Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Craig Bourne, C.B. Martin and Kit Fine

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5 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth
Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: Truth is a relation between two things - a representation (the truth 'bearer') and the world or some part of it (the 'truthmaker').
     From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.1)
     A reaction: That truth is about representations seems to me to be exactly right. That it is about truthmakers is more controversial. There are well known problems with negative truths, general truths, future truths etc. I'm happy with 'facts'.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 3. Truthmaker Maximalism
Truths need not always have their source in what exists [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: There is no reason in principle why the ultimate source of what is true should always lie in what exists.
     From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03)
     A reaction: This seems to be the weak point of the truthmaker theory, since truths about non-existence are immediately in trouble. Saying reality makes things true is one thing, but picking out a specific bit of it for each truth is not so easy.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: There is a distinction between worldly and unworldly sentences, between sentences that depend for their truth upon the worldly circumstances and those that do not.
     From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: Fine is fishing around in the area between the necessary, the a priori, truthmakers, and truth-conditions. He appears to be attempting a singlehanded reconstruction of the concepts of metaphysics. Is he major, or very marginal?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 7. Making Modal Truths
If the truth-making relation is modal, then modal truths will be grounded in anything [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: The truth-making relation is usually explicated in modal terms, ...but this lets in far too much. Any necessary truth will be grounded by anything. ...The fact that singleton Socrates exists will be a truth-maker for the proposition that Socrates exists.
     From: Kit Fine (Guide to Ground [2012], 1.03)
     A reaction: If truth-makers are what has to 'exist' for something to be true, then maybe nothing must exist for a necessity to be true - in which case it has no truth maker. Or maybe 2 and 4 must 'exist' for 2+2=4?
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne]
     Full Idea: The problem with the redundancy theory of truth is that it conflates the metalinguistic notion of bivalence with a theorem of the object language, namely the law of excluded middle.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 3.III Pr3)