22 ideas
18365 | If truths are just identical with facts, then truths will make themselves true [David] |
Full Idea: According to the identity theory of truth, a proposition is true if and only if it is identical with a fact. ...This leads to the unacceptable claim that every true proposition makes itself true (because it is identical to its fact). | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], n 14) |
3745 | Must sentences make statements to qualify for truth? [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Maybe a sentence is not a candidate for truth until it is used to make a statement. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
18362 | Examples show that truth-making is just non-symmetric, not asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: That 'there is at least one proposition' ...is a case where something makes itself true, which generates a counterexample to the natural assumption that truth-making is asymmetric; truth-making, it seems, is merely non-symmetric. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
18360 | It is assumed that a proposition is necessarily true if its truth-maker exists [David] |
Full Idea: Friends of the truth-maker principle usually hold that the following states a crucial necessary condition on truth-making: if x makes y true, then, necessarily, if x exists then y is true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: My objection is that the proposition y is taken to pre-exist, primly awaiting the facts that will award it 'truth'. An ontology that contains an infinity of propositions, most of which so far lack a truth-value, is incoherent. You can have x, but no y! |
18358 | Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker [David] |
Full Idea: Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker. For example, 'L is happy or L is hungry', and 'L is happy or L is thirsty', which are both made true by the fact that L is happy. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
18355 | What matters is truth-making (not truth-makers) [David] |
Full Idea: The term 'truthmaker' just labels whatever stands in the truth-making relation to a truth. The truth-making relation is crucial. It would have been just as well to refer to the truth-'maker' principle as the truth-'making' principle. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: This is well said. The commitment of this theory is to something which makes each proposition true. There is no initial commitment to any theories about what sorts of things do the job. |
18354 | Correspondence is symmetric, while truth-making is taken to be asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence appears to be a symmetric relation while truth-making appears to be, or is supposed to be, an asymmetric relation. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], Intro) |
18356 | Correspondence is an over-ambitious attempt to explain truth-making [David] |
Full Idea: Truth-maker theory says that the attempt by correspondence to fill in the generic truth-maker principle with something more informative fails. It is too ambitious, offering a whole zoo of funny facts that are not needed. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: A typical funny fact is a disjunctive fact, which makes 'he is hungry or thirsty' true (when it can just be made true by the simple fact that he is thirsty). |
18363 | Correspondence theorists see facts as the only truth-makers [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence theorists are committed to the view that, since truth is correspondence with a fact, only facts can make true propositions true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
3742 | Beliefs must match facts, but also words must match beliefs [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Our beliefs must claim a correspondence with facts, and then the verbal expression of the belief must correspond to the belief itself. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.4) |
18364 | Correspondence theory likes ideal languages, that reveal the structure of propositions [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence theorists tend to promote ideal languages, ...which is intended to mirror perfectly the structure of the propositions it expresses. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], n 03) |
18357 | What makes a disjunction true is simpler than the disjunctive fact it names [David] |
Full Idea: The proposition that 'L is happy or hungry' can be made true by the fact that L is happy. This does not have the same complexity or constituent structure as the proposition it makes true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
18359 | One proposition can be made true by many different facts [David] |
Full Idea: One proposition can be made true by many different facts (such as 'there are some happy dogs'). | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
3744 | The semantic theory requires sentences as truth-bearers, not propositions [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: The Semantic Theory of truth requires that sentences are truth-bearers (rather than statements, or propositions). | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
3749 | What does 'true in English' mean? [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: We do not seem to have any use in ordinary discourse for phrases like 'true in English', 'false in German'. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], II.1) |
3746 | Logic seems to work for unasserted sentences [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: If sentences can have truth-values only when they occur as asserted, it would be impossible to have a truth-functional basis to logic. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
21554 | Sets always exceed terms, so all the sets must exceed all the sets [Lackey] |
Full Idea: Cantor proved that the number of sets in a collection of terms is larger than the number of terms. Hence Cantor's Paradox says the number of sets in the collection of all sets must be larger than the number of sets in the collection of all sets. | |
From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
A reaction: The sets must count as terms in the next iteration, but that is a normal application of the Power Set axiom. |
21553 | It seems that the ordinal number of all the ordinals must be bigger than itself [Lackey] |
Full Idea: The ordinal series is well-ordered and thus has an ordinal number, and a series of ordinals to a given ordinal exceeds that ordinal by 1. So the series of all ordinals has an ordinal number that exceeds its own ordinal number by 1. | |
From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127) | |
A reaction: Formulated by Burali-Forti in 1897. |
3747 | Events are fast changes which are of interest to us [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: The standard cases of events are physical changes which happen sufficiently fast to be observed as changes, and which are of sufficient interest to us to be noticed or commented on. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.7) |
18361 | A reflexive relation entails that the relation can't be asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: An asymmetric relation must be irreflexive: any case of aRa will yield a reductio of the assumption that R is asymmetric. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
3743 | We can't contemplate our beliefs until we have expressed them [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: It is only when beliefs are given some symbolic expression that they acquire the precision and stability that enables us to entertain them. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.5) |
3748 | Without language our beliefs are particular and present [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Without language we would be restricted to particular beliefs about the here and now. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.8) |