arguing about contradictory statements. He gave 2 statements:

1) There will be a sea battle tomorrow.
2) There will not be a sea battle tomorrow.

Now, according to the principle of bivalence, exactly one out of every 2 contradictory statements is true -- and the other is always false. There is no contingency, one is necessarily true and the other is necessarily false. Aristotle noted that this is true of all contradi ctories with the sole exception of future contingencies.

Now, if you want to talk about what it is that is reasonable to predict, based on noncontradictory integration of all available evidence (taking everything we know and honing in our predictions in order to succeed) -- then you are talking about something else. Aristotle's argument rests on the following:

1) One out of every two currently-contradictory (contradictory, here and now) statements is always true and the other is always false.
2) There are some conjectures about the future which are underdetermined in such a way as to prevent 100% predictive capability (as to prevent certitude).
3) If we are not in the epistemological position to ascertain -- with 100% certitude -- the truth or falsehood of either of two contradictory statement (because they are, at present, underdetermined), then the principle of bivalence breaks down in such a situation.
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Therefore, there is always an already-true (and already-false) statement in any given set of two contradictory statements except for when the reality of the statements is not yet available to human consciousness (because of underdetermination).

Do you agree?

Ed

Post 12

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 11:21pm

Ed,

We agree - some statements about the future can be true in absolute terms.

While other statements would have to be put into an undetermined category.

We can say that one of contradictories will be true and the other false, but until it is determined we won't know which is which.

In practical terms we use context specifying qualifiers to make undetermined statements into absolutes, or at least more certain.

Maybe this would do it, "If the ships put to see by the ebb tide, there will be a battle at sea tomorrow." Our knowledge of the properties, principles and context are the material out of which we attempt to turn indeterminedness into certainty.

Some people think that rational calculation of risk was one of the most fundamental steps required for human progress.

Post 13

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 9:02am

Steve,

The point I made was to note a distinction that makes a difference: the fruitful, human-centered thinking (how can man reliably predict the future in order to succeed?) exemplified by you vs. the comparatively fruitless, abstract armchair reasoning about what logic must always entail.

When Aristotle mentioned the sea battle, he did so based on the assumption that the predictive capabilities of man were such that it was impossible for him to ascertain the truth of either of the 2 statements: 'there will be.../there will not be...'. A quick & dirty tagline for his assumption is 'epistemological pessimism'. A quick & dirty tagline for your method is 'epistemological optimism.' Depending on the context, one of these 2 alternatives will also be considered as to be exemplifying true 'realism.' In some cases, we have the epistemological right to be optimistic about what we can predict.

Keeping with the theme of the thread though, which leans toward completely abstract argument, the take-away point or question from my posts would be:

Stephen mentioned the arbitrary (not related to evidence) and the meaningless (not related to human understanding). Is Aristotle's conclusion that every grammatically-correct statement is meaningful (such that either it or its contradiction can be known to be true or false) with the sole exception for statements about the future -- correct? Is the future the only time when you can make meaningful statements that are arbitrary enough where you could not set up a contradiction of already-true/already-false statements?

Forgive me for not paying more attention to detail. I am not sure that the above is correct. I just woke up and am in a 'fog' and I think that something may be wrong with the above.

Ed

Post 14

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 12:35pm

Ed,

You asked, "Is Aristotle's conclusion that every grammatically-correct statement is meaningful (such that either it or its contradiction can be known to be true or false) with the sole exception for statements about the future -- correct?"

Your question is too complex. Look at all that it contains: Is that Aristotle's conclusion? Is meaningfulness defined as that state where either a statement or its contradiction can be known as true or false? Is it correct that all grammatically correct statements are meaningful except those about the future?
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All very interesting, but you origonally said, in post #7, "...it is impossible to -- today -- ascertain the truth of the sentence: 'There will be a sea battle tomorrow.' This is because truth is just 'correspondence to reality' and the future (according to me) has no reality. "

I replied in post #8, "Maybe it isn't the future that is in question as such, but the causal relationship between the element of the battle."

I think you hijacked Stephen's thread and I joined you.
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You wrote, "Is the future the only time when you can make meaningful statements that are arbitrary enough where you could not set up a contradiction of already-true/already-false statements?"

Notice that if I answer 'Yes" or I answer "No" that I am affirming something about the future. (i.e., Affirming that someone could or could not make a statement today that is about tomorrow that was meaningful and was or was not abritrary enough to make the contradiction statements you mention.)
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I am edging closer to believing that this isn't about the future as such. That it is more about having adequate evidence or sufficient principles or grasping the application of the principles to the evidence in a way that renders certainty. We mark off an area with a description of the context we are discussing. We take appropriate principles and apply them to the relevant data and from that we make statements that might claim absolute knowledge or express some degree of certainty. Meaningfulness is a criteria, arbitrariness is a criteria, and there are other criteria - particularly the logic employed. But the future is just another context.

I don't think your arguments about the future not having any reality hold in the fashion you are indicating they do.

Post 15

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 6:03pm

Steve,

Your question is too complex.

Agreed.

I think you hijacked Stephen's thread and I joined you.

Agreed.

You wrote, "Is the future the only time when you can make meaningful statements that are arbitrary enough where you could not set up a contradiction of already-true/already-false statements?"

