Sure anything that you call unmarried is unmarried but that doesn't mean we can't be mistaken as to the meaning of words. All bachelors are unmarried tells us that in reality people define bachelor as unmarried. If this is not so and you can substitute tremblepots you do this privately and people do not communicate by private language.

As for the How so? We may be mistaken that bachelor means unmarried, surely it seems to me that I may be mistaken as to the meaning of bachelor in more ways than I can be mistaken as to whether I have hands. And me having hands is a synthetic proposition.

It is my contention that a standard of knowledge applied across both analytic and synthetic propositions either succeeds or fails for both. The challenges that are raised by the sceptic apply also to analytic statements.

It is a product of being true, that is why I said logically consistent and "100% true"

You seem to think words have correct definitions or something. There are only good definitions and bad ones, no word can be "correctly" defined. So whether or not the definitions are wrong has nothing to do with the proposition being wrong. That is why I said we could replace "bachelor" with "Tremblepots" the proposition is still the same and 100% true.

This is just wrong.

All bachelors are unmarried is true because we define a bachelor as an unmarried adult male. Being unmarried is a necessary condition of being a bachelor because we define it as such. If we replace bachelor with some other word the proposition only holds true if we agree to define this new word as something that entails unmarried.

I don't think you fully grasp the problem with your concept of "(100%) true." It's far from obvious that you can redefine words however you want and therefore make something "true" by virtue of your declaration.

Why do we have to agree on the meaning of the word for the meaning to exist?

Can you elaborate?

What if I declare that "bachelor means married"? It's certainly "logically consistent" to state "Since Tim is a bachelor, he's married." But is it "100% true" that since Tim is a bachelor, he's married?

If you mean is it 100% true tim is a bachelor and unmarried? Yes it is.

O, sorry.. I see your point now. Yes, that would be 100% true if you are using the word "bachelor" as someone who is "married"

What does "100% true" mean when you have to qualify the truth of a claim with a condition?

The meaning of the word married (x) is that it can not be unmarried (y) Y in this context also means bachelor.

All we are really saying is x is defined as not y so you can not be x and y at the same time.

This we can say is 100% true.

You're still not bridging the gap. It's "100% true in this context" which really seems to be something different than "100% true."

I can make trivial statements like "I win 100% of the time" where the context is "in the games that I don't lose" and that would be 100% true. But if you need to put qualifiers on "100% true" then it seems quite clear that there's something happening that you're trying not to acknowledge. Whatever the emphatic value of "100%" is attempting to perform* seems to be negated by the qualifications.

* I should add that I'm not even sure what the 100% part is trying to be emphatic about.

Those would be true statements.. It doesn't matter what restrictions you put on them. IF you say I win 10% of the time and you have data to show it, it is true but you can not be 100% certain of this. You are a human experiencing the world with your senses and are subject to make errors. The statement, "I always win when I don't lose or draw" is 100% true, there is no room for error in that statement because there are only 3 possible options.

The emphasis is on the degree of certainty. Something that is 100% true, is without error.

A proposition is either true or it is not.

What is the difference between true and 100% true?

This just a weird butcher job of language.

So... I can make a statement that's 0% true because I'm not sure if it's true, even if it turns to actually be true?

Edit: FYI - I'm out of the country for a week starting tomorrow afternoon. I kind of wish I can stay to participate in the trainwreck, but I'm going to have to leave it to dereds or anyone else willing to slog through this with you.

I think its pretty clear. Where are you having trouble?



Huh? Why would you reach this conclusion? I am using 100% as a statement of total certainty. I do not know of a better way to put it then "100% true" I think I have made it clear what I mean by "100% true" you need to get off the semantics. You know exactly what I mean. I will summarize for you though.

True= something we can be sure is correct. (these will always have some degree of error)

100% true= A statement that we can be sure is correct and has no degree of error.

If you have better terms for these then feel free to use them.. I really wish you would step away from all the semantic talk though because its a red herring.

Dude, again! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS THREAD! I will not miss you, I do not want you to continue this discussion if it is not enjoyable to you.

Ive already explained what I mean by this many times.

The problem is, and this refers back to our earlier discussion, that some of us consider whether a proposition is true or not binary. Our meaning of true it seems differs from yours and this highlights the dangers of arbitrary attribution of definitions of words.

Because if we attribute meanings privately we have no way of communicating. This doesn't mean that meanings can't change they do but by public usage and agreement.

I am successfully communicating to you what I mean by "bachelor" and "Married" The rest doesn't matter. The underlying meaning of the statement "a bachelor can not be married" in this context is 100% true. We can have no degree of doubt in this statement. We can change what the words mean but the message is still clear and correct.

I am ok with you asking what I mean by something. But I have been asked multiple times, explained then told I am using the word wrong... So what if I am not using the word the same way as you. that is irrelevant. You now know what I mean and should be able to move on from that.

Of course the rest matters, and it seems like I can doubt whether bachelor entails unmarried. As you have demonstrated in this thread it is entirely possible to be wrong about the meaning of words and so we can be wrong about these.

As I mentioned in the post you've responded to below I consider true a binary term so your continued referral to 100% true is unhelpful.

If we are using the same words in different ways we can not communicate effectively hence it is entirely relevant to this discussion. Given that I am not the only person who has requested you clarify, or has challenged your answers you may want to consider whether you are communicating this as effectively as you seem to think.

No, this is not possible. Definitions are not "real" things. There are no correct definitions. So if I define a word that has specific properties , can help you understand what I am talking about and it gets my point across I have used a "good definition" . A "bad definition" would do just the opposite. Do you agree with this or do you think definitions are real things? Or do you want to clarify what you are saying.

You are again failing to realize it does not matter how you are using the word as long as you understand how I am using the word but fine. I will not use "100% true" what word would you consider sufficient to convey my very clear message to you that we can not be sure without error of a synthetic proposition?

Yes we can if you understand how I am using the words or vice versa. How much clearer can I say "100% true means a proposition that can be made with total certainty and has no chance at error?"

Yeh! Sure.

So as to this. The key point is what is 'know', 'anything', 'absolute' and 'certainty'. Once you have these clearly defined the question answers itself. In other words its just semantics.

The problem is that many people have intuitive ideas about what stuff like knowing and certainty means, and further these intuitions often do not match the definitions of the terms they advertise; Leading to much confusion.