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Heideggerian Truth?

The definition of truth according to one extremely famous and celebrated non-analytic philosopher:

"truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge"...........from a pro-Nazi speech at Heidelburg University. --Lacatosias 13:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Is there some form of argument here? Jon Awbrey 04:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

No. Neither is the statement a remotely accurate summary of Heidegger's accounts of what truth is, rather it is a description of what truth does. ^iggy_talk 20:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah ha!! That would be the is of action or performance then and not the is of composition, being, equality or identity? You know I just love these continentals and there.......extreme flexibility with the (ab)use of language. What does Herr Heidegger mean by "a people" in this statement, I wonder? It's not likely that he might have had some particular race of people in mind, is it, given his innumerable other pro-Nazi statments and actions?

--Lacatosias 13:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

In all seriousness, why doesn't the article touch on the topic of Hiedegerr's view of truth both in the sense of what it is and in that of what it does? Iggy seems to know the material, no? I thought the idea was to move away from that linguistico-analytic bias (though, of course, Heidedgger, hermeneutics and all of is just as obsessed with language, if not more so, than so-called analytic philosophy). --Lacatosias 13:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: That was some people's idea, to include beside the LA POV a balanced treatment of the many broader perspectives that are available. For my part I cannot speak for Heidegger, though. Other people's idea, the currently domineering idea, is to burn all books but Blackburn, and to return us once again to the idyllic simplicity of The One Truth's former e-state, to wit (not), a rehash of other encyclopedia articles, plus a smattering of Reaganesque 1-liners from secondary and tertiary sources. For my part I cannot speak for that either. Jon Awbrey 14:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

@Lac: Of course, it is beneath der Führer-Rektor aus Freiburg to speak of "language" in the sense that is ordinarily meant — nothing will do but that we uncover the "primordial" meaning of "language" as the letting-be-seen of beings in their being, that is, to free them from the interprettedness of "discourse", the everyday understanding of the "they". Openness to this disclosure of beings in their being opens Dasein to its ownmost possibilities, which, rooted in tradition, uncover its authentic manner of being in the world (hence, making the people of the Nation-State "certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge"). I love the taste of nonsense in the morning... But, I have been acutely aware of the problems in the article JA is now arguing about — there is simply no easy way to appropriately include the thinking of many thinkers. In fact, for including Heidegger, the basic problem starts right away, by positing "truth" as a property ascribed to beings, never mind a "property" of a sign, symbol or proposition (according to Heidegger, the "truth" of such things is derivative from "truth" itself). The only place to fit such things in is the (horribly unorganized) section "Additional observations about truth". ^iggy_talk 15:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

yes, the un-veiling (you have to include those hyphens in there for furhter obfuscation) of hidden manifestations of the being-as-it-is-in-intself-as-given-to-the-world prior to the inhibiting and inauthentic conceptualizations of the utilizability falsifaction consciousnes of the being-for-the-world has superseded being-in-and-among-the-world of the thing which is to dis-closed, ie. the un-binding of being as truth in it fullness as the road to the re-creation of that which em-powers the indiviudal in his struggle to liberate his world-self unto the good of the greater struggle. Or something like that. Not quite as good as the post-modernism generator, but there you are. :::In all seriousness, on the other hand, the basic (so to speak) idea that truth is a property of objects or things (either primarily or in some derivative sense) is not nearly unique to Heiddeger though. It's mentioned repeatedly by Aquinas, Augustine and the medievals. For example, the famous statement by Aquinas, "veritas est adequatio re et intellectus", which is often it seems interpreted as a formulation of the correspondence theory in some modern sense of facts, statements, etc.. actually amounts, in part at least, to the idea that natural things (e.g. stones) are true if they conform (adequatio) to their idea in the divine mind and artifical things (e.g. building) are true if they conform to the idea of the architect. So there IS a sense in which the article leaves out something. Perhaps a history of truth in philosophy section or something like that might help in mitigating any logico-linguistic POV. --Lacatosias 08:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That suggestion actually sounds like a good idea for overcoming some of the (whatever) POV in the article. ^iggy_talk 22:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §20. Synopsis

JA: I will collect in this section brief statements as to what I believe are still the most serious aberrations of the article on Truth with respect to achieving a neutral point of view. Jon Awbrey 04:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: It might help to explain to heart of the problem by thinking of the following analogy. Suppose that you are trying to write an article for the English Wikipedia on the Theory of Poetry. One of the first things you have to decide is whether its coverage will be limited to English poetry, or whether you want a synoptic theory that speaks of poetry in many languages. If you decide to try and tackle the more generic task, then you will naturally have difficulties at any point where you have to work with translations of non-English poems into English. You can take a French poem and find or make a good translation of it into English. You can talk about the virtues of the French original as a French poem, you can talk about the fidelity of the translation and the felicity of the English translation as an English poem in its own write, but if you try to judge the virtues of the French original in any definitive or final way based on the English translation, literati on both sides of the Channel are just going to laugh at the sheer presumption of it. There's a lesson in that. Jon Awbrey 04:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a very nice analogy, but could you give a key of how it applies to the article, like:

Poetry ~ Truth

English ~ ?

French ~ ?

--Lambiam^Talk 21:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

VERIFY §1. Improving the Verifiability of Truth

JA: I am creating this section as a place for discussing the continuing need to improve the status of the current article on Truth with respect to the WP:POLICY of WP:VERIFIABILITY. Jon Awbrey 11:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: One of the main things that needs to be done to improve the accuracy and credibility of this article is to begin replacing material drawn from single sources, secondary sources, tertiary sources like encyclopedias, and popularizations with material drawn from multiple primary sources. Jon Awbrey 02:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Additional recommendations for improving the quality of the source materials cited in the article can be found on the pages: WP:Citing Sources and WP:Reliable Sources. Jon Awbrey 03:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

FAITH §1. Actions that Contribute to a Crisis of WP:Faith

JA: I am creating this section as a place for discussing issues that are pertinent to the WP:POLICY of WP:FAITH.

JA: My present take on it. I think that any mature person who reads the WikiPage on Assume Good Faith cannot help but to be inspired by the intuitive wisdom recounted there, and yet living up to this maxim of theoretical wisdom in practice, without being exploited by unscrupulous persons unknown, is no Candide or Pollyanna task in these times that load one odious fardel after another On the Soul. For that reason, I am personally putting the issue on the back burner for just a few more days, but I do need to memorandize the fact that it keeps coming up.

JA: In particular, the current last paragraph of WP:FAITH states the following:

This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Things which can cause the loss of good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, sockpuppetry and edit warring. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, it only means that one should not ascribe said action to malice. Automatically accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith regardless of their motivation is failing to assume good faith in itself.

JA: I am by no means certain that this can remain the last paragraph forever. Jon Awbrey 12:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

CONSENUS §1. WikiPedia is not an experiment in democracy

JA: Area for discussing issues related to WP:CONSENSUS. Jon Awbrey 14:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

That is indeed true. No legislature, no representatives, no separation of powers. In fact, no "elite" at all. It is a (failed) experiment in utopian anarcho-libertarianism!! That's why I quit. See article consciousness, for one mess....er, example.--Lacatosias 15:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Yeah, I don't really get all this talk of cons/census, since I can't remember ever seeing a quorum call. Let's see, what's 2/3 of 1M+ users? Jon Awbrey 15:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk page

This page is a mess. Could someone who has been following the discussion do a clean-up and archive? It is worth noting that changing other people's comments, including heading names, is considered poor form; also, indenting should be used to make it easier to follow a thread. Insistence on having one's own comments untabbed makes the thread difficult to read. See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines Banno 20:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The article itself is almost impossible to follow, but this talk page far surpasses it in incomprehensibility. Often it is more reminiscent of experimental poetry than of normal discourse. --Lambiam^Talk 22:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Dare I say, this problem seems to follow the authors around... Banno 07:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The article is marked by a WP:NPOV Dispute. As best I could interpret the instructions on the relevant pages, they seemed to indicate that one should create a section for discussing the WP:NPOVD issues, so as to make it easier for potential reviewers to follow along. Since the debate has been longstanding, we already had sections devoted largely to NPOVD discussions, and so it seemed like the easiest thing to do would be just to add an NPOVD prefix to the relevant sections. I hadn't realized when I started that process that there would be so many of them, but there it is. Other than that, there's only so much room in the edit line buffer, and if the section headings get too long then people tend to quit bothering with scrolling out to the end of them to add their own descriptors, and so I trimmed a few of the longest section heads to a more moderate length. Jon Awbrey 15:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the honorability of the noblest of intentions -- with which, need I remind the audience, the road is paved to that place where we are admonished to leave all hope at the gate -- the flowery effusiveness of the emanations coming forth from some of the contributors superimposed on the contrary position to the tenet that a clear writing style is furthered by a certain restraint in the usage of hyperpolysyllabic words, coupled to brevity -- the soul of wit -- in the recursive production of grammatical entities, such as sentences, main clauses, and subordinate clauses, does not serve the furtherance of the mental digestibility of that which is written, which may be considered a prerequisite to mastering that what was signified by the textual text: the subtext. Now are you trying to say you have no fewer than 19 NPOV issues with the present text? As it says on the WP:NPOVD page: "Then, under this new section, clearly and exactly explain which part of the article does not seem to have a NPOV and why." It may be a shortcoming in my mental abilities, but basically, for each and every of the many many sections you "created" I don't get any notion at all which part of the article it refers to and also I get no clue at all what the NPOV issue is it is supposed to have. I think you should revert these changes, as they are not going to serve any purpose. If you want to follow the NPOV Dispute procedure, create a new section (not a dozen or more!), identify the relevant text sections clearly, and explain in a precise and snappy style what the issue is. --Lambiam^Talk 16:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Amen. ... Kenosis 17:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: A POV unexamined is not worth POVing. Unfortunately, however, it is not altogether uncommon in conversing with exponents of "entrenched points of view" (EPOVs), fundamentalists, and true believers of every stripe to find that they will simply flatly deny that they have a POV, or if they obviously do have a POV then it must already be an NPOV, or if it obviously fails to be an NPOV, then it must of course be the "uniquely rational point of view" (URPOV), or if that diamond ring don't shine, then etc., etc., u.s.w., and so on. And so they will almost always feel divinely justified, or otherwise empowered by the posse comitatus, to exercise any force but the forces of argument and evidence to terminate debate, or otherwise dismiss and denigrate the claims of any alternative POV. True to form, so far. Jon Awbrey 17:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, is this a reply to my post, Lambiam's, or Kenosis? This is usually marked by indenting - as it stands, it looks as if you are replying to yourself... Banno 07:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

From the guidelines:

• • Use indenting to keep the threads of the conversation straight: The first contributor is all the way to the left, the next person starts with one colon (:), the next person starts with two colons. Then, when the first contributor responds, they start at the left margin again, and the second and third persons continue to mark themselves with one and two colons respectively. In that way, who is saying what is clear. Other indentation systems are equally acceptable and widely used (such as a threaded tree format, like that often seen in email clients). Banno 07:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Then again, an extremely popular tactic for avoiding the hard work of addressing clear and present "substantive" issues is to try and marginalize them out of the general cognizance by focusing on trivial stylistic issues. Jon Awbrey 12:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is it so important to you to break this convention? Banno 20:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

De gustibus non disputandum est

Fred: The chili is tasty. Wilma: No, the chili is not tasty.

Assuming all other contextual parameters are basically constant across utterances, what are the truth conditions of these sentences and why? A degree of semantic relativism seems inescapable to me. Fred has bad taste is false according to some but not all people. The chili is tasty according to some temproal part of Fred and not tasty according to another. Wilma thinks that Fred has bad taste is true. Which temporal part of Fred is she referring to? Is it possible to refer to temporal parts? --Lacatosias 13:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I tried calling in a WP:3O from Barney — no, the non-purple Barney — but the opinion he rendered in the end was this:

Barney (aside): Heh-heh, I think Wilma is tasty, but don't tell Fred, and especially don't tell Betty.

JA: Pebbles and Bamm Bamm? They're too busy playing with their sockpuppets to give a hoot.

JA: Then again, most WP:3O's — not to mention most Wikis — end that way. Jon Awbrey 12:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

This talk page is in desperate need of a clean-up. I would rather not do it, as I have not been following the discussion; but unless one of the present authors does so, I will archive from some arbitrary point. Banno 20:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Banno, your statements about needing to reformat the page while instructing us not to modify it in even the most trivial way appear to put you in a self-contradiction, so it's very confusing. The main consideration that I see at present is that, since we are involved in an active NPOV Dispute, it seems ill-advised to archive the sections that are marked as pertaining to it. Jon Awbrey 20:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

(To JA:) Why don't you start by undoing the changes you made, as I suggested before? --Lambiam^Talk 22:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I already gave a sufficient reason for doing that, namely, adapting the instructions at WP:NPOVD to the NPOV dispute already in progress. Do you have some compelling reason for wanting to discuss anything but the substantive issues? Jon Awbrey 02:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that I explained that you completely misunderstood these instructions, or else completely failed to follow them, resulting in a total mess. --Lambiam^Talk 02:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, given that the page was 238kb compared to a recommended page size of 32kb (see Wikipedia:Article size), and that none of the present authors seem wiling to reduce the page, I have archived back to 19th June; that is, I have removed all but the last 50 edits. I hope that this gives an opportunity for the authors to re-state their NPOV concerns in a succinct and clear fashion. Banno 20:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Given the verbosity of the talk page, and the limited resources of the Wikipedia, I have changed the archiving method to Permanent Links. See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page Banno 20:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Truth in Math again

Hi, the current reading is:

The works of Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, and others shook this assumption, with the development of statements that are true but cannot be proven, and of statements whose truth or falsity is undecidable. Two examples of the latter can be found in Hilbert's problems. Work on Hilbert's 10th problem led in the late 20th century to the construction of specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they have a solution , or even if they do, whether they have a finite or infinite number of solutions. More fundamentally, Hilbert's first problem was on the continuum hypothesis. Gödel and Paul Cohen showed that this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved using the standard axioms of set theory. In the view of some, then, it is equally reasonable to take either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as a new axiom.

