display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
| 16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40) | |
| A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY] |
| 18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: One of the assumptions of logical atomism is that all structural properties, all complex properties, are composed of simple properties and relations. ...But does the totality of the simple properties consist of the only possible simple properties? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.3) | |
| A reaction: This refers to what Lewis calls 'alien' properties - possible properties that cannot even be constructed from actual properties. Armstrong's question is about the truthmakers for such things. A bit speculative... |
| 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. |