{"id":2244,"date":"2022-01-16T14:32:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T14:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/16\/trust-but-verify\/"},"modified":"2022-01-16T14:32:06","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T14:32:06","slug":"trust-but-verify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/16\/trust-but-verify\/","title":{"rendered":"“Trust, but Verify!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I said<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Perhaps the greatest diplomatic line of all time was uncorked by Ronald Reagan in his confrontation with Mikhail Gorbachev, he of the Evil Empire: "Trust, but verify!"<\/span><\/p>\n

The Reagan riposte makes sense diplomatically but not semantically. If I trust you, I do not verify what you say or do. If you think otherwise, then you do not know  what 'trust' means.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dmitri  replies:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
This expression "Trust, but verify" is, among other things, a literal translation of a very<\/em> popular saying in Russian. I am sure this is part of the reason Reagan used it.<\/span><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
And you can trust and still verify, because the person or institution you trust could be worth your overall trust, but err on occasion. <\/span>In short, you can understand the meaning of trust and, at times, verify a trusted party at the same time.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I counter-respond:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I didn't know that the expression translates a popular Russian saying. Thank you for informing me of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the point of disagreement, I persist in my contention.  Set aside institutions and other objects of  potential trust\/distrust. Consider an interpersonal situation with exactly two persons. Suppose that person A says to person B: "I trust you with respect to your assertion that p, but I must verify that p." This was the situation between Reagan and Gorbachev. Gorbachev had made a specific assertion and Reagan said in effect that he trusted Gorbachev's veracity but but still had to make sure that what Gorbachev had asserted was true.<\/span><\/p>\n

That<\/em> is what I am claiming makes no semantic or conceptual sense. If I trust that what you are saying is true, then I cannot consistent with that trust verify what you are saying. I am making a simple point about the concept trust.  <\/em>If you were to deny that there is a unitary concept trust<\/em> expressible in different languages, then I would say that I am making a simple point about the meaning of  the word 'trust' in English. <\/span><\/p>\n

But if I deem a person overall<\/em> trustworthy with respect to what he asserts, I may, consistent with that overall trust, tell the person that I need to verify a specific<\/em> assertion that the person makes. So in the end I don't think Dmitri and I are in disagreement.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Various philosophical questions wait in the wings. What is the difference between the meaning or sense of a word and the concept the word expresses, assuming the word, on an occasion of use,  expresses a concept? What is a concept? Are concepts mind-dependent? Are they all general, or are some irreducibly singular?  Should we distinguish between the concept trust<\/em> and the essence of trust where essences are mind-independent ideal or abstract objects that exist or subsist in splendid independence of minds and language? Is a linguistic prescriptivist committed to the existence of essences?   <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I said: Perhaps the greatest diplomatic line of all time was uncorked by Ronald Reagan in his confrontation with Mikhail Gorbachev, he of the Evil Empire: "Trust, but verify!" The Reagan riposte makes sense diplomatically but not semantically. If I trust you, I do not verify what you say or do. If you think otherwise, … Continue reading ““Trust, but Verify!””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-political-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}