Wittgenstein's Truth

Truth is an abstract idea. Abstract ideas are generalized from particular cases. From particular cases we can generalize an abstract “family resemblance” from all of the cases.

To see how this works, let's look at another popular example of an abstract idea from Wittgenstein; games. To teach me what games are, you cannot simply hold up a photograph of two people playing chess and point to it. For, I could easily take a game to be just that, a photograph. Only after giving me enough examples of games, “this is a game, that's not a game”, can I heuristically abstract all these particular cases into a vague and generalized idea of what a game is....
This is the distinction between object language (things) and metalanguage (meanings). Similarly, when we pick out true statements, we don’t need an idea of truth. We are picking out a certain physical event. We are referring to the physical event in object language with the label “true statement” but this should be taken as shorthand, just as “lion” is shorthand for “big growling thing with sharp teeth”. We pick out true statements, not by first knowing what truth is but by noticing remarkable features about them that, taken together, have a family resemblance. Fortunately for us, the abstract idea of truth isn't as spread out as games. There are essentially two kinds of true statements. That is truth by definition and truth by correspondence with reality. For example, consider the following two true statements.

1. All bachelors are unmarried
.2. All copper wires are electrically conductive.

The first (1) is true by definition of what the words “all bachelors are unmarried” mean. The second (2) is true by corresponding with reality.
Some remarkable features of the first kind of true statement are that it’s obvious, trivial and redundant. Any true statement of this kind will implicitly contain one term inside of another. The term “bachelor” contains the term “unmarried”, for a bachelor is simply an unmarried man. The statement is therefore true by definition of what the words mean. We are pointing out the same thing twice and comparing it to itself, i.e. redundant. ...

So, what is truth? Truth is a correspondence relationship, either between the terms within a statement or between a statement and reality. The statement, “the cat is on the mat” is true because the cat is in fact, on the mat. The statement corresponds to reality. The statement, “all triangles have three sides” is true because the term "triangle" is defined as something with three sides. Having three sides is [i]how we point triangles out[/i], so of course they are going to have three sides. The terms correspond to each other making the statement true as well as redundant.

That's truth, in a nutshell (comparatively speaking).[/quote]

Wittgenstein has clearly influenced you and I also agree with your epistomology. A non-tautological proposition must have some kind of correspondence to the natural world. "A cat is on the mat" has truth value for both "cat" and "mat" whereas "A angel is in my living room" has meaning only in so far as there is a living room that is mine. "A ffblgg is on the xxrsrr", however, has no meaning and thus no truth possible content outside of my own imagination. The test of correspondence of subject and predicate to what is in the world that we can jointly apprehend is a low standard but a necessary one that eliminates even the need to ask unanswerable and undefinable metaphysical questions.

Is a process of verification still necessary to discerning whether there is really a correspondence between subject and predicate? What if it just "looks" like a cat? Also is this definition of truth not subject to languistic convention. Whose definition of cat are we using. If I say kitty, pussy, Felix, or el gato does the subject begin to shift. Would it be better to say cat like thing. But, that would only be a family resemblance. Not that particular cat. What about the mat? Is it a small rug, a cloth rectangle, a laying thing, a tiny two dimensional floor cover? How does subjective interpretation impact the truth statement. Is truth only objective?

You make a good case that truth is not only objective. However, we try to attach unreal symbols to something real, which we then call truth when it really might be my truth. There are many kinds of cats, as the Wikipedia disambuguation suggest. In the case of felix catus, the best we can do is to state that the entity on the mat corresponds to a form that we agree is a domestic cat. The entity "domestic cat" doesn't exist any more than the entity "5" exists. But just as there are five people, five stones, five cars, and so on, the set of all "5"s constitute what we agree is "5". The same is true with our feline. So long as it corresponds sufficiently to that which agree is a "cat", it must be a cat. However, that agreement whether it be by humans or machines still involves subjectivity-- a disonnect between the thing in itself and the thing as I, you, or a robot sees it.

Cats may refer to:

Cats (musical), an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats (film), a video version of the musical Geelong Cats, an Australian football league team Jacob Cats (1577–1660), Dutch poet Felis catus, the domestic cat Felidae, the taxonomic grouping of all cats Catalytic converter, A shortened term for

The acronym CATS may refer to:

CATS (software), electronic design automation software CATS (trading system),
Computer Assisted Trading System, an automated trading system developed by the Toronto Stock Exchange
CATS pipeline, a natural gas pipeline in North Sea
CATS, a character from the 1989 video game Zero Wing known for speaking the phrase "All your base are belong to us"
Canadian American Transportation Systems, a defunct Fast Ferry company serving Rochester, New York and Toronto, Ontario. Central Autónoma de Trabajadores Salvadoreños, a trade union in El Salvador Charlotte Area Transit System, the regional transit authority for metropolitan Charlotte, North Carolina,
USA Chicago Area Transportation Study, the former metropolitan planning organization for the Chicago region
Citizens for an Alternative Tax System, a national tax reform public interest group in the United States
Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, the assessment process for K-12 schools in Kentucky,
USA Computer Active Technology Suspension, an automotive technology that controls the movement of the wheels
Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme, a scheme used by many UK universities to evaluate modular degrees
Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland, an annual awards event in Scotland
C.A.T.S., fictional Home Office team from C.A.T.S. Eyes, a British television series aired between 1985 and 1987