Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Carneades, JC Beall / G Restall and Michael J. Sandel

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3 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / b. Objects make truths
A truthmaker is an object which entails a sentence [Beall/Restall]
     Full Idea: The truthmaker thesis is that an object is a truthmaker for a sentence if and only if its existence entails the sentence.
     From: JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 5.5.3)
     A reaction: The use of the word 'object' here is even odder than usual, and invites many questions. And the 'only if' seems peculiar, since all sorts of things can make a sentence true. 'There is someone in the house' for example.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 10. Making Future Truths
Future events are true if one day we will say 'this event is happening now' [Carneades]
     Full Idea: We call those past events true of which at an earlier time this proposition was true: 'They are present now'; similarly, we shall call those future events true of which at some future time this proposition will be true: 'They are present now'.
     From: Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8
     A reaction: This is a very nice way of paraphrasing statements about the necessity of true future contingent events. It still relies, of course, on the veracity of a tensed assertion
We say future things are true that will possess actuality at some following time [Carneades, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: Just as we speak of past things as true that possessed true actuality at some former time, so we speak of future things as true that will possess true actuality at some following time.
     From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 11.27
     A reaction: This ducks the Aristotle problem of where it is true NOW when you say there will be a sea-fight tomorrow, and it turns out to be true. Carneades seems to be affirming a truth when it does not yet have a truthmaker.