Replacing:

The works of Alan Turing, Kurt Gödel, and others shook this assumption, with the discovery of decision problems that are undecidable, and, for any reasonable powerful axiomatic system, the construction of statements that are true but cannot be proven within the system. Two examples of the latter can be found in Hilbert's problems. Work on Hilbert's 10th problem led in the late 20th century to the construction of specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they have a solution , or even if they do, whether they have a finite or infinite number of solutions. More fundamentally, Hilbert's first problem was on the continuum hypothesis. Gödel and Paul Cohen showed that this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved using the standard axioms of set theory. In the view of some, then, it is equally reasonable to take either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as a new axiom.

Why?

1. Turing in general came after Godel so should probably be mentioned second

2. Discovery has disagreements over its use. People can edit-war over discovery vs. invention; "development" seems to strike a balance. See talk on History of Mathematics.

3. Reasonable powerful axiomatic system is not well defined I don't think.

Lambian, please work to explain what issue you took with the current version?

Thanks and regards, --M a s 23:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

After Gödel's results shattered Hilbert's program, Turing's result was not more than a minor aftershock. The reason I switched T and G was the idea to get the minor result out of the way to get to the major result (but I see now that I did not properly adjust the next sentence). The text as it stands now is quite confusing, as there are two notions of undecidability, but different ones for Gödel/Cohen and for Turing, and the applicable notion is not explicitly identified, while the text suggests the other one. In a nutshell, "Turing" undecidability is always about a class of problems, and although we may not know how to determine the truth of specific instances, we have a good grasp what it means for them to be true or not. In contrast, "Gödel/Cohen" undecidability is about a single statement at a time, and suggests that we don't even know what it means that the statement is true or not: there are different internally consistent mathematical universes, both of which agree with all of the maths we can "experience" by introspection, but contradict each other beyond the horizon of our view.

What is worse, the text as it stands now is furthermore either false or quite misleading in several respects, and needs to be fixed.

First, "statements that are true but cannot be proven"? If they cannot be proved, how do we know they are true? They can perhaps not be proved in a Hilbert-style system for some axiomatization A, but they can be proved in such a system with axiomatization B, for suitable B. So they can be proved after all. Furthermore, if A is consistent, then so is B, so this was not gained at the expense of consistency. There is always a next statement that cannot be derived from the latest axiomatization, but likewise there is always a next axiomatization that allows you to derive it.

Then there is "statements whose truth or falsity is undecidable". It is (given the two meanings of "undecidable") not immediately clear what this refers to. But the next sentences talk about Hilbert's 10th problem, and "specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they have a solution". This has to refer to Matiyasevich's theorem, which is about the "Turing" notion of undecidability. However, this is the same as recursive unsolvability: the non-existence of a uniform algorithm that will decide all instances of a class of problems. Among all those statements, there is not a single one that you can point at and say: this one is undecidable. In fact, if you are a classical mathematician and accept the Law of Excluded Middle, then you must believe that for every specific Diophantine equation there exists a decision algorithm: see the last example of a nonconstructive proof in the article Nonconstructive proof. So as stated, taken literally, these claims in the text are false.

As to "discovery" versus "development": I consider that a matter of taste, but I think if you say "the discovery of the existence of ..." it is hard to find fault with that.

The qualification "reasonable" was meant to cover the requirement that the system should be consistent, and "powerful" that it should be able to describe arithmetic. The first incompleteness theorem does not hold at all for inconsistent logics, and not in general for "weak" logics.

A final remark: the paragraph then segues into the independence results of Gödel and Cohen. This is (in my opinion) much more problematic for the notion of truth in classical mathematics than the other blows to Hilbert's program, and should be brought out more, as a start perhaps by giving it a paragraph of its own. --Lambiam^Talk 04:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I express thanks to M_A_S and Lambiam on this recently-built summary of "truth in mathematics". If I may, the only statement I had difficulty with was the phrase "reasonable powerful". I personally would prefer to see a qualifier such as "certain types of axiomatic systems" or "certain classes of mathematical systems" rather than a plainly debatable classification in there. It seems to me that it takes an already knowledgeable mathematician to know what is meant by "reasonable powerful axiomatic systems" and what the range of theoretical debate is on that issue.

Tell ya' another thing; I personally appreciate seeing the mention just above about the issue of truth in classical mathematics hinted by Lambiam as a potentially separate analysis from the "purer" coherence-justification problem regarding Hilbert. Offhand it seems to be a classic a priori truth issue and an interesting coherence/justification issue. Kindly allow me to pose a few layperson-type questions as devil's advocate if I may, please. At what point in the increasingly axiomatic process of justification (proof) does it become arguably a pure coherence justification? For instance, does Non-Euclidean geometry get equal weight by the theories of justification used in mathematics? Is it a separate "job" to go back down from Mount Olympus and check to see which axiomatic system actually checks or squares with "the world"? Or, is it an implicit presumption that axiomatic systems be shown to have practical application at some point in time (at which point they become justified to something outside themselves). I suspect this issue has some potential to explain yet more to readers without getting bogged down in an excessively long section, but I'm not sure how at the moment. ... Kenosis 15:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Where does mathematical justification become coherence justification? If you glance through the article Philosophy of mathematics you will understand that you are not going to find one single answer to this question. For Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry, most current mathematicians will agree that this is a simple matter of examining the consequences of different possibilities. In any world in which Euclid's parallel postulate happens to hold, certain other things will necessarily also hold, such as that the angles of a triangle sum up to two right angles. In a non-Euclidean world (that is, having all the same requirements except for parallel lines) this will not be the case. We have models (mathematical examples) of both kinds of worlds; in these models the "axioms" are provably satisfied. So neither of the two kinds of geometry has in any way a better title to being true. This seems completely obvious to us now, but was generally not so to early 19th century mathematicians. For some reason many 21st century mathematicians think that the axiom of choice is a different story; they "believe" it is true, instead of accepting that there are worlds in which it happens to hold and others in which it doesn't. There is the argument of convenience, which is somehow a curious way of assigning mathematical truth, especially the aspect that it makes it possible to prove some propositions that otherwise could not be proved. Any attempt to express this concisely is likely to be contentious. Perhaps we can just refer to Philosophy of mathematics and Axiom of choice. --Lambiam^Talk 21:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

So, in a non-mathematician's terms, you are saying that these 21st century mathematicians are arguing for a stronger emphasis on correspondence with something ouside the system? In some sense, going down the mountain, then coming back up to Olympus and saying "hey, this is the only one that works down there"(?) If this is at all a reasonable interpretation (even if somewhat hyperbolic ;-), I guess I can understand why it would be controversial. I still wonder if there is not some objective way to tell the reader that this difference of view exists, without bringing the controversy itself into an article already shown to be controversial on a number of other points. ... Kenosis 01:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Given the NPOV tag, may I refer the authors to the page Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial? Also, given the duration of the discussion, can I suggest Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. In particular, perhaps the opinions of third party editors should be sort. For the benefit of third party editors, could we please have a clear indication of who has placed the banner, and a concise summary of the reasons for the placement? Banno 20:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

RFC on Policies

JA: As far as dispute resolution is concerned, I had already placed an RFC at WP:RFC/POLICIES that reads like this:

• The issue is complex, involving multiple pages and policies, and I have only been here 6 months, so I will be needing guidance on whether rules of NPOV, Verifiability, and Consensus are being respected at Truth and Talk:Truth. Again, it's a new thing to me, so I will just state my suspicion for what it's worth, but there seems to be some form of Sockpuppet or Meatpuppet vendetta that has followed me personally from Truth to Charles Peirce. Please advise if I need to format this differently, provide more detail, or post it at a different location. 15:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Jon Awbrey 22:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Administrative Micro-Management

JA: Banno, I am assuming that you probably think that you are just being helpful, so let me go on record to say that I do not find your mostly absentee landlording over this discussion to be facilitating the primary objective of this discussion page, which purpose is precisely to improve the quality of the WP article on Truth. In particular, I ask you to consider the possibility that some of your actions might be construed as (1) attempts to bury or diminish the issues under dispute, (2) attempts to push your well-known personal POV with regard to a number of other issues not currently under dispute, (3) attempts to harass editors whom you are acting almost as though you had some personal beef with or grudge against. At any rate, that sort of conduct is not to the purpose here. Jon Awbrey 12:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

If you have difficulty with anything I have done here, I encourage you to take the issue to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, Wikipedia:Requests for comment or Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, whichever you deem appropriate. If I have given the impression of harassing you, I apologise, and assure you that this is not my intention. I have refrained from editing the article, and will refrain in the future, in order to give other editors the opportunity to make of it what they will. One must consider Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic and Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. It is also an extremely good idea for all of us to take the occasional Wikipedia:Wikiholiday. Banno 21:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §21. The Current POV of the Article

JA: Taking it on WP:FAITH that the next time someone is tempted to say I didn't already say it already that they will be able to find their way to the archive first, I think I can safely replace these kilobytes with links. Jon Awbrey 19:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

• NPOV Dispute §12. The Current POV of the Article

NPOV Dispute §22. Continuing Insistence on a Single POV for Truth

JA: Same here. Jon Awbrey 19:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

• NPOV Dispute §13. Continuing Insistence on a Single POV for Truth

NPOV Dispute §23. Once more onto the beach

JA: Copying pertinent context and adding new discussion at the bottom. Jon Awbrey 16:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: It might help to explain to heart of the problem by thinking of the following analogy. Suppose that you are trying to write an article for the English Wikipedia on the Theory of Poetry. One of the first things you have to decide is whether its coverage will be limited to English poetry, or whether you want a synoptic theory that speaks of poetry in many languages. If you decide to try and tackle the more generic task, then you will naturally have difficulties at any point where you have to work with translations of non-English poems into English. You can take a French poem and find or make a good translation of it into English. You can talk about the virtues of the French original as a French poem, you can talk about the fidelity of the translation and the felicity of the English translation as an English poem in its own write, but if you try to judge the virtues of the French original in any definitive or final way based on the English translation, literati on both sides of the Channel are just going to laugh at the sheer presumption of it. There's a lesson in that. Jon Awbrey 04:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a very nice analogy, but could you give a key of how it applies to the article, like:

Poetry ~ Truth

English ~ ?

French ~ ?

--Lambiam^Talk 21:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: To sharpen the analogy a bit, think of someone entering an art competition, in the subsection for representational sculpture. If it's more than just a local competition, the sculptor would natually expect the initial application to ask for a panoramic series of photographs or a video of the work to be submitted, and the judges of a very large competition might even make their first cut on the basis of these 2-dimensional representations of the original 3-dimensional sculptures. But it would be a positively theatrical absurdity, not to mention a scandal of no great success in the art world, if any body of judges purported to evaluate the original works of art by means of these flat and dare I say "deflationary" proxies for the real things, the fully filled-out, robustly corporeal, solid and substantial works of sculpture. Jon Awbrey 16:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: This very order of 3-dimensional solidarity is sine qua non to all pragmatic theories of interpretation, meaning, and truth, all that are worthy of bearing the banners of those Laocoönically intertwined Greek ideas of pragma and praxis.

JA: But the POV-pushing-come-to-POV-shoving that has so relentlessly brought us to the currently imPOVerished state of the article Truth continues to refuse to consider any other possibility but the reductive nominalism of the notion that the only proper arena for discussing all theories of truth is what fits under the 1-&-2-dimensional tents of a largely syntactic fixation on purely linguistic materials.

JA: This is not to mention the absurd pretensions of the "meteor'o'logic school" that treats every theory of truth based on its petty school-figured litmus test of how it deals with the single fixed idea of the sentence "snow is white". Jon Awbrey 18:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Imagine then that there is a point of view, a school of thought, or a soi-disant "theory" of art criticism whose exponents hold that all true art is 2-dimensional, that whatever aspects of a subject cannot be pictured in the Flatland view of it is just not worth bothering with trying to image at all. And when they have their way in any gallery or museum, they go about trying to ensure that nothing will be left to art that might dare commit the offense of refuting their theory of art. With all the dicing and slicing that went on during and after the recent attack of the meta-concensual sack-puppets, what we are left with in the current article is pretty much the theoretical analogue of that flat, insipid, sorry state. Jon Awbrey 18:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked a simple question, for clarification, because I did not understand what you wrote. Instead of answering it, you produce more incomprehensible verbiage. Why? Are you constitutionally incapable of expressing yourself in a normal way? Are you trying to be a robotic imitation of a troll? What's the matter with you? --Lambiam^Talk 18:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I have already stated the basic NPOV problem with this article many, many times in much more succinct terms than this last attempt. But because some people have affected not to grasp what is after all a rather simple point, I tried several other ways. If you are saying that you don't already understand the very simple statement that this article is biased because it presents all POVs on truth as they are viewed from a single POV, then I will try to think of other ways to say the same thing, but really it's already been said adequately enough. It is not necessary to agree with a statement in order to comprehend what it says. 19:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I could not find any claim even vaguely resembling the statement in bold above. Question 1: What is the "single POV" of which you speak? I find this somewhat curious in light of the fact that many different editors have worked on this page. Question 2: Do they all (except you, of course) share that same "single POV"? --Lambiam^Talk 20:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Quite understandable, since Banno took the trouble to tuck that discussion "out of sight, out of mind" in the archives. A cursory search of Archive 13 for the phrase "a single POV" produces 5 hits, mostly in NPOV Dispute §§12–13, so I will return those two divisions to active duty status for the duration of the current engagement. Jon Awbrey 20:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Please don't do that. Let's keep it simple. Again two questions. Question 3: Are there any significant "theories of truth" that are not represented in the article? Question 4: Among the theories that are presented, which ones specifically suffer substantially, in your perception, from being presented from this single metaPOV, a holy alliance between Linguistic analyticity and Correspondentism? --Lambiam^Talk 20:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Breaking out L's questions for ease of reference:

• Question 1. What is the "single POV" of which you speak? I find this somewhat curious in light of the fact that many different editors have worked on this page.

