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Ideas of Trenton Merricks, by Text

[American, fl. 2003, Professor at the University of Virginia.]

2003 Objects and Persons
p.184 Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Liggins]
Pref p.-6 Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour
§1 p.1 I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist
§1 n11 p.20 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object
§1.I p.3 We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples
§1.II p.8 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing
§1.II p.10 Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region
§1.IV p.21 Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things
§1.IV p.22 Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts
§1.IV p.27 If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy
§2.I p.30 Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts?
§2.II p.33 A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent
§2.II p.35 Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox
§2.III p.38 Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing)
§2.III p.38 It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located
§2.IV p.50 Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons
§2.V p.55 There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise
§3 n14 p.82 Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time
§3.III p.75 The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways
§4 p.85 You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software
§4.I p.92 Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists
§4.II p.93 Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties
§4.II p.94 The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties
§4.VII p.116 Human organisms can exercise downward causation
§6.III p.155 Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice
§7.II p.173 The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge
3 p.21 If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Thomasson]
3 p.56 Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage
2006 Goodbye Growing Block
1 p.103 Eternalism says all times are equally real, and future and past objects and properties are real
4 p.108 Growing block has a subjective present and a growing edge - but these could come apart [PG]
2007 Truth and Ontology
1.IV p.15 Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth
2.II p.26 If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something
3.II p.43 Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified
3.III p.57 The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths
3.V p.64 It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things
3.V p.66 If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true
4 p.68 If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths
4.I p.69 Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients
4.I-3 p.71 Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it
4.VI p.88 If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being
5.I p.99 If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker
5.III p.112 If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core
6.I p.122 How can a presentist explain an object's having existed?
6.I p.124 Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous
6.I p.125 Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist'
6.III p.137 Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear
6.IV n20 p.141 You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs
6.IV n23 p.142 Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it
6.VI p.145 Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false
7.I p.148 Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed
7.I p.152 I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me?
7.II p.156 A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it
7.III p.159 An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false
7.IV p.166 Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base
8.IV p.182 Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property
8.V p.187 Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth
2015 Propositions
Intro p.-3 Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it
Intro p.-3 Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured
Intro p.-2 Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things
1.II p.6 A sentence's truth conditions depend on context
1.V p.22 True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought
1.V n14 p.25 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white
2.II p.41 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition
2.II p.45 Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets
2.V p.65 Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem
2.V p.65 The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists'
3.VII p.113 The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value
4.II p.124 Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs
4.II p.126 Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones?
4.X p.155 We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition
5.V p.176 In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person
5.VII p.182 Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens
5.VII p.186 I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity