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 Some of them came true.
 : — Chris Isaak, ''Move Along''}}
-Most conspiracy theories contain a grain of [[truth]]. There has to be ''something'' for the credulous to glom onto.
+====Things and propositions about things====
+{{Drop|M|ost conspiracy theories}} contain a grain of [[truth]]. There has to be ''something'' for the credulous to glom onto. [[Critical theory]]’s grain of truth, ironically, is “''there is no such thing as a grain of truth''”. Well, not ''quite'' — “it is true that there is no truth”  refutes itself, after all — but rather, that the very idea of “[[objective truth]]” makes no sense on its own terms. It is incoherent. There can be no [[objective truth]], the same way there can’t be a square triangle.
-[[Critical theory]]’s grain of truth, ironically, is “''there is no such thing as a grain of truth''”.
+“Things” are properties of the universe. They have (we presume) temporal continuity,<ref>Though even temporal continuity is a function of language: computer code has no [[tense]], and therefore no temporal continuity.</ref> whether we see them or not, and whether we talk about them or not.<ref>[[David Hume]]’s causal scepticism put paid, centuries ago, to the idea that we can be sure about this.</ref> “Truths” are ''propositions'' about ''things''. Propositions put things into a relationship with each other: “the cat sat on the mat”. “Gordon is a moron”.
-Well, not ''quite'' — “it is true that there is no truth”  refutes itself, after all — but rather that the idea of “[[objective truth]]” is ''incoherent''.  There is no [[objective truth]], ''because the very idea makes no sense''.
+“Propositions” are properties not of the universe, but of ''language''. They are prisoners of the language they are articulated in. They cannot exist outside it. Beyond it, they are only marks on a page.
-“Things” are properties of the universe. They have (we presume) temporal continuity,<ref>Though even temporal continuity is a function of language: computer code has no [[tense]], and therefore no temporal continuity.</ref> whether we see them or not, and whether we talk about them or not.<ref>[[David Hume]]’s causal scepticism put paid, centuries ago, to the idea that we can be sure about this.</ref> “Truths” are ''propositions'' about ''things''. Propositions put things into a relationship with each other: “the cat sat on the mat”. “Gordon is a moron”. “Propositions” are a property of language: they only exist within the framework of a language.
+“گربه روی تشک نشست”<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref>
-Thus, things ''aren’t'' true or false: ''only propositions about things are''. Propositions are prisoners of the language they are articulated in. Beyond it, they are only marks on a page.
+See?
-“گربه روی تشک نشست”
+Thus, “things” ''aren’t'' true or false: only “''propositions'' about things” are.
+====Analytic and synthetic and propositions====
+{{Drop|B|ear with me}} for a brief technical interlude. This won’t take long. There are two kinds of propositions: [[analytic proposition|analytic]] ones, and [[Synthetic proposition|synthetic]] ones. Analytic propositions are logically true as a function of the language they are expressed in. Synthetic propositions tell us about the world beyond the language. Think of analytical propositions as ''mathematical'' statements, and synthetic propositions as ''scientific'' statements.
-See?<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref>
+{{quote|
+A square is a regular polygon having four sides of equal length that are joined at right angles.}}
-Truths are propositions. Truths, therefore are a function of the language they are articulated in. A truth cannot “transcend” the language it is expressed in, because that language gives the proposition meaning. It doesn’t make sense for the truth to transcend it's medium.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language can possibly have a unique, exclusive meaning.</ref> There is the further difficulty that “language” itself is an indeterminate, incomplete, unbounded thing; no two individuals share exactly the same vocabulary, let alone the same cultural experiences to map to that vocabulary, let alone the same metaphorical schemes. It is what {{author|James P. Carse}} would describe as “dramatic” and not “theatrical”.<ref>In his {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> This makes the business of acquiring and communicating in a language — where meaning does not reside in the textual markes, but in the indeterminate cultural milieu in which the communication occurred — all the more mysterious. That we call it “communication”; that we infer from that a lossless transmission of information from one mind, is a deep well of mortal frustration.
+This is ''analytically'' “true” because, in the language of Euclidean geometry, a polygon that does not meet those criteria ''is not a square''.
+This is an absolute truth, but it is not “objective”. It does not transcend the logical axioms of the language in which it is expressed.
+The “truth” of a synthetic proposition, if it has one, derives from how the proposition relates to the world beyond the logical axioms of the language in which it is expressed.
+{{quote|
+The cat is sitting on the dog’s mat.}}
+It is, of course, trivially true that mathematical truths are true. When we talk about there being objective truth, we mean there are synthetic — ''scientific'' —propositions
+A truth cannot “transcend” the language it is expressed in, because that language gives the proposition meaning. It doesn’t make sense for the truth to transcend it's medium.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language can possibly have a unique, exclusive meaning.</ref> There is the further difficulty that “language” itself is an indeterminate, incomplete, unbounded thing; no two individuals share exactly the same vocabulary, let alone the same cultural experiences to map to that vocabulary, let alone the same metaphorical schemes. It is what {{author|James P. Carse}} would describe as “dramatic” and not “theatrical”.<ref>In his {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> This makes the business of acquiring and communicating in a language — where meaning does not reside in the textual marks, but in the indeterminate cultural milieu in which the communication occurred — all the more mysterious. That we call it “communication”; that we infer from that a lossless transmission of information from one mind, is a deep well of mortal frustration.
 This is its debt to [[post-modernism]], and it is a proposition that contemporary rationalists find hard to accept, whether hailing from the right — see {{author|Douglas Murray}}’s {{br|The Madness of Crowds}} for an articulate example — or the left — see {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s patient and detailed examination in {{br|Cynical Theories}}.