• Question 2. Do they all (except you, of course) share that same "single POV"?

• Question 3. Are there any significant "theories of truth" that are not represented in the article?

• Question 4. Among the theories that are presented, which ones specifically suffer substantially, in your perception, from being presented from this single metaPOV, a holy alliance between Linguistic analyticity and Correspondentism?

JA: Let's make it accurate first and make it simple later. It's so much more problematic to work the other way, though a strategy of stepwise refinement is not altogether out of the question.

NPOV Dispute §23. Q1. What is the single POV?

• Question 1. What is the "single POV" of which you speak? I find this somewhat curious in light of the fact that many different editors have worked on this page.

— (User:Lambiam, 20:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)).

JA: Q1. The best generic description that we've come up with so far is probably the Linguistic-Analytic Point Of View (LA POV). Now, Linguistic Analysis Per Se (LAPS) is not a POV, it's a methodology, and there is no dispute, not from me, about the utility of LAPS. I couldn't say that LAPS is useless without admitting that I personally wasted many years and tuition dollars in learning the requisite forms of analysis, and the force of cognitive dissonance would probably prevent me from admitting that even if it were true, which it isn't. LAPS does not become a LA POV until a person with a fondness for LAPS starts trying to say that LAPS is sufficient to every purpose under heaven when it comes to truth, and that is what I call a lapsus linguae. Jon Awbrey 12:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q1. The technical name for what I'm describing here is methodism, but the vernacular has pithier phrases for it, for example, "have a screwdriver, treat everything as a screw" (HAS TEAS), or "have a hammer, treat everything as a nail" (HAH TEAN), and so on, depending on the tool of the moment. Jon Awbrey 12:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q1. Just to stress the point one more time — and you need a torque wrench to do that right — there's no point blaming the tool for the short-sighted big-thumbed use to which the Rude Mechanic may put it. I'm really hoping I don't have to say that again, 'cause I'm running out of new ways to say it. Jon Awbrey 16:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q1. If you have the kind of time that it would take to check the edit histories over the last several months, you will find that I am one of those "many different editors" who have worked on the article, and that my additions are as well-distributed across the various theories of truth as any of the other editors. Of course, much of that material was blindly deleted in the last wave of "rage against knowledge excess" that swept over the article, but that is hardly my doing. Jon Awbrey 20:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §23. Q2'. Is the article as a whole written from the standpoint of a single POV on truth?

• Question 2. Do they all (except you, of course) share that same "single POV"?

— (User:Lambiam, 20:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)).

JA: Q2. Let us try to establish one thing once and for all. It is a matter of no direct consequence for the purpose at hand, namely, that of writing a grounded and sourced research article on Truth, what any of our personal perspectives on truth might be.

JA: Q2. As far as indirect consequences go, our personal POVs are partly resources to be exploited, since there can be no awareness or experience without a point of view, and partly impediments to be overcome, since there can be no awareness or experience without the horizons and the limitations thereof. Jon Awbrey 17:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q2. Setting aside the question of the personal POVs among the currently active editors on Truth, since none of our readers care a whit about that, the pertinent question becomes:

Question 2'. Is the article as a whole written from the standpoint of a single POV on truth?

JA: Q2'. And to that I would have to say "very largely, yes".

NPOV Dispute §23. Q3'. Are there any significant approaches to truth that are not represented in the article?

• Question 3. Are there any significant "theories of truth" that are not represented in the article?

— (User:Lambiam, 20:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)).

JA: Q3. If you really want to have a serious discussion about this, then I need to tell you that "theory" is a technical term for me — years of brainwashing by logic and math folk render me positively jumpy whenever I try to deal with "pre-theoretical theories".

JA: Q3. With that preamble, you will understand me when I say that there are no significant "theories of truth" that are currently represented in the article on Truth. Jon Awbrey 21:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q3. Variants of the following statement had until recently appeared in the introduction to the article. This meagre advisory to the reader regarding the more casual uses of the term "theory" seemed (To Me, 2006) the most sparing note of caution, and one that would notify the reader in advance of an imminent or eventual shift in the level of precision that would be required when it should come time to take the word "theory" rather more seriously as a term of art in logic. But even that tiniest of scruples has now been erased, for reasons that from the evidence of their own words evidently have to with a few of our editors' evident low opinion of our readers' desire for accurate and adequate knowledge. I have gone on record many times as saying that I do not share these low expectations of our readers, general or unfamiliar notwithstanding. Jon Awbrey 12:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Remembrance Of Truths Past
It is conventional to refer to a distinctive philosophical treatment of a particular subject matter as a theory, whether or not it qualifies as a theory in the strictest logical sense. Most of the discussion to follow bows to that convention.

JA: Q3. Now, I think myself to have been rather tolerant of the abuses to which the un(brain)washed subject that noble word "theory", and I had been content with the merest hedge at the gate of the article that would keep the way open to the gardens of bona fide theory someday, either here or hereafter, in some further article, but even that most minimalist of apologetic qualifications has now been "disappeared" by Kenosis, as I think it was, and I see that my pemissiveness has led to laxity and license in matters of logic, just as our elders were always warning us it would. So, no more play in that will for me. Jon Awbrey 22:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• Exhibit "A". JA speaking: "This article is biased because it presents all POVs on truth as they are viewed from a single POV." ... Kenosis 23:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• Exhibit "B". JA speaking: "There are no significant "theories of truth" that are currently represented in the article on Truth." ... Kenosis 23:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• Exhibit "C". JA speaking: "[M]y permissiveness has led to laxity and license in matters of logic." ... Kenosis 23:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q3. Kenosis, Yer Honour, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I beg to draw your attention to the occurrence of the phrase "POVs on truth" in Exhibit "A" and the occurrence of what is commonly known as a "scare-quotation", namely, the phrase '"theories of truth"' in Exhibit "B". I submit that this is abundant reason to doubt the Character of the sillygism that the Prosecution would have this Court accept with such a lack of Considered Judgment, not to mention an Undew Excess of Precipitation. In summation, lest this Court be faulted by all Posterity for prosecuting a Case of mistaken identity, it is critically important to recognize that the identity of these two phrases is precisely the Case to be tested here this Day. Thank you, Jon Awbrey 12:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q3. The statement that I made above will no doubt be disputed, but whether it is a nominal dispute or a real dispute is something that it would take further discussion to decide.

Uh, yep. ... Kenosis 13:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q3. First, in qualifying material that I added to the article, since deleted, I introduced a number of more fitting terms that are often used in various literatures to describe these "theories that are not yet theories". There are many more terms for these types of proto-theoretical stances that can be taken from common use, but terms like approach, cognitive perspective, conceptual framework, and paradigm are convenient enough. (Sadly the WP articles on the last two are not yet up to snuff, but they will be improved in due time.)

JA: Q3. In view of these qualifications, the ill-posed question Q3 can be re-posed as one that is less hedgily answered, namely:

• Question 3'. Are there any significant approaches to truth that are not represented in the article?

JA: Q3'. And there I have to say, "yes, definitely".

JA: Q3'. By way of preamble to answearing this question, I have restored a number of stubby sections on assorted approaches to truth that are yet to be dreamt of in the article's regnant philosophy, Horatio. Jon Awbrey 19:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Q3'. One final point. By "represented" I do not mean "mentioned". I mean treated in a way that accurately and adequately represents the main features of the approach or paradigm in question. Jon Awbrey 03:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §23. Q4'. Which approaches to truth suffer from being presented in this biased fashion?

• Question 4. Among the theories that are presented, which ones specifically suffer substantially, in your perception, from being presented from this single metaPOV, a holy alliance between Linguistic analyticity and Correspondentism?

— (User:Lambiam, 20:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)).

JA: Q4'. Finally, an easy Q. The A is, "They All Do". Jon Awbrey 12:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

This is some amazing stuff actually. It reminds me of Tristram Shandy. You should stop wasting time in this wikipedia thing and start seriously thinking about writing satiric novels.--Lacatosias 09:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Image of Lady Truth

I'm sorry, but I do not think it was an appropriate picture to have on a website such as this, so I took it off. It wasn't even a great dipiction of truth anyway. [unsigned by User:StThomasMore 02:33, 22 June 2006]

One opinion: I have no opinion either to its inclusion or removal -- personally I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate, just unnecessarily controversial. In today's "Western" world, certainly not pornographic, but arguably challenging to a notable contingent of folks in the world. To me, I want to know, OK so where are the stretch marks (part of the "truth" of a woman who's been around for a few years) and various little distinctive features such as a bit of excess fat here and there, or alternately bone thin from years of dealing with the "real-world" working out in the fields while er Jules Joseph Lefebvre was painting the image for the nice gentry of the day, Somewhere there's a Biblical citation about being naked before the Lord, but by the time you ask the guy (or woman) they're ordinarily dead and gone. There's also the controversial idea of the "naked truth", which has turned out to be quite challenging in the formation of this article on truth, in which (cogitively speaking at least) there is little agreement on what the naked truth of the matter is. ... Kenosis 03:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

What the...? What's the problem here? The idea that an image would be unilaterally taken down merely because it contains nudity is both intellectually and culturally repulsive. Lucidish 03:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

A concise way of putting it Lucidish. To give some context, this is at least the third time I have noticed it removed in less than a month. Genuinely good to see your rational voice asserting itself here. ... Kenosis 04:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should use the image of Maàt, and simply avoid the controversy. Banno 10:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Oh Right, converting to the adoration of pagan idols is really going to help a Lot. Jon Awbrey 11:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

;-) works for me! At the least, it would provide our readers with a change of complaint. Banno 11:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The "editor" who removed the picture, StThomasMore, is a rather pernicious little gadfly, heaven-bent on fixing the immorality of the world and converting all of its inhabitants to Roman Catholicism. To wit, I bring you an apropos quote from his user page, "It is the duty of the members of the Holy Catholic Church, outisde of which there is no salvation, to preach the Truth in all places."

Making any change to the image of truth based upon the prudish whims of a person divorced from any knowledge of Truth as an abstract would be akin to the commission of treason to the discipline of Philosophy. •Jim62sch• 20:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I think that all that is called for here is simply a firm statement of principle. I don't think that it's necesary to attack anybody else's beliefs or sensitivities. Jon Awbrey 21:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Banno 21:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Were this a perfect world, you'd be correct that a simple statement of principle would be sufficient. However, it is not, and as "forewarned is forearmed" is a rather sagacious statement applicable to both Wikiworld and the real world, I felt it best to acquaint you with some specifics on the motivation of the editor in question. You are free to do as you please with that information. •Jim62sch• 21:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Censorship §1. That's no lady, that's my life

JA: Creating this section for the discussion of recurring questions about appropriate content, censorship, community standards, Laws of the State of Florida, etc. Jon Awbrey 10:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: WP:IS NOT and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored.

Might I suggest that we place an FAQ at the top of this page, addressing this and other issues - rather than creating sections that will inevitably be archived away. Banno 10:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: It's a back-burner issue for me, but I do have a few timely and topical applications that I have been meaning to get to eventually. As a FAQ, the guideline is already featured in the appropriate place, and I doubt if it's a good idea to make this article a cause célèbre for a matter of principle that should be a no-brainer in WP. Jon Awbrey 11:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, I think I will start an FAQ anyway, just to see how it goes. It has worked in other places - perhaps it will be of assistance here. Banno 12:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Re:" Laws of the State of Florida..." above. First comes the State's demand for IP addresses and locations, a few steps later in the process, JA, Banno, Kenosis and Lucidish swattin' mosquitos on a chain gang in the Okefenokee...? ... Kenosis 15:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: For some odd reason, whose Kritik I omit, I often find myself musing on that famous bit of non-dialogue:

• Strother Martin. Whut we haaav heeeyaaa — is a failure to communicate.

• Paul Newman. Damn! Another night in the Box!

JA: Oh yeah, Cool Hand Jon, 16:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquette

I have placed a request at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts on three issues:

1. was my archiving inappropriate?
2. is the NPOV issue stated clearly enough to enable progress?
3. what else can be done to move the article forward?

Hopefully this will attract some external comment. Banno 10:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration §1. Edits of mass destruction

JA: I frequently find it useful to refer to the following general principles of WikiPolity:

1. Wikipedia:Five pillars
2. Wikipedia:Editing policy
3. Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset

JA: I would like to call your particular attention to the following recommedations that I think are rather acutely pertinent here:

• From Wikipedia:Five pillars —

perfection isn't required

• From Wikipedia:Editing policy —

This policy in a nutshell: Improve pages wherever you can, and don't worry about leaving them imperfect. However, avoid deleting information wherever possible.

• From Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset —

10. Particularly, don't revert good faith edits. Reverting is a little too powerful sometimes, hence the three-revert rule. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZ", or someone changing "6+5*2=16" to "6+5*2=17"). If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly, I'll explain why in talk." and immediately take it to talk.

JA, please be clear here: Why do you think it necessary to cite all this material? Why do you think it important? Banno 11:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Banno, this is not in reference to the your archiving of the talk page, which I don't really consider a major problem in comparison to the more compelling issues that we face at present, but refers to the two major episodes of mass deletion by one or more — who knows how many really? — non-collaborative editor(s), which episodes have greatly degraded the quality of the article on Truth, not to mention subverted the modus vivendi that had been so carefully worked out among the more responsible editors on the article. 11:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, thanks. Was this recent, and could you provide difs? Why have you raised the issue again - do you want to revert to an earlier version, or re-insert some material? If so, what? Banno 11:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: We are way past the point of reverting, as it would undo a lot of work that's been done on the Truth in Math section in the meantime, and so it looks like there's nothing for it but to begin the slow ascent again, maybe not in winter this time. Jon Awbrey 11:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, in that case, why add this section to the talk page? I'm sorry, but I can't see the point of raking over cold ashes - especially given the length of the talk page. I am sure that you will agree that it is important to keep the talk pages focused on the improvement of the article. Banno 11:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: In conformity with my usual practice, I stated my reasons at the beginning of the entry:

I frequently find it useful to refer to the following general principles of WikiPolity ...

