15 ideas
14231 | We should always apply someone's theory of meaning to their own utterances [Liggins] |
Full Idea: We should interpret philosophers as if their own theory of the meaning of their utterances were true, whether or not we agree with that theory. | |
From: David Liggins (Nihilism without Self-Contradiction [2008], 8) | |
A reaction: This seems to give legitimate grounds for some sorts of ad hominem objections. It would simply be an insult to a philosopher not to believe their theories, and then apply them to what they have said. This includes semantic theories. |
17325 | Truth-maker theory can't cope with non-causal dependence [Liggins] |
Full Idea: My charge is that truth-maker theory cannot be integrated into an attractive general account of non-causal dependence. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
A reaction: [You'll have to read Liggins to see why] |
17318 | Truthmakers for existence is fine; otherwise maybe restrict it to synthetic truths? [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Many philosophers agree that true existential propositions have a truth-maker, but some go further, claiming that every true proposition has a truth-maker. More cautious theorists specify a class of truths, such as synthetic propositions. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed; Armstrong is the ambitious one, and Rodriguez-Pereyra proposes the synthetic propositions] Presumably synthetic propositions can make negative assertions, which are problematic for truth-makers. |
14232 | We normally formalise 'There are Fs' with singular quantification and predication, but this may be wrong [Liggins] |
Full Idea: It is quite standard to interpret sentences of the form 'There are Fs' using a singular quantifier and a singular predicate, but this tradition may be mistaken. | |
From: David Liggins (Nihilism without Self-Contradiction [2008], 8) | |
A reaction: Liggins is clearly in support of the use of plural quantification, referring to 'there are some xs such that'. |
17320 | Either p is true or not-p is true, so something is true, so something exists [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Either p or not-p. If p, then the proposition 'p' is true. If not p, then the proposition 'not p' is true. Either way, something is true. Thus something exists. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.3 n5) | |
A reaction: Liggins offers this dodgy argument as an objection to conceptual truths having truth-makers. |
17326 | The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates involves a set and a philosopher, not facts [Liggins] |
Full Idea: The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates appears to involve a set and a philosopher, neither of which is a fact. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
A reaction: He points out that defenders of facts as the basis of dependence could find a suitable factual paraphrase here. Socrates is just Socrates, but the singleton has to be understood in a particular way to generate the dependence. |
17327 | Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.8) | |
A reaction: Not very helpful, you may be thinking, but it is always helpful to know where we have got to in the enquiry. |
17322 | Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Necessities supervene upon everything, but they do not depend on everything. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if merely existing together counts as sufficiently close to be 'supervenience'. If 2+2 necessitates 4, that hardly seems to 'supervene' on the Eiffel Tower. If so, how close must things be to qualify for supervenience? |
14233 | Nihilists needn't deny parts - they can just say that some of the xs are among the ys [Liggins] |
Full Idea: We can interpret '..is a part of..' as '..are among..': the xs are a part of the ys just when the xs are among the ys (though if the ys are 'one' then they would not have parts). | |
From: David Liggins (Nihilism without Self-Contradiction [2008], 9) | |
A reaction: The trouble is that this still leaves us with gerrymandered 'parts', in the form of xs that are scattered randomly among the ys. That's not what we mean by 'part'. No account of identity works if it leaves out coherent structure. |
604 | Knowledge is mind and knowing 'cohabiting' [Lycophron, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Lycophron has it that knowledge is the 'cohabitation' (rather than participation or synthesis) of knowing and the soul. | |
From: report of Lycophron (fragments/reports [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1045b | |
A reaction: This sounds like a rather passive and inert relationship. Presumably knowing something implies the possibility of acting on it. |
17324 | 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation [Liggins] |
Full Idea: 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.5) | |
A reaction: Aristotle starts from words like 'why?', but it can be a deceptive approach to explanation. |
17321 | Value, constitution and realisation are non-causal dependences that explain [Liggins] |
Full Idea: 'It is wrong because it produces pain for fun', and 'these constitute a table because they are arranged tablewise', and 'tea is poisonous because it contains arsenic' are clearly non-causal uses of 'because', and neither are they conceptual. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: The general line seems to be that any form of determination will underwrite an explanation. He talks later of the 'wrongmaker' and 'poisonmaker' relationships to add to the 'truthmaker'. The table example is the 'object-maker' dependence relation. |
17323 | If explanations track dependence, then 'determinative' explanations seem to exist [Liggins] |
Full Idea: If explanation often tracks dependence, then we have a theoretical reason to expect such explanations to exist. Let us call such explanations 'determinative'. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: There seems to be an emerging understanding that this 'determination' relation is central to all of explanation - with causal explanations, for example, being a particular instance of it. I like it. These are real, not conventional, explanations. |
20328 | A thing is only seen as art in an 'artworld', which has a theory and a history [Danto] |
Full Idea: To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. | |
From: Arthur C. Danto (The Artworld [1964], II) | |
A reaction: The editors of the volume call this a revolutionary remark, followed up by Danto and George Dickie with a social and institutional account of art. Danto's key example is Warhol's Brillo pads - art in a gallery, cleaning material in a shop. |
20441 | An ordinary object can be a work of art, but only if some theory of art supports it [Danto] |
Full Idea: What in the end makes the difference between a Brillo box and a work of art consisting of a Brillo box is a certain theory of art. It is the theory that takes it up into the world of art, and keeps it from collapsing into the real object which it is. | |
From: Arthur C. Danto (The Artworld [1964], p.581), quoted by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto | |
A reaction: It is hard to describe Duchamp's original claim that the urinal was an artwork as a 'theory'. It is a mere rebellious assertion. |