Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, Mulligan/Simons/Smith and Peter E. Pormann

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8 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
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.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
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)
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']
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)
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)
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
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)
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health
The Greeks had a single word meaning both 'beautiful' and 'good' [Pormann]
     Full Idea: The later Greeks coined the term 'kalokagathia' for the fact of being both beautiful [kalos] and good [agathos], thus linking moral and physical health.
     From: Peter E. Pormann (Medical Conceptions of Health pre-Renaissance [2019], p.44)
     A reaction: In their literature good people are often handsome, and bad people ugly. Socrates was famous for being an exception.
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
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?