JA: Though there were two times in recent memory when a mass of destructive edits occurred, I hope to forestall any further recurrence of that sad state of affairs, and it's my further hope that a reference to the pertinent principles that were evidently in abeyance at the time will help to avert such a calamity again. That seems fairly simple to me. So let us try to get back to work on the outstanding questions in view. Jon Awbrey 13:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, firstly, Wikipedia pages are here for the editing, and one is encouraged to be bold. Secondly, your user page might be a better place to list things that you refer to often, and thirdly, at the rate you write, this will be archived before the day is out. While I do not doubt that this section has been placed here in good faith, I think it an excellent example of why so little progress has been made in these talk pages. What you have added here will do nothing to prevent bold edits; nor should it. Banno 20:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Bold is one thing. Blind destruction of good faith, genuinely consensual, well-sourced, and pertinent material is far and away another. I think that the few bytes blazoned above will serve a good purpose in reminding our more responsible editors of how to tell the difference. But if it's mere bytes you're worried about, let us try not to waste any more on this matter, which I think is sufficiently covered. Nuff said. Jon Awbrey 20:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Collation

JA, I think this last edit[1] is an error. An editor should not unilaterally move headings around. By convention, they should be placed in chronological order, with the most recent at the bottom of the article. Banno 12:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Failing to adhere to this convention will make it difficult for editors to identify the most recent topics of discussion. But put simply, I think it a common courtesy to not interfere with posts placed by other editors. Hence, my reversion of your edit. Banno 12:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You are very selective in your applications of common courtesy, but I find this to be the norm, that is to say, the statistical norm. Jon Awbrey 13:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, perhaps you might show us your calculations? Jokes aside, you honour Wiki conventions more in the breach than the observance. Again, if you have a problem with anything I have done here, you are welcome to take the issue up in the appropriate place. Banno 20:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute. Or fillet, with an English bread...

If I understand him aright, JA's NPOV is not aimed at any particular content, but at the "look and feel" of the article. This would explain the difficulty had in understanding his position. It is easy to see POV in particular statements, or to cite statements that one sees as POV; but JA's position is apparently not targeting any particular content.

If I am wrong, JA, could you please point to particular statements with which you would like to take issue. If I am right, then perhaps you could tell us what you think should be done? Banno 20:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I have to call it a day, but here's some late nite reading if yer having trouble falling asleep: Bias (disambiguation). Jon Awbrey 04:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA': Jon is really asleep. This is just a puppet who is too stupid to use a different name. But I know that he would wnat to pass along the following link if he could: Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Information_suppression. Jon Awbrey 04:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, another witty, incisive and clever reply. So what do you think should be done? Banno 06:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: To begin with, we, and by "we" I mean "you", might try focusing on the truly important issues, like WP:POLICY, the triple threat of WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:VER, along with the supplementary guidance of WP:POV, WP:NPOV DIS, and WP:NPOV TUT, instead of worrying over more trivial matters like how far up the tree other peoples remarks should be. And by "focusing" I mean actually reading and taking to heart, not just trading around like Pokemon tags. That would be a start. Jon Awbrey 14:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

As I have said before, If you have difficulty with anything I have done here, I encourage you to take the issue to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, Wikipedia:Requests for comment or Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, whichever you deem appropriate. Perhaps you should also consider Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume good faith Banno 21:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: If we follow up the many different connotations and denotations of the term Bias that are alluded to on the Bias (disambiguation) page, we might notice that Bias is by its very nature a Distributional concept. This is very significant, and I think that it might do some local good to discuss it a bit more. Jon Awbrey 14:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Jon, why do you insist on using such weird and contorted language that a normal, well-read person, and with an above average command of English, can't understand it? Rarely will you state something outright; you just give ambiguous clues and hints. For almost every sentence you utter I have to puzzle and consult dictionaries, and even then half the time I just don't get it, while the other half I just don't know for sure if I got it. --Lambiam^Talk 20:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean. This is the talk page, and it's not uncommon to relieve the tedium of writing one straight line after another on the main page to engage in a modicum of cutting-up and spoof-writing, and I'm hardly the only one in present company who does that. But if you have a serious and substantive question, then all you have to do is ask, and I'll try any way I can to answer it. Jon Awbrey 20:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, I asked two questions at the start of this section. You have not given them a direct and succinct answer. Banno 21:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Turns out there is not a real answer. I however, will want to replace that tag immediately if it's removed. This latest attempt by Jon to find some avenue for expression of Jon's theory of signs, most recently by placing Pragmatic theory of Truth in (???) a separate section divorced from the other major theories, is to say the least, typical. ... Kenosis 18:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Certainly it would appear that, whatever JA's beef, it is not simple to either state or to fix. Banno 20:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Some things are straightforward, and this issue is one of them. Blackburn et al's Truth (1999) has Pragmatic theory in with the "robust" theories. These authors may not be perfect, but far more notable and verifiable than Awbrey et al (1996). The eight-volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a professional resource, through the 1996 supplement, says the following: "All mainstream theories of truth – correspondence, coherence, pragmatist – presuppose that 'truth' is the name of a substantive, explanatorily significant property." Now, you can legitimately debate whether constructivist and consensus should be in a separate section (though they are rapidly gaining noteworthiness). But the exclusion of pragmatic theory by way of trying to find an avenue for presentation of Jon's theory of signs is not even close to legitimately debatable for an encyclopedia article. That approach is a plain violation of WP:OR and WP:VER when viewed in light of the availability of such excellent resources on the overall topic of truth.[left unsigned at 20:15, 24 June 2006 Kenosis]

Threads

JA, I find it quite useful to be able to see who is replying to who in the talk pages, and the accepted layout is quite well described at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Layout. I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from removing colons[2], since doing so reduces readability. [Banno, 21:39, 23 June 2006]

JA: Banno, when I want to address a particular person and nobody else, then I will address that person by name or pseudoname, as I have done at the outset of this sentence. That is a fairly well understood convention that obviates the need for any extraneous syntactic devices. When I want to address the sum of the issues that remain outstanding with regard to a given subtopic of the main topic in question, which is what I endeavor to do, aside from the occasional diversion, most of the time that I spend here, then I will do that in the ordinary conversational way, which also has no need of extraneous artificialities. By the same token, there is no need for you to indent my remarks for me, as that very frequently distorts the intention of their author, so please desist from doing that. Thank you, Jon Awbrey 01:34, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Progress

JA: I am copying User:Banno's remarks from my talk page, as I prefer not to conduct article-related business there. But it is a weekend at long last, and I just spent three days answering User:Lambiam's questions, so it may be a while before I can attend to them. Jon Awbrey 01:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

JA, I find your responses in Talk:truth increasingly bizarre. Now I do not intend to be insulting in saying this, since I have great respect for your erudition. But it seems to me that if you genuinely wish to improve truth, you would be able to state succinctly the reason for the POV banner, and the steps that you think should be taken to remove the POV. I have asked for this several times ([3], [4], [5]) for such a post, to no avail. So please, would you provide a summary of the problem you see, and what we should do about it? Banno 22:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Banno, briefly scanning your links above, some of your questions were answered before you asked them by previous discussions that you archived, so I suggest that you refer to the latest archives, and the rest have already been answered several times over by comments that remain on this page. My last recommendation in answer to "what should be done" is that you actually take some time to read a few of those policy pages on POV and NPOV, as I think that they make the pertinent points quite clear. Perhaps on Monday I will have time to conduct a slow reading of the more pregnant passages, but in the meantime I must leave you to your own devices. Good weekend, Jon Awbrey 04:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §24. Fundamental Principles of NPOV

JA: The current state of the NPOV Dispute raises a few new questions about the exact nature of bias, whether bias is solely a matter of explicitly biased content or whether bias can also be a matter of biased emphasis, sampling, selection, and slant. I find that the materials provided in the vicinity of various WP:POLICY pages, for example, WP:NPOV, WP:NPOV DISPUTE, WP:NPOV TUTOR, and WP:POV, admirably anticipate this very issue, and so I think that a very effective way of dealing with it would be simply to read a few of these considerations into the current record for our collective and earnest contemplation, followed by the deduction of how these principles would apply to the case in view. So that is what I will do next. Jon Awbrey 15:54, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The more I read the remarks elsewhere on this page, the more it seems like a review of basic policies and principles might be in order. By way of beginning, I have copied below an initial statement of fundamentals from WP:NPOV. Jon Awbrey 02:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The neutral point of view

The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.

As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject.

Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from stating which is better. One can think of unbiased writing as the cold, fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate. When bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed.

NPOV Dispute §25. What is "Look and Feel"?

JA: Lest I be accused of writing under an incomprehensible head, I am copying Banno's remarks from a previous section and addressing them here.

If I understand him aright, JA's NPOV is not aimed at any particular content, but at the "look and feel" of the article. This would explain the difficulty had in understanding his position. It is easy to see POV in particular statements, or to cite statements that one sees as POV; but JA's position is apparently not targeting any particular content.

If I am wrong, JA, could you please point to particular statements with which you would like to take issue. If I am right, then perhaps you could tell us what you think should be done? Banno 20:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Banno describes these remarks as containing "two questions", but I see only one question mark, and its use where it occurs is syntactically incorrect. Thus I am having some trouble comprehending what Banno's questions are supposed to be. Backtracking just a little bit by way of recovering some potentially disambiguating context, we see that Banno begins with a conditional statement:

If I understand him aright, JA's NPOV is not aimed at any particular content, but at the "look and feel" of the article.

JA: By "NPOV" I may guess that Banno means "NPOV Dispute", but I'm pretty sure I haven't used the phrase "look and feel" in 10 or 15 years, if ever, so again I have to guess what is meant. But why should I guess when I can ask: "Banno, what do you mean by 'look and feel'"? Now, there's a question.

JA, I've tried in good faith to clarify what it is you see as the problem, and what action you think should be taken. But you are far too cunning to be understood. Perhaps your complaint is much ado about nothing. Banno 23:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Banno, repeatedly asking questions that have already been answered, that have been answered simply the first couple of times, and whose answers are available in the archive, is tedious at best, and borders on harassment, in my opinion. The charge of bias is simple, understandable, and all of the features that I have indicated are recognized and discussed in the applicable Policies and Guidelines, where recommendations for alleviating bias can also be found. I think that a good beginning can be had by reviewing those Policies and Guidelines and then beginning to apply them to the article. Please let me know if there is anything about this recommendation that you do not understand. Jon Awbrey 05:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §26. Unwarranted Charges of Original Research

JA: Finding that yet another NPOV Dispute topic from the last archive has become active again, I will copy the relevant link here and respond to the new charges later tonight. Jon Awbrey 20:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

• NPOV Dispute §9. Unwarranted Charges of Original Research

JA attempts to make it sound like it was slander or something, or false arrest. I am doing my best to maintain WP:CIV, but you'll excuse me I hope if it appears I'm a bit angry right now. Speaking directly on the OR issue, he has repeatedly done this sort of thing with this article on truth, in a pattern also evidenced elsewhere in edit histories of several other articles. Here, he created an article on truth theory and justified its creation by arguing that there is a place for more technically obscure material (see, e.g. the content of truth theory). The article on truth theory has been left to JA to do with as he wishes. And nearly two months later, lacking other editors' help to reign in its excesses and single-sided biases, it sits there in a mess of conceptual confusion. Please, JA, don't continue to do this with this article on truth.

To date, the work of JA it has unfortunately shown itself to repeatedly be largely OR. Time after time after time I have witnessed him applying his own POV and analysis to others' contributions without supportive citations and without reasonable balance in perspective. It's a linguistic nightmare. Yadayadayadayadayada.... No explanations, just attempts to sound smarter than the other participants, after which folks give up on it and off he goes on another roll. I'm paraphrasing here: "Give me some time", he asks, "that's just how I write" And off he goes on a musing, meandering slant of one kind or another, all OR! I don't know why I'm wasting my time on this here at this point, except it's obvious that JA's underlying objective is to A)prove himself smarter and more adept at the language than others, B)become satisfied that others have become so PO'd that they give up and leave, which serves as further proof and self-justification that he is indeed smarter. Then all of a sudden there's no one else there (except for a few residual wimpers and snipes) to help get out of the conceptual quagmire he's worked himself into, and it appears this is what has happened to the truth theory article. But when it comes to a subject of common interest such as truth, many more folks have an implicit warrant to look at the content and say "What the *#@&$ is this gobbledigook ?", I don't happen to think it is fair to the readers. This is not a conference where you stand up to speak and have 30 seconds to prove yourself smart, and another 30 seconds to prove to the whole auditorium some logical flaw in the statement of another participant. The purpose of these exchanges is, fundamentally, to give the readers of Wikipedia something meaningful to take away from their encounter with what is written on these subjects.

