Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Mulligan/Simons/Smith, Damon and Jason Crease

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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)
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 5. Parallelism
If parallelism is true, how does the mind know about the body? [Crease]
     Full Idea: In parallelism, the idea that we have a body is like an astronaut hearing shouting on the moon, and reasoning that as this is impossible he must be simultaneously imagining shouting AND there is real shouting taking place!
     From: Jason Crease (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: This seems to capture the absurdity of Leibniz's proposal. I experience what my brain is doing, but not because my brain is doing it. I would never know if God had made a slight error in setting His two 'clocks'; their accuracy is just a pious hope.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?