Truth, Certainty and Proof

Philosophy must avoid jargon, forbidding terminology, often with little connection to the relatively simple concepts involved. It must avoid giving the appearance of difficulty, depth or of having made more progress than is actually the case, for instance by copying the surface-appearance of technical scientific literature. 

A philosopher must be frank and honest about their positions and be capable of stating these in a plain concise way, without evasion, obfuscation or jargon.

I hold that there is such a thing as truth, that truth can be investigated and meaningful things can be said about truth. Certain knowledge is possible - attaining knowledge that is true and knowledge of the fact of this truth and certainty itself . We can obtain certain knowledge about truth itself.  I hold that there is such a thing as meaning, in particular the meaning of an expression.  I hold that truth can be predicated meaningfully, truthfully and non-redundantly. That the concept of truth and the truth predicate cannot be eliminated from discourse or knowledge. I believe that proof  and logical rules can be  instruments at arriving at the truth and help explore and expand meaning.  But truth and meaning are quite distinct from proof though proof can be sufficient to establish the truth of a proposition.  The truth and meaning of a proposition does not depend on its proof nor on any psychological or sociological factor or the particular language in which a proposition happens to be clothed. I hold that there are absolute certain moral truths which all human (or analogous rational) beings are bound to follow. I hold that there is such a thing as a priori and analytic knowledge and that this kind of knowledge can be defined. I hold that there is a true logic  which encompasses particular regional logics valid in their own domains .  At present we know only partial aspects of the one true logic (or rather intimately connected, mutually embeddable fragments, see Bealer's Quality and Concept).  I hold that a philosopher must a have a good technical knowledge of a wide range of sciences for reasons such as avoiding talking nonsense about the world and evoking inconsistent thought experiments involving arbitrary modifications of some aspect of reality. The philosopher of language must likewise have a good knowledge of linguistics. I hold that there are ideal, objective, non-physical, extra-linguistic, timeless, knowable entities such as propositions, properties, concepts, relations and ideal descriptions (templates) for individuals. I hold that there is nothing remotely 'naive' or 'default' about these positions, rather, as Plato  implies in the Theaetetus, it is physicalism, empiricism, nominalism, psychologism and relativism that can claim the authority of the poets and popular culture. I hold that mind and brain are completely distinct entities and that there is no grounds for identifying or reducing one to another or explaining one by means of another.