Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Stilpo, Michael Williams and Roy Sorensen

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5 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 6. Making Negative Truths
If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen]
     Full Idea: If nothing exists, then there are no truthmakers that could make 'Nothing exists' true.
     From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.2)
     A reaction: [He cites David Lewis] We may be confusing truth with facts. I take facts to be independent of minds, but truth only makes sense as a concept in the presence of minds which are endeavouring to think well.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen]
     Full Idea: If I buy two toothbrushes on a 'buy one, get one free' offer, which one did I buy and which one did I get free? Those who believe that each contingent truth has a truthmaker are forced to believe that 'buy one, get one free' is false.
     From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.6)
     A reaction: Nice. There really is no fact of which toothbrush is the free one. The underlying proposition must presumably be 'two for the price of one'. But you could hardly fault the first slogan under the Trades Descriptions Act.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
The only way to specify the corresponding fact is asserting the sentence [Williams,M]
     Full Idea: The trouble with appeal to facts in the correspondence theory is that, in general, we have no way of indicating what fact a sentence, when true, corresponds to other than asserting the sentence.
     From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.12)
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
Coherence needs positive links, not just absence of conflict [Williams,M]
     Full Idea: It is often claimed that coherence is more than 'absence of conflict' between beliefs; it also involves 'positive connections'.
     From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10)
Justification needs coherence, while truth might be ideal coherence [Williams,M]
     Full Idea: Contemporary coherence theorists are advancing a theory of justification, not of truth, …with those who argue that truth is also coherence explaining it in terms of ideal coherence, or coherence at the limit of enquiry.
     From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10)