Now, back to the truth theory article. If that article exists in order to explain such complexities as theories of signs deriving from Charles Peirce's semiotic theory, synthesized with his brand of Pragmatic theory of truth, then please use the appropriate article to attempt to deal with such obscurities as Truth^K-adic and the like, along with competing schemas, of which there are many. I hope for nothing but solutions here, because JA has all the intellectual (grey matter) in the world and I think it's very unnecessary to get into these conceptual messes and stubborn attempts to see one's self reflected in a Wikipedia article. These are cooperative ventures in the public domain. Here we should be content to be satisfied with using others' resources as guidance in our writing of this article, and present it to the reader accordingly. ... Kenosis 21:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: To claim that an editor has added "Original Research" to an article is just another way of saying that the material added originates with that editor, rather than (1) being grounded in common knowledge and common sense, or (2) being sourced in prior publications and therefore verifiable in the sense of WP:VERIFY. Ungrounded or unsourced material may be removed at any time by any editor. But since that would result in a 90% loss of content in the current state of WP, common practice has been to ask for citations of uncited material and to accord a decent interval for the sources to be supplied. That custom is not strictly mandated by Policy, though there are a number of Guidelines that recommend it.

JA: In view of these considerations, a charge of Original Research for a specific statement is warranted when no citations have been supplied for it. Vague claims that So-&-So is adding Original Research to an article are not warranted if no specific suspects in the way of statements are identified and no request for references has been made. Jon Awbrey 03:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Style and content

For my part, I think the article is written badly. Sentences are constructed so as to maximise their length, rather than their clarity; Three big words are used where one small one would do; in the process, the sense of the text is made obscure or tangential. Consider the second paragraph, starting:

In some branches of philosophy and fields of science, the set of entities which potentially convey truth may include almost any kind of meaningful, informative or significant element, commonly described by the generic terms sign or representation. Such entities...

Look with care at the first sentence. It takes a great deal of space, appears to be quite important, but its meaning is quite obscure, hidden amongst a host of weasels. It's not all branches of philosophy, it's only potentially conveyed, it's only almost meaningful, it's only commonly described... If you are going to say something, just say it!. The paragraph then includes, for no obvious reason, an inaccurate definition of analytic philosophy, and a POV statement about propositions. Why is this paragraph even included?

Now if this were an individual case, one might simply cut it out; but such tosh is scattered throughout the article.

In addition, the overall structure of the article is poor. For example, coherence, correspondence, constructivist and consensus theories are treated together, yet pragmatism is given a place alongside hermeneutics and semiotics - as if the other robust theories did not relate to signs! The distinction between truth in language and truth in general is quite hollow.

Another example of poor structure is the separation between the truth in mathematics section and the work of Kripke, which for some reason has been placed in an orphaned heading next to Davidson. That's just weird.

Then there's that weird little section that talks about Habermas and Buddha - yet Michel Foucault is absent.

I would also suggest that the various unwritten sections - systems-theoretical (whatever they may be), truth in art, truth in science, be removed, at least until someone has something to write in each.

Finally, the references and notes should be re-worked; the standard for Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy references is the Cite.php system - See Wikipedia:Footnotes. Banno 20:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most of what Banno has just said. So, by all means let's get started again and allow the reader to have something a bit more understandable. ... Kenosis 21:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Good, we agree about something. The current state of the article on Truth would not pass muster as a high school research paper, at least, not when I was in high school. Any grader worth the blue pencil would be bound to note the excessive reliance, in some sections, on single sources, secondary sources, encyclopedia articles, and popularizations. Some of the references are done up in a format that was already becoming deprecated by the late 1960's, and is no longer standard for research work. So it looks like all that we might possibly differ on is what to do about making the grade. Jon Awbrey 05:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

This is NOT a term paper!!!. It's an online encyclopedia article! There are VERY BIG differences here, among which is that we are NOT tallking UP to a professor, but rather talking RESPECTFULLY via our explanations to various levels of readership to allow them to take away a perspective on this tough subject. ... Kenosis 21:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles, while not a rule like WP:VER, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV, has been stable and well consensused for a substantial amount of time now. An important part of it reads as follows:

==Which style to use?==

Two styles, closely related, tend to be used for Wikipedia articles.

===News style===

Some Wikipedians advocate using a news style. News style is the prose style of short, front-page newspaper stories and the news bulletins that air on radio and television. It encompasses not only vocabulary and sentence structure, but the order in which stories present information, their tone and the readers or interests to which they cater.

Encyclopedia articles do not have to follow news style, but a familiarity with the conventions may be a great help in planning the style and layout of an article.

===Summary style===

Summary style is an organizational style that is similar to news style that works in the basic spirit of news style except it applies to topics instead of articles and lead section instead of lead sentences.

The idea is to distribute information in such a way so that Wikipedia can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail. It is up to the reader to choose how much detail they are exposed to. Using progressively longer and longer summaries avoids overwhelming the reader with too much text at once. This is the style followed by Cricket and Peerage.

====Rationale====

Wikipedia is not divided into a Macropædia and a Micropædia like Encyclopædia Britannica is. We must serve both user types in the same encyclopedia. Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic should not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs:

• some readers need just a quick summary (lead section),
• more people need a moderate amount of info (a set of multi-paragraph sections)
• and yet others need a lot of detail (links to full-sized separate articles).

We must serve all groups.

For detail see: Wikipedia:Summary style 21:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Note carefully the "Rationale" section here, and the need to summarize for general readership early in the article text with links to main articles. ... Kenosis 21:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

My impression of this basic editorial advice on Wikipedia, as applied to the article on truth, is that it virtually demands we put the five major theories boom, right up front so readers can get a perspective on these, then proceed (either simultaneously or later on) to better develop the other main articles on the various theories and such. ... Kenosis 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Behaviour

Since it seems that behaviour rather than content is the source of distress here, it would be appropriate, since no external comments have resulted from the requests made previously, to either seek help from the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal, or to discuss the issue on individual authors talk pages, with an eye towards the possibility of an WP:RFC. The most important point is to be clear about what the difficulty is, and how, if at all, it is restricting progress on the article. This would be best done by those who have been involved in recent edits. Banno 22:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Content is the primary issue, in my opinion. It's where the rubber meets the road, as evidenced in the edit histories and current state of the article. As Banno pointed out, and as I attempted to, Pragmatic theory of truth does not belong separated out in some arbitrary made-up category. It is a major theory of truth and the reader should have readable access to its basic premises along with that of the other major theories. It should not get bogged down in technical details and obscure language, but be rewritten and rewritten again until it is agreed by consensus to effectively explain to average readers the basics of what these theories have to say about truth. As to the other comments by Banno above, again that is about content. As I said above, I agree with these points about unnecessary complexity. ... Kenosis 23:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Every attempt to discuss the issues gets buried under a deluge of verbal diarrhea. That is a matter of behaviour and an impediment to reaching any form of consensus on improving the content. --Lambiam^Talk 10:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Eastern Religious Perspectives

As a bit of a break from this garrulous NPOV debate, let me just explain why I deleted the section on eastern religious perspectives. The long and the short of it: its crap. The Buddhist Two-truths doctrine may warrant some discussion, and could be added back in. Anekantavada itself is an epistemological perspective, rather than a claim about the nature of truth (in fact, Jainism does hold to some notion of a single truth, its just that nobody except the Jinas has direct access to it). Finally, while Ken Wilber does make a point about truth, his point is basically that there are different ways of deciding what is or isn't true (which should be abundantly clear from the article). Feel free to revert, or, if any of this looks valuable to someone, I could expand on it. ^iggy_talk 00:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please do correct and expand to reasonable length sufficient to summarize effectively. These three views previously were collated and left in as concessions to other editors' contributions, without a very critical eye. Thanks ... Kenosis 00:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Truthbearers and more

The notion of "truthbearer" is introduced as a "basic concept", but not used anywhere outside its own introduction. Since the article should be simplified, I propose to merge the information present here into the article Truthbearer and then to delete this subsubsection.

The article could do with some preliminaries. For one thing, I propose to move the section "Types of truth" up, as it seems preliminary to also philosophy of truth. In the vein of the meteorological approach to truth, there might be some preliminary remarks that a statement like "Horrible weather, isn't it" is not meant to convey a claim that should be subject to examination as to its truth. Some for "It's getting hot in here". And: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."  --Lambiam^Talk 10:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Earlier on, I had said that one of my preferred courses of editing action with this article was to simply remove all three of those introductory sections and jump right into a summary of the five major theories, followed by the minimalists. That whole section including truthbearers and such can very readily be introduced after presenting the major theories and allow the reader something to grab onto before getting lost in the [virtually inevitable linguistic muddle]. A very brief introduction to the major theories should suffice. As a matter of fact, given the competing shcools of thought about this difficult subject, even the Encyclopedia of Philosophy starts out in the very first sentence of the article by identifying the major theories in a way that we here like to call NPOV. ... Kenosis 13:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Icelandic truth

Since the featured Icelandic truth appears to be a translation of an older version of the English-language article, I'm going to remove the FAOL tag. --Lambiam^Talk 11:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Truth in Advertising

JA: The new but undeveloped section on Truth in Advertizing is a potentially useful topic. There is of course quite a lot of well-documented literature that could be summarized here. One small point: The use of the word "arguably" is commonly considered a "weasel word" — see WP:AWW — in this case a device for evading the citation or the detailing an actual argument, and it is roundly criticized by editors of reputable journals. It is more in accord with WP:VERIFY to supply the implied argument or else rephrase the statement. Jon Awbrey 15:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand this. Weasel words weaken the meaning, as for example in "It is believed by some the Earth is flat" versus the stronger "Thomas Friedman believes the Earth is flat". Here, "arguably" means "as can be shown by argument", and it serves to introduce the actual argument, which immediately follows. It does not weaken the meaning. Omitting the word will in fact not alter the meaning, but may make the text less clear. The fact that we do not interpret adverts as statements of fact is "common knowledge" and does not need a citation, just like we all know that a glass may break when you drop it on a tiled floor, that water is wet, and that doing 150 mph on a road with posted 60 mph speed limit may entail unpleasant consequences (it does not need citation but may get you one). --Lambiam^Talk 17:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: See Weasel Word and WP:AWW.

JA: The pertinent property of weasel words that makes it preferable to avoid them is this:

Weasel words are almost always intended to deceive or draw attention from something the speaker doesn't want emphasized, rather than being the inadvertent result of the speaker's or writer's poor but honest attempt at description.

JA: Thus, "arguably" is on a par with phrases like "widely considered", "recommended by 4 out 5 dentists", and so on. Jon Awbrey 22:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I know these sections. I don't agree that the use of "arguably" here is on a par with these phrases. For "widely considered" one can ask: "By whom?" From an online dictionary: arguably adv : as can be shown by argument; "she is arguably the best". You may ask: "What is the argument?". As I said, the use is meant to draw attention to the argument, namely the one that is presented immediately. But since this irks you so much, I'll remove the word. --Lambiam^Talk 00:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The point here is really quite simple, so I will resist the usual temptation to elaborate. There are words and phrases that people commonly use to convey an air of authority and reason to a statement without really supplying either, and "arguably" is one of those, as every English teacher and editor I've encountered for the last 40 odd years routinely comments on striking it out. If you have the authority or the argument on hand, then cite it or make it, lest the word wend its weasel ways unrepenitent. Jon Awbrey 12:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

So if I get you correctly (I never know), you say: Since people use the word often in a way that is not justified, it shall also not be used in situations where its use is justified, period. It were better if it just disappeared from the English thesaurus. --Lambiam^Talk 16:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Hey, I'm just telling you what I've been told. It's not a bad word, it's just put to bad uses, like all those other perfectly fine evasions that we use in everyday discourse but that are considered substandard in grounded research work. I gather that it has a future in advertizing, though. Jon Awbrey 17:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §27. Missing in Action

JA: I have a couple times already started sections that would have taken up such writers as Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas, writing section leads, collecting sources, and placing them in the references, but these have repeatably been deleted before they could get off the ground. Jon Awbrey 15:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed subsection(s)

Placed here for future reference and possible re-use in another place in the article. This, along with several other concepts currently in the Basic Concepts section, is not used in the article at all. No doubt there's a place for this material, but it was pointed out by Lambiam that this concept is not used anywhere in the article at present – I agree with Lambiam insofar as that if it's going to be introduced as a basic concept it should actually be used elsewhere. ... Kenosis 21:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

====Truthbearers====

Truthbearer is used by a significant number of modern writers to refer to any entity that can be judged true or false. The term truthbearer may be applied to propositions, sentences, statements, ideas, beliefs, and judgments. Some writers exclude one or more of these categories, or argue that some of them are true (or false) only in a derivative sense. Other writers may add additional entities to the list. Truthbearer, in the context of modern philosophical discussion, is never applied to a person or group of persons; rather, the term is applied to the kinds of entities above because they are deemed specific enough to reasonably be subjected to a close analysis of whether or not they are true. Fictional forms of expression are usually regarded as false if interpreted literally, but may be said to bear a species of truth if interpreted suitably. Still other truthbearers may be judged true or false to a greater or lesser degree. 21:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The following subsection removed because the concept is already explained in two other places in the article at present. Content placed here for future reference and potential re-use should some of the material be needed elsewhere. ... Kenosis 22:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

====Truth predicates====

Many discussions of truth allow for a number of phrases that are used to say in what ways signs or sentences or their abstract senses are regarded as true, either by themselves or in relation to other things. Theorists who admit the term call these phrases truth predicates. In ordinary parlance, the things that one says about a subject are expressed in predicates. If one says a sentence is true, then one is predicating truth of that sentence. Is this the same thing as asserting the sentence without the additional qualification that the sentence "is true"? This question serves as an important touchstone for sorting out some of the major theories of truth. 22:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

In light of the new quest by JA to impose complex material at the head end of the article, I am also removing the following material to allow the reader some chance to get to the major theories before giving up. Some of this material may be useful in the future, so it is placed here for reference and possible re-use as considered appropriate by the various editors. Some of this material is already stated elsewhere in the article... Kenosis 22:11, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

