more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 9085

[filed under theme 19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions ]

Full Idea

Someone who believes propositions are concrete cannot agree that some propositions are necessary. For propositions are contingent beings, and could have failed to exist. But if they fail to exist, then they fail to be true.

Gist of Idea

If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths

Source

Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.230)

Book Ref

Plantinga,Alvin: 'Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality' [OUP 2003], p.230

A Reaction

[compressed] He implies the actual existence of an infinity of trivial, boring or ridiculous necessary truths. I suspect that he is just confusing a thought with its content. Or we might just treat necessary propositions as hypothetical.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [propositions as made of real objects]:

21726 In graspable propositions the constituents are real entities of acquaintance [Russell]
21702 In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine]
23453 Propositions as objects of judgement don't exist, because we judge several objects, not one [Russell/Whitehead]
19164 If propositions are facts, then false and true propositions are indistinguishable [Davidson on Russell]
22302 Moor bypassed problems of correspondence by saying true propositions ARE facts [Moore,GE, by Potter]
9085 If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths [Plantinga]
16446 Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker]
14616 A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence of individual, properties and relations [Stalnaker]
19216 Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson]
17702 Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares]
19201 Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks]
19211 Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks]
21662 Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber]
16380 Russellian propositions are better than Fregean thoughts, by being constant through communication [Recanati]