Notice that if I answer 'Yes" or I answer "No" that I am affirming something about the future. (i.e., Affirming that someone could or could not make a statement today that is about tomorrow that was meaningful and was or was not abritrary enough to make the contradiction statements you mention.)

Okay, but substitute the definitions for arbitrary and meaningless. My sentence then looks like this:

"Is the future the only time when you can make [understandable] statements that are [unrelated to evidence] enough where you could not set up a contradiction of already-true/already-false statements?"

Now, if you answer "yes" then you admit that you can set up knowably true/false contradictory statements using understandable propositions about reality as it is, but that you cannot do this with reality as it is yet-to-be (in the future). If you answer "no" then the onus of proof is on you to provide an understandable proposition about reality as-it-is that doesn't have any knowably-true/false propositional contradiction whatsoever. Here is an attempt:

Swans are always white.
Swans are not always white.

Okay, that was a failure. I tried to produce a proposition to which there is no possibility of pairing it with a contradictory proposition -- the truth of which can be known now -- and it failed. My initial proposition: "Swans are always white." was susceptible to being paired with a contradictory proposition the truth of which can be now known. Now let's try the same thing with a statement about the future:

In the future, men will reproductively switch places with women (men will bear children and women will impregnate them).
In the future, men will not reproductively switch places with women.

Okay, that one is indeterminable. I cannot stake claim to the truth of either. I cannot sit here and tell you which of the contradictory statements is the true one and which of the contradictory statements is the false one. And the reason that I cannot do this is that the statements are so distant from the evidence (so far into the future) that their relative truth-value is unaccessible to human consciousness.

And I'm claiming that the future is the only time (pardon the pun!) where you cannot do this.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/06, 6:07pm)

Post 16

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 8:07pm

Ed,

You could have said, "In the future, swans will all be white." That would put it in the same category as your statements about males' future reproductive capacities.

And in both cases you go right to the evidence. In this case the support for an assertion about biology and medical techology. For all I know, we already have the capacity to transplant organs of reproduction into a man. And engineering changes to the DNA of swans may be available. Like I said about the sea battle - there may be evidence that will answer that (does it depend upon an ebb tide).

What I see is that you single out the future as different, when I see that it is just a matter of bringing in an adequate definition of context, evidience, and principles. Each statement requires a minimal understanding before one can say certain, or maybe or no way to know. That understanding is simple meaning, it is understanding of the context (which might be understood without further elaboration), and of any evidence or terms that might be needed.

If you said, "In the future, all swans will be white." One can assume that means forever, but it would be an assumption. But one could ask, "When in the future this will occur?" And one could ask what is the principle involved - "How so? Why should I believe that?"
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You rephrased your question to, "Is the future the only time when you can make [understandable] statements that are [unrelated to evidence] enough where you could not set up a contradiction of already-true/already-false statements?"

I don't understand the "[unrelated to evidence]" part. You are already setting out 'evidence' when you set a time (future). Evidence is just the data to which principles are applied. Evidence is implied everywhere - the concept of swan carries all of that which is in the nature of swans, and "white" has a meaning as well.
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You do not have to go into the future to find indeterminacy. "I am sitting in chair that is light brown." "I am not sitting in a chair that is light brown." That is indeterminate for you, but not me. And I could come up with a statement that would be indeterminate for both of us, for everyone, universally indeterminate and without going into the future.

Post 17

Sunday, November 7, 2010 - 1:06pm

Steve,

You do not have to go into the future to find indeterminacy. "I am sitting in chair that is light brown." "I am not sitting in a chair that is light brown." That is indeterminate for you, but not me.

That gets to the heart of our difference. I appreciate your explanation of principles and parameters and how they dictate what it is that can be true of reality. But I'm saying that there are some things about the future that are fundamentally indeterminate -- but that there is nothing about the present (or the past) which is fundamentally indeterminate. Take you sitting in the brown chair, for instance. It is something which can be known with contextually-absolute certitude. The mere fact that I don't know it at that level of certitude doesn't detract from that point, as it is still fundamentally knowable and certain. Make any proposition about the present state of affairs on earth, Steve -- any proposition -- and it will be knowably true or false.

You can't do that with the future.

Ed

Post 18

Sunday, November 7, 2010 - 5:07pm

Ed,

I agree that there is a degree or kind of indeterminacy built into statements about the future, but I still maintain that it is not as fundamental a difference as you are making out.

You could know what the color is of the chair I'm sitting in. It is only in-determinant because of your location in space relative to me and the chair. If I were to sit in one of the chairs in my house, not today, but tomorrow, and if you were here today, then it would still be in-determinate but not because of your location in space, but your location in time.

Also, which chair I WILL sit in, compared to which chair I AM sitting refers not just to future versus present, but to choice versus determined. If we have free will, then the indeterminacy isn't deriving from it being in the future but from human nature.

Your sea battle might also be effected in this way. On the other hand, my discussion of the sun rising tomorrow doesn't become in-determinant because it is in the future since it doesn't involve human volition.

Some statements can be true even if they are about the future.
(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 11/07, 5:11pm)

Post 19

Monday, November 8, 2010 - 3:48pm