===Basic concepts===

====Signs, sentences, and propositions====

In some branches of philosophy and fields of science, the set of entities which potentially convey truth may include almost any kind of meaningful, informative or significant element, commonly described by the generic terms sign or representation. Such entities may include words, pictoral representations, logical or mathematical symbols, etc., and also may include a wide variety of meaningful combinations or clusters of words or representations. Analytic philosophy, which exerted a dominant influence on philosophical discussion of truth throughout the 20th century, commonly begins with a focus on the words and syntax of a sentence, from which an attempt is made to determine its meaningful content, referred to as the corresponding proposition. A proposition is the content expressed by a sentence, held in a belief, or affirmed in an assertion or judgment. Thus it is not necessarily the literally interpreted sentence to which truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states. 22:11, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §28. Collaboration & Consensus

JA: The cry of "consensus" is once again heard in the land of WikioPolis, but I cense once again that many on whose lips the word so loosely flips have yet to consult either the array of its ordinary senses or the more specific standards and practices that govern its sensible use in the WikiPedia context. Thus it seems in order to review the pertinent materials. Jon Awbrey 22:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Modified summary paragraph

I have revised the summary paragraph of Pragmatic theory to read as follows: ... Kenosis 22:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

In pragmatic thought, very broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. The three most influential forms of the pragmatic theory of truth were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although there are wide differences in viewpoint among these and other proponents of pragmatic theory, they hold in common that truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one's concepts into practice. 22:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Previously this paragraph read: ... Kenosis 22:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

In pragmatic thought, very broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. But no statement that short and simple can go without immediate and lengthy qualification, beginning with efforts to define the terms it invokes and extending through a discussion of the various glosses and hedges that different thinkers attach to each term. Indeed, questions about the kind of action that makes a difference to pragmatic meaning and truth led to one of the first schisms in the ability of the classical pragmatists, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, to understand each other's variant emphases within that broader philosophy. 22:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I notice that JA reverted this change, providing the edit summary "revert misleading oversimplification". It was followed by an edit in which he removed the words "and lengthy" from his preferred version. Unfortunately, simply removing the words "and lengthy" does not get rid of the unnecessaries here. This is typical of the mandering style we've come to expect of JA, because both of the above paragraphs tell the reader the SAME THING!! And if you were to remove the reference in the shorter version to when these pragmatists wrote (around the turn of the 20th century) it gets even shorter and more to the point, with the SAME INFORMATION!! Plus we had a dependable citation for the summary paragraph, which JA chose to remove. Moreover, the shorter version I gave also actually summarized what the three have in common, with a citation that is consistent with the summary. Therefore, I will reinstate the edits I just made. . ... Kenosis 23:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. I now see there are a bunch of new edits here. Will reassess this nonsense later. ... Kenosis 23:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC) Operational definition: It is nonsense because all the various glosses and hedges and colors and hues are what the MAIN ARTICLE is for! ... Kenosis 23:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: As a general rule, trying to make things seem as simple as they really are is an admirable endeavor. When that urge crosses the line into falsifying the subject matter, the admiration vanishes. Many popularizations and secondary sources cross this line repeatedly, and that is just one of the many reasons for not relying too heavily on them, and especially not a small sample of them. Jon Awbrey 23:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I repeat: "all the "various glosses and hedges" and colors and hues are what the MAIN ARTICLE is for!" ... Kenosis 23:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The existence of the main article is no excuse for saying false, inept, and misleading things in the present article. Jon Awbrey 23:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Question: Is 5 times 21 the same as 15 times 7? An answer in JA's style: In order to examine this question, if a question it is, because, although, admittedly, the form may be taken to be one that displays the characteristics that has led those who profess to exercise the soit-disant profession of grammarian to categorize it as an interrogative, one might be tempted to suspect that such an utterance, whilst posing grammatically under the innocent guise of interrogativity, could provide a hiding place for a much more sneaky character, a rhetorical device, which, although also known with the moniker of "question", has the intentionality of a statement, it is necessary to determine the assumed playing field, and even the very rules of the game, upon which this presumed question finds its vesting. --Lambiam^Talk 23:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? False, inept and misleading according to whom? Awbrey et al (2006)? To put it in straight-up terms, this is crap. An attempt to defend unnecessary verbosity – "over the river and through the woods...." Why do this when the two versions made the same point? One was a summary paragraph with an actual summary in it; the other a meandering flow of "oh, well,yadayadayadayada" (see also: pseudopositivism) ... Kenosis 02:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Only one version here is false and misleading, and that is JA’s version. The words “meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds” are neither unique to pragmatic theory nor do they summarize it effectively. The words “have to do with being verified in experiment and/or practice”, or some variation thereof, do effectively summarize the school of thought. Let’s get this right in a way that can be understood by the readers just looking for a quick take on the subject. Most of this paragraph is completely unnecessary here, and is a mere setup for more verbosity inevitably to follow if you accept JA's summary statement. ... Kenosis 02:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Currently the paragraph reads as follows:

• In pragmatic thought, broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. But no statement that simple can go without immediate qualification, first by defining its terms and then by detailing the various meanings that different writers attach to each term. Indeed, questions about the kind of action that makes a difference to pragmatic meaning and truth led to one of the first schisms in the ability of the classical pragmatists, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, to understand each other's personal spins on their common philosophy. 02:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: In the spirit of the bumper-sticker summaries that are so favored by some, I have highlighted one of the features that does distinguish the pragmatic theory of truth from the host of language-reductive theories of truth that are discussed above it. As a first approximation goes, I think it does about as well as can be expected, and I am honest enough to do what many popular accounts of pragmatism typically fail to do at this point, namely, I advise the reader that there is a lot more to it. So I am content with what this statement achieves in the space that it occupies. Jon Awbrey 02:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: The nice thing about the Principle of Verifiability is that we don't need to sit around and argue out of a Blue Sky and our Own Heads which statements are "false, inept, and misleading" according to some Whos who Horton may have the ears to hear but no reader out there really gives a Fig about — we go to the primary sources (who every Who who reads knows is in the Who's Who of the subject) and we present what they have written in their own write for the reader to judge the logic of the contrasting statements for whoself. Jon Awbrey 12:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. In the article on religion, editors do not cite to the Bible, Qur'an, Baghavad Gita, etc., to determine that article's summary content. Nor do editors properly go to the Baltimore Catechism to determine the summary content in the article about Christianity. Editors do not refer to Albert Einstein's research notes to argue to the reader that general relativity is often oversimplified by the secondary resources, nor do editors properly refer to Leibniz' notes to summarize continental rationalism. .. Kenosis 15:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: You must be joking. Ha Ha. Jon Awbrey 16:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no. There are numerous excellent secondary resources in each of these areas that allow editors to avoid losing the forest for the individual trees. No less so in the current subject, be it truth or pragmatic theory of truth. ... Kenosis 18:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Historical introduction to major themes

JA: The purpose of the "Historical introduction to major themes" is to provide a gentle introduction to major themes in the philosophy of truth. Its purpose is not primarily to provide a detailed chronological history, but to highlight the themes to be discussed in more contemporary terms later on. This is a device that is frequently used in several types of expository literature or survey treatments, as it helps to pique motivation by discussing the documented and plausible motivations of the thinkers who first asked these sorts of questions, often in very clear and foresighted terms. I had added a section like this back in April, but when the word "history" got deleted it eventually led to all sorts of immature nonsense being substituted by the usual suspects until finally the whole attempt to introduce these topics was dismissed. So let's leave the historical details in this time, as I will be developing this by and by. Jon Awbrey 01:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

repeat: "all the "various glosses and hedges" and colors and hues are what the MAIN ARTICLE is for!" So start an article on History of the philosophy of truth. This is such $*&%!² ... Kenosis 01:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §29. Quality Improvement

JA: A little while back in a related connection another editor brought up the issue of "what makes Wikipedia inferior and ridiculed". As it happens, I have been collecting my thoughts on the matter since I first came to WP, and though there was way too much on my plate at the time to go into it I did say at the time that "I will have some comments at the appropriate time, and in the appropriate forum, not here, on the things that make WP really and truly subject to ridicule, and whether there is anything that we can do about it". Some of the just plain unheard of things that I've been hearing lately bring this topic back to mind, so I think I'll try to comment on it now. I have created a heading that I hope will help put these comments to constructive use. Jon Awbrey 17:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: By way of demonstrating the close connection between our natural drive toward Quality Improvement (QI) and the topics of the ongoing NPOV Dispute, let's return to my adaptation of Lambiam's Question Number 4, Which approaches to truth suffer from being presented in this biased fashion?, to which I gave the summary answer, They All Do. Jon Awbrey 18:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §29. QI 1. Use of non-primary sources

JA: One of the more unheard of things that I've heard of lately is the idea that Quality Encyclopedia Writing (QEW) can get by with recycling popularizations, secondary sources, tertiary sources like other encyclopedies, and, and I'm afraid to ask what else. I'm still trying to get over the shock that somebody actually wrote this, so give me a moment. Jon Awbrey 19:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: For example, we have the following statement from Kenosis:

There are numerous excellent secondary resources in each of these areas that allow editors to avoid losing the forest for the individual trees. No less so in the current subject, be it truth or pragmatic theory of truth. ... Kenosis 18:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Since I have read lots of secondary sources, tertiary sources, and popular books on many subjects I can agree that there are "numerous excellent resources" that exemplify what is best in each category. By the same token I can safely assert that the population of "false, inept, and misleading" works in each category is even more numerous. No doubt many who agree with this estimate would disagree with my personal selections of which is which. Which brings us back to the question that we came in the door with, and that is just which is which. And the only way to answer that question is by referring to the primary sources to see which 2nd-hand and 3rd-hand accounts square with what is written in the 1st-hand accounts. Jon Awbrey 19:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA's statements here are plainly an argument for the use of JA's interpretation of the primary resources instead of giving the reader of Wikipedia reasonable summaries of the interpretations provided by published secondary resources on the exact same subject. So, among other things, Blackburn et al (1999) is out, The 8-volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967, 1996) is out; Aubrey (2006) is in, and that should be that--everybody just shut up and let JA do his "work" here. Unfortunately, what JA is attempting to justify here is an original synthesis, a subset of what is forbidden by WP:NOR. ... Kenosis 22:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §29. QI 2. Use of biased samples

JA: Another way that the NPOV factor interacts with the QI factor has to do with the numbers of sources and the types of sources that an article uses in its treatment of a given topic or a given POV on that topic. Jon Awbrey 20:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Rule of Thumb. A sample of size one is always a biased sample. That is why the use of single sources for developing any article or topic of an article is not a good idea, bias-wise. Jon Awbrey 20:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

For whom is this article intended?

I submit that articles on Wikipedia, much like articles in any other encyclopedia, are generally aimed at the high-school student, the college underclassman or the person who, out of curiosity, seeks to learn more about a particular subject. It is not, in my opinion, aimed at the person who already has extensive knowledge of the subject matter and who is merely seeking to confirm that which he already knows. Assuming that my hypothesis is true, this article fails to fulfill the inherent mission of any encyclopedia: the communication of knowledge in a comprehensible format.
The Truth article is, frankly, awash in the emissions of linguistic onanism. Too many of the sub-topics are handled in a manner that is both esoteric and obtuse, to wit, "Minimalist (deflationary) theories of truth". The likelihood of that section (and much of the rest of the article) being readily apprehensible by an average encyclopedia reader is in significant doubt. This point is important. No matter how it may please the author to engage in sesquipedalian prosody, so doing does a disservice to the reader.
In other words, our job is to communicate, and this article is an utter failure in communication. We are supposed to provide information that is of value to the reader and that, one hopes, spurs them on to learning more about the topic. That one takes pride in his ability to write at a professional level is understandable, assuming that one is writing in such an environment. This, however, ain't it. Obfuscation really has no purpose in these articles. Let's keep it relatively simple, relative interesting, and above all, informative. We really don't need reader who, after reading an article on Wikipedia, say, "I'm not using that thing again, I can't understand it." Remember, whether we as editors can understand it is irrelevant; all that is relevant is whether our readers can understand it and find it to be informative, interesting and enjoyable is. •Jim62sch• 21:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm.......have you looked at some of the more abstruse articles concerning things like quantum chromodynamics or algebraic topology. Some topics are simply not reducible to simplistic popular treatments without disemboweling the respective article of all substance. This is why there are really no good popular expositions of, e.g., basic quantum mechanics despite almost a century of trying. Wikipedia tries to cover every topic under the sun, from the most trivial to the most unimaginably abstruse (whatever someone or some group of people feels like writing about). What's the problem with technical articles? If you don't understand, you don't have to read. Click on a link and find something more adapted to your own educational background and interests. --Lacatosias 09:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If you

An 8th grader has far more warrant to complain about the level of readability (or obtuseness) of the article on truth than about the article on quantum chromodynamics. There are plenty more theoretical offshoots to build in the form of main articles on various theories of truth. Let's go build 'em. In the meantime please keep this one understandable and use summaries of the basic concepts, at least early in the article. ... Kenosis 16:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Precisely my point. Kenosis is quite correct; it is unlikely that an average or even "gifted" eighth grader would be looking up quantum chromodynamics or algebraic topology.

As for the attitude expressed by "What's the problem with technical articles? If you don't understand, you don't have to read. Click on a link and find something more adapted to your own educational background and interests". That is not what Wiki is about, and such a smug, arrogant attitude bodes ill for this project. Wiki is about providing information that is accessible by all people with a modicum of intelligence -- if you dislike such a worthwhile goal, perhaps you should look for a new forum to which to contribute.

Finally, if the editor writing the article refuses to make his work accessible, then he is in essence probably an insecure pseudo-intellectual who needs to show that his intellect is far superior to anyone else's (the my-dick-is-bigger-than-your-dick syndrome). If, on the other hand, the editor is simply incapable of making his work accessible, then he is in essence a sham as any true subject matter expert can explain his subject to virtually anyone (this inability to explain is the I-love-the-sound-of-my-voice-even-though-I-haven't-a-clue-what-I'm-on-about syndrome).

