Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Jonathan Bennett, Brian Davies and Marian David

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35 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
If truths are just identical with facts, then truths will make themselves true [David]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
Examples show that truth-making is just non-symmetric, not asymmetric [David]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism
It is assumed that a proposition is necessarily true if its truth-maker exists [David]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker [David]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / b. Objects make truths
What matters is truth-making (not truth-makers) [David]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence
Correspondence is symmetric, while truth-making is taken to be asymmetric [David]
Correspondence is an over-ambitious attempt to explain truth-making [David]
Correspondence theorists see facts as the only truth-makers [David]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
Correspondence theory likes ideal languages, that reveal the structure of propositions [David]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
What makes a disjunction true is simpler than the disjunctive fact it names [David]
One proposition can be made true by many different facts [David]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Maybe each event has only one possible causal history [Bennett]
Maybe an event's time of occurrence is essential to it [Bennett]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 4. Formal Relations / a. Types of relation
A reflexive relation entails that the relation can't be asymmetric [David]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Delaying a fire doesn't cause it, but hastening it might [Bennett]
Either cause and effect are subsumed under a conditional because of properties, or it is counterfactual [Bennett]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
Causes are between events ('the explosion') or between facts/states of affairs ('a bomb dropped') [Bennett]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
The full counterfactual story asserts a series of events, because counterfactuals are not transitive [Bennett]
A counterfactual about an event implies something about the event's essence [Bennett]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 4. Substantival Space
Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not [Bennett, by Shoemaker]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 5. God and Time
God is 'eternal' either by being non-temporal, or by enduring forever [Davies,B]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
Can God be good, if he has not maximised goodness? [Davies,B]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good
The goodness of God may be a higher form than the goodness of moral agents [Davies,B]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
How could God have obligations? What law could possibly impose them? [Davies,B]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
'Natural theology' aims to prove God to anyone (not just believers) by reason or argument [Davies,B]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof
A distinct cause of the universe can't be material (which would be part of the universe) [Davies,B]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
The universe exhibits design either in its sense of purpose, or in its regularity [Davies,B]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique
If God is an orderly being, he cannot be the explanation of order [Davies,B]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / d. Religious Experience
Maybe an abnormal state of mind is needed to experience God? [Davies,B]
A believer can experience the world as infused with God [Davies,B]
The experiences of God are inconsistent, not universal, and untestable [Davies,B]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / b. Religious Meaning
One does not need a full understanding of God in order to speak of God [Davies,B]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / d. Heaven
Paradise would not contain some virtues, such as courage [Davies,B]