8 ideas
9283 | Our ancient beliefs can never be overthrown by subtle arguments [Euripides] |
Full Idea: Teiresias: We have no use for theological subtleties./ The beliefs we have inherited, as old as time,/ Cannot be overthrown by any argument,/ Nor by the most inventive ingenuity. | |
From: Euripides (The Bacchae [c.407 BCE], 201) | |
A reaction: [trans. Philip Vellacott (Penguin)] Compare Idea 8243. While very conservative societies have amazing resilience in maintaining traditional beliefs, modern culture eats into them, not directly by argument, but by arguments at fifth remove. |
10911 | Part-whole is the key relation among truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: The most important (ontological) relations holding among truth-makers are the part and whole relations. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) | |
A reaction: Hence Peter Simons goes off and writes the best known book on mereology. Looks very promising to me. |
10906 | Moments (objects which cannot exist alone) may serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: A 'moment' is an existentially dependent or non-self-sufficient object, that is, an object which is of such a nature that it cannot exist alone, ....... and we suggest that moments could serve as truth-makers. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §2) | |
A reaction: [These three writers invented the term 'truth-maker'] |
10909 | Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true, because sentences with more than one truth-maker would then be ambiguous, and 'a' and 'a exists' would have the same designatum. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
10907 | The truth-maker for a sentence may not be unique, or may be a combination, or several separate items [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: A proposition may have a minimal truth-maker which is not unique, or a sentence may be made true by no single truth-maker but only by several jointly, or again only by several separately. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
10912 | Despite negative propositions, truthmakers are not logical complexes, but ordinary experiences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: Because of negative propositions, investigators of truth-makers have said that they are special non-objectual entities with a logical complexity, but we think a theory is possible in which the truth relation is tied to ordinary and scientific experience. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) |
10908 | Correspondence has to invoke facts or states of affairs, just to serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: The correspondence theory of truth invokes a special category of non-objectual entities - facts, states of affairs, or whatever - simply to serve as truth-makers. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |