display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
5 ideas
| 8507 | Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers (like Devitt) think of reality as made up of things. Others, like me, think of it as made up of facts or states of affairs. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Against 'Ostrich Nominalism' [1980], §3) | |
| A reaction: Devitt is a follower of Quine on this. Personally I rather like 'processes'. Unanalysed things with predication (Quine) don't look promising. I currently favour things with active powers, which give rise to properties. See Shoemaker and Ellis. |
| 18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: I define 'naturalism' as the hypothesis that the world of space-time is all that there is. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: This is helpful, because it doesn't mention the nature of the physical matter contained in space-time, leaving theories like panpsychism as possible naturalistic theories. Galen Strawson, for example. |
| 9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong has difficulty explaining how laws entail regularities. There is no real modality in the basic components of the world, but he wants to support counterfactuals. His official position is a kind of fictionalism. | |
| From: comment on David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997], 49-51) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 4.4.4 | |
| A reaction: Armstrong seems to be up against the basic problems that laws won't explain anything if they are merely regularities (assuming they are not decrees of a supernatural force). |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Negative facts appear to be supervenient upon the positive facts, which suggests that they are nothing more than the positive facts. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.3) |
| 18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: There must exist states of affairs as truthmakers, to get us beyond 'loose and separate' entities. ...They can be bundles of tropes, or trope-with-particular, or bundles of universals ('compresence'), or instantiations. They are an addition to ontology. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong is the great champion of states of affairs. They seem rather vague to me, and disconcertingly timeless. |