Bottom line, reread my first post as well as Kenosis' post, note carefully what we are talking about: we want to see an article the makes the reader want to turn to Wikipedia for all his encyclopedic needs, not to turn away from Wiki because it is incomprehensible. •Jim62sch• 20:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have either the time or the energy or the health to get into this discussion right now. But let me point two things out: 1) I haven't touched this article for about three months and whatever minimal content I did add was certainly as clear and intelligible as the subject-matter would allow. 2) Just as an historical/empirical observation, the assertion that that those who knowing a great deal about philosophy entails be able to write well about it is obviously false. Immanuel Kant, by his own admission and certainly most people who have read his works would agree, was an atrocious, convoluted writer. Does this mean he was an incompetent philosopher? Hegel was even worse. How about the somtimes deliberately impenetrable obscurity of Wittgenstein or Micheal Dummett? I think these folks knew a little somthing about the content of their ideas and I don't think that Kant, for example, was simply being an ostentatious obscurantist. I think he simply DID NOT KNOW HOW to express his ideas in any other manner than the one that he chose. It took me more than a decade to begin to unravel what the later Wittgenstain was trying to say in various texts. I still cannot begin to fathom his philosophy of mathematics. And I think that most experts on the matter agree that, as someone put it, "there hasn't been anyone up to the task of interpreting it correctly yet".

I'm certainly not trying to defend obscurantism or difficutly for the sake of difficutly in Enyclopedia articles; just warning against over-simplication and disembowlment of content in the pursuit of "clarity". Not every article has to be as simple as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The topic of Truth is a highly abstract and difficult one with open questions a and unresolved issues all over the place. You can't just say "truth is the liar's handmaiden". Or, if even if you do, that is a POV that needs elaboration

and defense and so on. --Lacatosias 10:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

You are quite correct about the writing of Hegel, Wittgenstein, Kant, et al (you should try reading Plato in Greek sometime). However, we do not need to try to emulate them, we can do better. After all, wouldn't it be nice if we could get more people interested in philosophy, rather than having them say, "pshaw, philosophy sucks"?

You are also quite correct about disembowelment and oversimplification, and my preference is not to write down to the LCD ala most US newspapers. Nonetheless, there is a happy medium -- this article is nowhere near it.

I hope your health improves soon. •Jim62sch• 21:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Could someone please put a link here to the page in meta that discusses the project's intended readership?--Pseudo account 04:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting new development

RE. the anon user who has twice proposed to replace the entire article with the statement "Truth is merely lies that are spread from the belief of one person to affect the minds of many.": Although this proposal should be reverted because it violates WP:NPOV, if taken as a quick summary of constructivist epistemology, it was, I must admit, refreshingly simple and to the point. ;-)... Kenosis 22:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Words Of Wisdom (WOW). Those who live by the luddite die by the luddite. Jon Awbrey 12:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. The outliars on both extremes can get ridiculous at times. Good day. ... Kenosis 16:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I love it. Succinct. As opposed to the excessive verbosity which permeates and obscures meaning in this article today. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so you too noticed that, eh? Seems that some are so keen on proving that they are not Luddites that they've lost touch with the real world. •Jim62sch• 20:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Gee, I dunno where you live, but the last time I looked the real world was a pretty complex place. The only folks who have lost touch with the real world hereabouts are those who think that reading half a book on a subject qualifies them to write, well, mostly erase, an encyclopedia article on it. Jon Awbrey 21:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it is complex, but even that complexity can be explained in an accessible manner assuming the person doing the explaining actually understands the subject matter. You simply cannot seem to grasp that we are not here to preach to the choir. I note that on your page you mention that you can write at a professional level of English; congratulations, so can many of us. But, while many of us write at a doctoral level for our jobs (where the assumption is that the audience is capable of reading at such a level), Wiki is a different environment, such an assumption is invalid, and we therefore strive to write in a comprehensible manner.

I'm none to sure to whom you refer with the second part of your comment, but I'm unaware of anyone who falls into that category. I am aware of an editor who reads books on rather abstruse subjects and then tried to lord that "knowledge" over others. •Jim62sch• 10:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Scope & Purpose §1

JA: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its purpose, according to a current fundraising appeal, is officially portrayed in the following manner:

Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.

JA: Fundamental principles of truth in advertising and fundraising behoove us to take the slogan "sum of all human knowledge" rather seriously. Jon Awbrey 12:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: In particular, questions about the intended audience are answered quite simply by the words "every person". Jon Awbrey 12:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

And yet, whay you have not done, is to make it accessible to everyone. That you and I understand what you have written is irrelevant, what is relevant is that the average person looking up "Truth" on Wikipedia actually finds the article informative and interesting rather than a hyperpolysyllabicsesquipedalianist cluster-fuck of incomprehensibility. As I said earlier, if you can't break it down so it's comprehensible by a person with a modicum of intelligence, then you don't know the subject anywhere near as well as you think you do.

As for the "sum of all human knowledge", there is a communicative way to present that information, and an elitist jade-tower-on-a-mountain-in-Tibet-way. For example, we could say that 4 is best represented as 1+1+1+1, we could kick it up a notch and say it's 2+2, or we could go another notch and say that it's 2². OR we could be utterly ridiculous and say that 4 is the cube root of the square root of one tenth the number of acres in a square mile times the first Sophie Germain prime (aka the first factorial prime, the first Lucas prime, and the first Smarandache-Wellin prime). Get the point? •Jim62sch• 21:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: That fundraising blurb is either some kind of overblown pretentious nonsense, or something to take seriously, in toto. I personally take it seriously — silly me, perhaps. But "making the $\sum$ of all human knowledge freely accessible to every person" does not mean reducing the $\sum$ of all human knowledge to the lowest common denominator of the set of all people, as that would involve taking the $\bigcap$ over the set of all persons of their domains of immediate competence, and that would almost certainly be $\varnothing$. So whatever it means, it must mean $\sum$thing else. Jon Awbrey 21:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Very good, although I don't recall mentioning the LCD, nor did I mention writing down to anyone. There is quite a gulf betwen writing at a comprehensible level and intentionally writing over the heads of most people for what is nothing more than self-gratification. Funny how Hawking can make his theories accessible, no? •Jim62sch• 23:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Then neither one of us interprets that mission statement to mean that every article must be such that every person can immediately assimilate every bit of knowledge that we hope to put in it. So if we still think that "making the sum of all human knowledge freely accessible to every person" is not just a noble but a feasible ideal then there must be some other tactic that we have in mind. One of the things that comes to my mind is the experience that I always have on walking into a large library — I know that there is knowledge that lies within my grasp at the moment, and when I have spent the required time and effort to make it my own that it will lead me to further bits of knowledge that were just out of reach the moment before, and so on, and so on, et sic deinceps. So that is what I think is required here, to provide the access paths from one state of information and inquiry to the next. Nobody said that would be easy, but it happens by adding content-in-the-rough and then polishing it later, not by deleting everything that fails to fit perfectly into place right out of the chute. Jon Awbrey 02:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree re the library analogy, but if someone wants to learn about cosmology, he isn't going to start by reading one of Edward Witten's papers, diving headlong into M-theory. Chances are, he'll start with something a bit simpler and work his way up. The wiki articles should be like that, too. The Truth article should be as comprehensible as possible to as many people as possible, with links to other articles that go more deeply into the more technical subject matter. This way, the 9th grade student can get a good overview, and the college student can delve more deeply into the subject matter.

JA: Actually, I did. Of course, I didn't understand it, and still don't understand it, but the book on Many Worlds QM is still on my shelf, somewhere, along with many others like it that I return to from time to time to see if I've gotten any smarter in the interval. But more important is the influence that even such a glancing brush with a challenging subject had on me, and that was the resounding, striking impression that there was something actually worth understanding. And the book cited other books at a number of different levels, many of which I could grasp slightly more of, and a few of which led on to decade-long adventures of their own. The power that such a book has to do all this is due to the fact that it presents its subject honestly and maturely, as it is understood, however partially, by those who actually care about it. This is a very different matter from trying to provide the reader with a security blanket for his of her current state of knowledge. Jon Awbrey 13:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, I always did exceptionally well in school in science, especially chemistry and physics so QM, M-theory, string theory, relativity (both theories), etc., came pretty easily to me. But, in that sense, I'm an aberration (although my son is quite adept at those subjects as well). But, there are other subjects I grasp less easily, and I'm sure that that's the truth (no pun) for all of us. Thus, there's a middle ground that we can seek for the main article. We needn't provide a security blanket, nor should we put out the fire for knowledge by smothering them with a wet, overly intricate tapestry. •Jim62sch• 21:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

You baffle me with your constant references to items being deleted -- but if something got deleted, it's likely that the edit summary explained why. A way around this -- assuming it was deleted because it didn't "fit perfectly into place right out of the chute" -- is to compose the piece in a sandbox in your user space, and then transport that section here when it is finished. •Jim62sch• 10:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I don't know how long or how closely you have been watching these pages, but there are two things that I'm talking about under the head of "deleterious deletions".

1. There have been, by my recollection since March 2006, two major convulsions of mass deletions in the article on Truth. Both of these occurred after long intervals in which the editors who were spending a lot of time here had worked out, with no little difficulty, a modus vivendi of very carefully and patiently working over each aspect of structure and bit of text until there was some approximation to a genuine consensus about it. Both convulsions occurred when a partcular editor returned to the article after a long interval of non-participation in it, and proceeded to slash and burn everything that did not suit his fancy, the second time accompanied by a host of associates or evatars who were fond of declaring their kangaroo "concensus" [sic] on a moment's notice as a shabby excuse for their mass deletions of bona fide and previously consensual material. Jon Awbrey 13:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
2. The other kind of "deleterious deletion" is the sort of action that violates the basic spirit of collaborative work, including how we are supposed to work with good faith contributions, that is memorialized in the area around the WP:Five Pillars, namely here:
   1. Wikipedia:Five pillars
   2. Wikipedia:Editing policy
   3. Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset

JA: Some of this is excerpted above at Collaboration §1. Edits of mass destruction. Jon Awbrey 14:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In apparent contrast to this is the advice to "Be Bold". Banno 21:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

"Be Bold" has become an unofficial slogan of Wikipedia.

NPOV Dispute §30. Relation of NPOV to NOR

JA: Persistently vague charges of Original Research seem to call for a more general discussion of the content-governing WP:POLICY of WP:NOR. I therefore beg the group's indulgence to "create" this heading for the sake of more coherently conducting that discussion. Jon Awbrey 14:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: For novelty's sake, if you'll excuse the expression, let's start out with a few concrete examples, and save the reading of the Riot Act for later. Once upon a time, but not so long ago in the nearby galaxy of WikioPolis, it was common to read statements like "Aristotle expounded a correspondence theory of truth", "Bertrand Russell invented the correspondence theory of truth", "John Locke orginated the concept of a tabula rasa". Now, Blind Faith is the name of a band, not a WP:Policy, and the editor who takes the "initiative" of checking up on these "facts", if you'll excuse the expression, is not thereby guilty of Original Research or even Novel Synthesis for tracking down the slightly more factual facts, even it it requires the "pretentiously academic" practice of quoting a few primary sources to nail 'em to the wall in a decidedly definitive manner, and "synthesizing" those facts in a single context of discussion, as opposed to their former condition of being scattered throughout many different books on many different shelves. So I hope that we can treat these simple landmarks of common sense as no-brainers from now on. Jon Awbrey 14:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Methinks you might want to reread NOR.

JA: Dear Anonymous, I have read all of the major WP:POLICY pages several times over. Indeed, I find myself frequently forced to copy many excerpts from them into various discussions. Naturally, individual readers may be expected to flash on different bits of these pages, so if you believe that I have missed a significant clause or nuance, I would appreciate it if you could make it more explicit. Thanks In Advance, Jon Awbrey 14:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Article layout and bloat

1 Introduction

2 Philosophy of truth

2.1 Major theories of truth

2.1.1 Substantive ("robust") theories of truth

2.1.1.1 Coherence theory

2.1.1.2 Correspondence theory

2.1.1.3 Constructivist theory

2.1.1.4 Consensus theory

2.1.1.5 Pragmatic theory

2.1.2 Minimalist (deflationary) theories of truth

2.1.2.1 Performative theory of truth

2.1.2.2 Redundancy and related theories

2.1.3 Other theories of truth predicates

2.1.3.1 Kripke's theory of truth

2.1.3.2 Semantic theory of truth

2.2 Truth as expressed more generally

2.2.1 Approaches relating to signs in general

2.2.1.1 Hermeneutics

2.2.1.2 Semiotics

2.2.2 Systems-theoretic approaches :2.2.2.1 Information systems

2.2.2.2 Physical symbol systems

3 Types of truth

4 Truth in specialized contexts

4.1 Truth in the arts

4.2 Truth in advertising

4.3 Truth in jurisprudence

4.4 Truth in mathematics

4.5 Truth in science

4.6 Truth in religion

4.6.1 Christianity

4.6.1.1 Biblical inerrancy

4.6.1.2 "Double truth" theories

4.6.2 Jainism

5 Additional observations about truth

6 Notes

8 See also

8.1 Truth in logic

8.2 Theories of truth

8.3 Major theorists

9 External links

Let's try to trim some of this bloat, shall we? The introduction is mostly questions,. hardly an encyclopedic tone; the sub-sections would in many cases better be served by incorporating the salient points into the parent section. Much of the content overall smacks of essay style not encyclopedic style. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Translation: "Unencyclopedic" = stuff the one speaking does not like. See indexical. On the other hand, philosophy is mostly about questions, and pretending otherwise is a falsification of the subject. Falsifying the subject matter is what I would call "unencyclopedic", but that's just me. Jon Awbrey 17:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

No translation necessary, although yours was quite far off the mark. Face it Jon, in refusing to "get with the program", you impress no one but yourself. •Jim62sch• 21:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

"...philosophy is mostly about questions..." which is duly noted in the Philosophy article. Falsifying the subject matter is what I would call, oddly enough, falsifying the subject matter. But then I prefer accuracy over thinly veiled ad hominem attacks. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

JA's "translation" of KC's statement is radically incorrect (=untrue). All the following material was recently added by JA (never subtracted or voluntarily moved to a "main article", always added, added, added...). ... Kenosis 01:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• In "Correspondence theory":

Immanuel Kant discussed the correspondence theory of truth in the following manner:

Truth is said to consist in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. Now, I can only compare the object with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients Diallelos. And the logicians were accused of this fallacy by the sceptics, who remarked that this account of truth was as if a man before a judicial tribunal should make a statement, and appeal in support of it to a witness whom no one knows, but who defends his own credibility by saying that the man who had called him as a witness is an honourable man. (Kant, 45)

According to Kant, the definition of truth as correspondence is a "mere verbal definition", here making use of Aristotle's distinction between a nominal definition, a definition in name only, and a real definition, a definition that shows the true cause or essence of the thing whose term is being defined. From Kant's account of the history, the definition of truth as correspondence was already in dispute from classical times, the "skeptics" criticizing the "logicians" for a form of circular reasoning, though the extent to which the "logicians" actually held such a theory is not evaluated.

