From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 22:57:43 GMT

In article <846153092snz@longley.demon.co.uk>,
David Longley  wrote:
>In article  jqb@netcom.com "Jim Balter" writes:
>
>> In article <846083674snz@longley.demon.co.uk>,
>> David Longley  wrote:
>> >This is all false. 
>> 
>> == "I disagree".  See previous comments by Longley on this "structure".
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>This reflects a somewhat idiosyncratic conception of truth.
>
>To  say something or set of things is false is NOT equivalent  to 
>saying  one  disagrees  with it or them. If JB says  the  sun  is 
>1000000  miles  from  the  earth,  and  I  say  it  is  (roughly) 
>93,000,000 miles, it does not come down to a disagreement between 
>DL  and  JB,  but one between the statements  and  the  empirical 
>facts. 

What accounts for such intellectual failure?  Neither of the hypothetical
statements by JB or DL above resemble "This is false".  What empirical claim
is contained in the statement "This is false"?  "This is false" is either just
behavior or just an expression of belief, depending upon your
behavioral/cognitive stance, *not* an empirical statement about the
proposition, which is exactly the complaint Longley voiced against Rickert's
"Agreed".  Longley of all people should recognize this, if it weren't that he
takes *his opinion* of what is true or false as being what is true or false.

>In my note to Rickert, I am asking for the empirical facts.

The exact same question can be asked of either "I disagree" or "That is
false".  They *mean* the same thing, despite attempts by those who take their
opinions as absolutes to factor the speaker out of the latter.
--