Let me see if I understand you. "Snow is white" is true if and only if "snow" means snow, "is" means is, "white" means white, and snow is white?
No, that is not what I said. I said that IF "snow" means snow, "is" means is, and "white" means white, THEN "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white.
that still only makes sense if there's a fact of the matter about whether or not snow is white.
I never denied that. But the fact has nothing to do with truth unless you bring language into the discussion. Only linguistic objects (such as sentences) can be true.
Somehow, I feel that we are talking past each other.
ETA:
Maybe Tarski's undefinability theorem applies here.
And now I know we are talking past each other.
No, that is not what I said. I said that IF "snow" means snow, "is" means is, and "white" means white, THEN "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white.
That makes a lot more sense, thanks.
But the fact has nothing to do with truth unless you bring language into the discussion. Only linguistic objects (such as sentences) can be true.
I think we're getting somewhere. I thought that you were saying that whether or not a statement is true is a property of language. Tarski's saying that whether or not a sentence is tru...
Graham Priest discusses The Liar's Paradox for a NY Times blog. It seems that one way of solving the Liar's Paradox is defining dialethei, a true contradiction. Less Wrong, can you do what modern philosophers have failed to do and solve or successfully dissolve the Liar's Paradox? This doesn't seem nearly as hard as solving free will.
This post is a practice problem for what may become a sequence on unsolved problems in philosophy.