A careful analysis of what Kant is saying here can help to explain why there are so many theories of truth on the contemporary scene. In other words, why would thinkers who examine the question of truth not be satisfied to rest with this very first theory that usually comes to mind?

..............

• In "Consensus theory":

An ancient criterion of truth, the consensus gentium (Latin: agreement of the people), states "that which is universal anong [people] carries the weight of truth" (Vergilius Ferm, p. 64). A number of consensus theories of truth are based on variations of this principle. In some criteria the notion of universal consent is taken strictly, while others qualify the terms of consensus in various ways. There are versions of consensus theory in which the specific population weighing in on a given question, the proportion of the population required for consent, and the period of time needed to declare consensus vary from the classical norm.

..............

• In "Pragmatic theory":

In pragmatic thought, broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. But no statement that simple can go without immediate qualification, first by defining its terms and then by detailing the various meanings that different writers attach to each term. Indeed, questions about the kind of action that makes a difference to pragmatic meaning and truth led to one of the first schisms in the ability of the classical pragmatists, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, to agree on the finer points of their common philosophy. The most critical differences arise over the role of rationalism and realism within pragmatism.

Peirce defines truth as follows: "Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth." This statement emphasizes Peirce's view that ideas of approximation, incompleteness, and partiality, what he describes elsewhere as fallibilism and "reference to the future", are essential to a proper conception of truth. Although Peirce uses words like concordance and correspondence to describe one aspect of the pragmatic sign relation, he is also quite explicit in saying that definitions of truth based on mere correspondence are no more than nominal definitions, which he accords a lower status than real definitions.

KC is absolutely correct. Although not yet completely out of control, it is once again headed in that direction, after which, if history is any guide, JA will again complain that his material keeps getting removed. He refuses to accept a summary paragraph or two or three as the correct way to write these sections for folks. . ... Kenosis 01:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both you, Jim and KC here. You've both brought a significant improvement to the article and I support your efforts moving forward. JA needs to practice what he preaches and stop hindering progress. FeloniousMonk 01:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute §31. After Action Analysis

JA: There's a kind of dynamics developing here that I've seen before, and I'm not sure I've learned enough since the last time I saw it to do much about it, but lacking any forward motion in such a situation it may help to review the events as I remember them, thereby stimulating the differential memories of others, to see if there is anything I can learn for the next time.

JA: Best I can tell from the Archives, I arrived on the shores of Truth toward the end of March 2006, with the following entry:

Problems with introduction JA: The lead paragraph has numerous problems. I started out just trying to fix the stylistic use-mention problem, and found that it was impossible to feather it in with the rest of the sentence on account of all the substantive ambiguities. After fixing the more easily fixable problems, we have Truth (cont. false, lie) refers to the nature of statements as having a degree of fidelity with reality. In rhetorical contexts where obfuscation is a factor, honesty and sincerity may also be considered as aspects of the "truth". JA: What is the intended subject of the first sentence? (1) The word truth, (2) the property of truth, (3) a truth in the sense of a true statement, (4) the truth, in the sense of all that is the case? There seems to be an attempt to cover all at once, which does not work. Let's pick just one to start. JA: If it's the word truth that refers to a property, then: Truth (antonym falsity) refers to the property of a proposition or a statement as having a degree of fidelity with reality. JA: I suspect that we have just defined truth in terms of fidelity, but maybe nobody will notice. Wait and see. Jon Awbrey 15:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC) "Defining" truth in terms of the "fidelity to reality" of propositions overlooks how it is applied to claims that works of art & novels are "truthful". It is also misleading to contrast the 1st & 2nd paragraphs by saying the 2nd is about its use in philosophy - suggesting the 1st is not --JimWae 16:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC) JA: I took the purpose of the first paragraph to be simply getting the usage of the correlated terms right. I don't see the implication of an "in contrast" at the start of the second paragraph, but a tacit "more specifically'. I don't see the exclusion of aesthetic truth, as there we do speak of works being "true to life". But yes, we have to start with propositions that are intended to be interpreted more or less literally, and gradually extend to "symbols" that are meant to be interpreted in more figurative ways. I don't think that we can cover all that in the first sentence. Jon Awbrey 16:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

JA: I see that I was doing then what I normally do, namely (1) analyzing arguments and definitions, to see if they really are arguments and definitions, (2) looking stuff up in standard reference works and adding the resulting information to the text in view, (3) rinse and repeat. It's always a little surprising to me that such a simple-minded plodding procedure should so often raise such a fuss, much less in a project where folks say they are trying to write an encyclopedia, but somehow it does.

JA: The strange but critical observation that I make on this review is that the article Truth, modulo a few trivial name changes, still has all of the same problems that it had back then, namely:

1. It presents "definitions" that are not really definitions, typically "defining" a word in terms of its synonyms, and very often "defining" a simpler notion in terms of vaguer notions for which no attempt at clarification is even suggested.
2. It presents "arguments", whether those of its sources or those of its own internal development, that are defective on the most basic of logical grounds, with no attempt to report on the many analyses of these defects that have a long history of discussion in a number of standard literatures.
3. All in all, it hides the true sources of the material that informs its content and it hides the true sources of the POV assumptions that inform its organization under clouds of dissemblage that try to lull the reader into an unconscious belief that there could be no other way of looking at Truth.

JA: In short, the present text of Truth is not an encyclopedia article. It is yet another manifesto from a particular POV in philosophy, which tries to avoid being named in the hopes that people will confuse that with neutrality. Jon Awbrey 12:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Be Bold ... But ... Don't Be A Dick

JA: 'Nuff said. Jon Awbrey 21:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

No offence, but this reminds me in some inexplicable way of Ballad of a Thin Man. •Jim62sch• 23:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Security blankets are as security blankets do. No offense, but you can all go tuck yerselves. Jon Awbrey 03:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Just by way of interest, there is an essay on this topic at meta:don't be a dick. My reply to JA is on his talk page. If I am being a dick, please let me know, preferably on my talk page. Banno 07:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not too sure who (if anyone, really) is being a dick, not am I sure who was requesting a security blanket approach. The golden mean of article writing is the concept that is creating some problems here. My personal preference would be to start over as a good bit of this article is not encyclopedic -- it reads more like an early draft of a book. Additionally, a number of items read like OR, which, as we know, is verboten (WP:NOR). Of course, by pointing this out, I'm probably being a dick.  ;) •Jim62sch• 09:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start a list of Dicks, you and I at the top, for easy reference... ;-)Banno 10:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Works for me, it's a mere label anyway. (Albeit, one with just a touch of "truth"). •Jim62sch• 22:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Can I be Jane? Then we can have fun. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. •Jim62sch• 00:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I happen to agree with Jim's second submission above, except for the part about probably being. My question is: do sockpuppets count as being separate dicks? ... perhaps they should be sliced-up for separate partial attribution in a metaphorical maneuver of conceptual justice? pro-rata credit for each puppet? If an IP address is registered to a female, is it still appropriate to use the term? If one puppet has a female name, does that give the particular sockpuppet a free pass?

Being one becomes a strange concept if you think about it too much... having one I can understand – wanting one, I might understand too – hating people with 'em, had experience with folks there also (what's the other gender's equivalent of misogyny? misandrony?). But being one? Maybe behaving like one gives more credit for the possibility of change. Is there ever an element of truth to the use of the phrases "being a dick" or "behaving like a dick"?. If so, why?... ...Kenosis 23:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC) But I digress somewhat. ... Kenosis 23:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Surely Kant touched on this somewhere. Let's see...a dick hangs around most of the time doing nothing, then it gets pissed off, and once in a blue, salutes. Sounds like your average football fan. •Jim62sch• 00:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Archiving - again

The talk page is over 150kb again - over four times the recommended length, and long enough to cause problems for some browsers. Unless someone else wants to do the honours, I will archive again soon, cutting it down to about 10kb. Banno 08:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free, the honour is all yours -- just leave recent stuff. •Jim62sch• 09:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Please wait a few days. Or perhaps do an intermediate archive to, say, 50kB or so? Part of the truth of this article is the truth of the argumentation that has come across this page (and its archives). Appreciate your considering this POV. ... Kenosis 03:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Block quoute by Kant

I think this needs to go; it adds nothing to the article but more verbosity:

Truth is said to consist in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. Now, I can only compare the object with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients Diallelos. And the logicians were accused of this fallacy by the sceptics, who remarked that this account of truth was as if a man before a judicial tribunal should make a statement, and appeal in support of it to a witness whom no one knows, but who defends his own credibility by saying that the man who had called him as a witness is an honourable man. (Kant, 45) •Jim62sch• 09:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'm all in favour of removing anything to do with Kant; he is dreadfully over-rated... (take care, troll at work ;-)

But apart from that, placing criticism so prominently in an introductory article is inappropriate. Such stuff should be left for the main article. Banno 10:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Current intro placed here (again)

Removing the current new intro, which threatens to build into both a history and a semantics lesson, in addition to an introduction to basic logic. The "conundrum" will get a laugh out of a four-or-five-year old, and cause an adult to say "trick question, right?" As it sits right now, it explains nothing to a reader that is necessary before introducing the major theories on truth. Perhaps some of this material is useful in another place. ... Kenosis 15:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

==Introduction==

One way to approach a subject matter as complex as the philosophy of truth is to look back through the history of thought on the subject and spotlight those thinkers who very early on asked what are still the leading questions of the subject. This introduction adopts that approach as a way of highlighting the major themes in the philosophy of truth.

The subjects of meaning and truth are commonly treated together, the common notion being that only meaningful things can be true or false. This association is found in ancient times, and has become standard in modern times under the heading of semantics, especially formal semantics. Another association of longstanding interest is the relation between truth and logical validity, "because the fundamental notion of logic is validity and this is definable in terms of truth and falsehood" (Kneale & Kneale, 16). Though not the main subjects of this article, meaning and validity are truth's neighbors, and incidental inquiries of them can serve to cast light on truth's character.

In an ancient fragment of text called the Dissoi Logoi, the writer is evidently trying to prove the impossibility of speaking consistently about truth and falsehood. One of the conundrums put forward to confound the reader cites the case of the verbal form, "I am an initiate", which is true when A says it but false when B says it. Escape from befuddlement seems easy enough if one observes that it is not the verbal expression, the sentence, to which the predicates of truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states (Kneale & Kneale, 16).

The preceding example illustrates two themes of contemporary interest. The first is the dimension of variation that ranges from abstract propositions to concrete sentences. There is no simple distinction here, but a hierarchy in which more abstract entities and more concrete entities can always be found. The second is the character of a special type of sign, like the pronoun "I" in the example, that is commonly called demonstrative or indexical. Indices like these point to a relation between a sentence and something else, something that has to be taken into account before the truth of the proposition can be decided. . . . 15:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting that no sooner had the material on truth-bearers been removed than someone raises the issue. One does not need talk of imaginary creatures such as propositions to see that the utterance in the mouth of A is distinct from the utterance in the mouth of B. Bring back truth-bearers. Banno 21:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the intro pulled -- it was gibberish. •Jim62sch• 22:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Second that. My vote is to just ditch the whole mess, it adds nothing to the article. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Responding to Banno, I feel sure "truthbearer" or "truth-bearer" or "truth bearer" will find its way back in. As it's mainly a creature of correspondence theory, maybe in that section. Or maybe after the major theories are introduced. It has become all too clear that given the many approaches theorists have taken other than "truthbearer" (signs, sentences, propositions, ideas, beliefs, symbols, etc. etc., and the various arguments about what means what) we need to just jump right into introducing the major competitive theories. To me that means we need to skip definitions up front because it is too much of a diversion and raises too many questions that cannot be put into context without a basic knowledge of what the competitive theories are. In due course this article will find its way to esplainin' all the important basics at least, and in due course all the main articles will get developed as well. Right now there's not even an article on truthbearers, nor truth bearer nor truth bearers, nor truth-bearer nor truth-bearers, nor bearer of truth nor bearers-of-truth--in due course that'll happen too. In the meantime I think it's important to keep the early sections of this article from getting lost in excessive detail while it develops further. ... Kenosis 01:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC) There is an article on truthbearer, but it has no content to speak of. ... Kenosis 02:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added an older version of the truthbearer section from this article into truthbearer, to enlarge it slightly. Needs editing, which I will do later. Perhaps a link to this article somewhere in the intro will suffice.... Banno 06:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed the results for truthbearer on Google.[6] Wiki comes in number 5. We can expect a disambiguation dispute at some stage... Banno 06:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh

"Some of the information in this article or section has not been verified and might not be reliable. It should be checked for inaccuracies and modified as needed, citing sources."

I hope I'm not the only person that finds that amusing.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.69.182.1 (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the irony is almost palpable. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)