Ideas of Adolph Rami, by Theme

[German, fl. 2009, At the University of Göttingen.]

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3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 1. For Truthmakers
There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve
     Full Idea: It is claimed that truth-makers explain universals, or ontological commitment, or commitment to realism, or to the correspondence theory of truth, or to falsify behaviourism or phenomenalism.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04)
     A reaction: [compressed] This expands the view that truth-making is based on its explanatory power, rather than on its intuitive correctness. I take the theory to presuppose realism. I don't believe in universals. It marginalises correspondence. Commitment is good!
The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal
     Full Idea: The two strategies for justifying the truth-maker principle are that it has an explanatory role (for certain philosophical problems and theses), or that it captures the best philosophical intuition of the situation.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04)
     A reaction: I would go for 'intuitive', but not in the sense of a pure intuition, but with 'intuitive' as a shorthand for overall coherence. To me the appeal of truth-maker is its place in a naturalistic view of reality. I love explanation, but not here.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many
     Full Idea: The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-many. In the latter case, different truths may have the same truth-maker, and one truth may have different truth-makers.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05)
     A reaction: 'There is at least one cat' obviously has many possible truth-makers. Many statements will be made true by the mere existence of a particular cat (such as 'there is an animal in the room' and 'there is a cat in the room'). Many-many wins?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 3. Truthmaker Maximalism
Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths
     Full Idea: The main full-blooded truth-maker principle is that x is true iff there is a y that is its truth-maker. This implies the principles that if x is true x has a truth-maker, and the principle that if x has a truth-maker then x is true.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 03)
     A reaction: [compressed] Rami calls the second principle 'maximalism' and the third principle 'purism'. To reject maximalism is to hold a more restricted version of truth-makers. That is, the claim is that lots of truths have truth-makers.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism
Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths
     Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists regard the necessitation of a truth by a truth-maker as a necessary condition of truth-making.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 07)
     A reaction: It seems to me that reality is crammed full of potential truth-makers, but not crammed full of truths. If there is no thinking in the universe, then there are no truths. If that is false, then what sort of weird beast is a 'truth'?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events
     Full Idea: Truthmaker anti-monism holds the view that there are truth-makers of different kinds. For example, objects, facts, tropes or events can all be regarded as truthmakers. Objects seem right for existential truths but not others, so anti-monism seems best.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05)
     A reaction: Presumably we need to identify the different types of truth (analytic, synthetic, general, particular...), and only then ask what truth-makers there are for the different types. To presuppose one type of truthmaker would be crazy.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / c. States of affairs make truths
Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties
     Full Idea: As truth-makers, some theorists only accept states of affairs, some only accept individuals and states of affairs, and some only accept individuals and particular properties.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 06)
     A reaction: It seems to me rash to opt for one of these. Truths come in wide-ranging and subtly different types, and the truth-makers probably have a similar range. Any one of these theories will almost certainly quickly succumb to a counterexample.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths
'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths
     Full Idea: The important advantage of 'truth supervenes on being' is that it can be applied to positive and negative contingent truths, without postulating any entities that are responsible for the truth of negative truths.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09)
     A reaction: [For this reason, Lewis favours a possible worlds version of the theory] I fear that it solves that problem by making the truth-maker theory so broad-brush that it not longer says very much, apart from committing it to naturalism.
'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths
     Full Idea: The thesis that 'truth supervenes on being' (with or without possible worlds) offers only a necessary condition for the truth of contingent propositions, whereas the standard truth-maker theory offers necessary and sufficient conditions.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09)
     A reaction: The point, I suppose, is that the change in being might be irrelevant to the proposition in question, so any old change in being will not ensure a change in the truth of the proposition. Again we ask - but what is this truth about?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 7. Making Modal Truths
Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth
     Full Idea: The 'entailment principle' for truth-makers says that if x is a truth-maker for y, and y entails z, then x is a truth-maker for z.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 08)
     A reaction: I think the correct locution is that 'x is a potential truth-maker for z' (should anyone every formulate z, which in most cases they never will, since the entailments of y are probably infinite). Merricks would ask 'but are y and z about the same thing?'.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence
Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist
     Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists are internalists about the truth-maker relation. ...But the correspondence theory makes truth an external relation to some portion of reality. So a truth-maker internalist should not claim to be a narrow correspondence theorist.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05)
     A reaction: [wording rearranged] Like many of Rami's distinctions in this article, this feels simplistic. Sharp distinctions can only be made using sharp vocabulary, and there isn't much of that around in philosophy!
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation
     Full Idea: One guiding intuition concerning a correspondence theory of truth says that the relation that accounts for the truth of a truth-bearer is some kind of representation relation.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05)
     A reaction: I unfashionably cling on to some sort of correspondence theory. The paradigm case is of a non-linguistic animal which forms correct or incorrect views about its environment. Truth is a relation, not a property. I see the truth in a bad representation.
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property
     Full Idea: According to the moderate deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 10)
     A reaction: [He cites Horwich 1998] That is, I presume, that truth is embodied in an infinity of propositions of the form '"p" is true iff p'.
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 7. Barcan Formula
Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula
     Full Idea: There are good reasons for the truth-maker theorist to reject the converse Barcan formula.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], note 16)
     A reaction: In the text (p.15) Rami cites the inference from 'necessarily everything exists' to 'everything exists necessarily'. [See Williamson 1999]
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 2. Internal Relations
Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties
     Full Idea: An internal relation is 'existential' if x and y relate in that way whenever they both exist. An internal relation is 'qualitative' if x and y relate in that way whenever they have certain intrinsic properties.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05)
     A reaction: [compressed - Rami likes to write these things in fashionable quasi-algebra, but I have a strong prejudice in this database for expressing ideas in English; call me old-fashioned] The distinction strikes me as simplistic. I would involve dispositions.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones
     Full Idea: It would be natural to label one extreme view 'maximal essentialism' - that all of an object's properties are essential - and the other extreme 'minimal' - that only trivial properties such as self-identity of being either F or not-F are essential.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008])
     A reaction: Personally I don't accept the trivial ones as being in any way describable as 'properties'. The maximal view destroys any useful notion of essence. Leibniz is a minority holder of the maximal view. I would defend a middle way.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object
     Full Idea: An 'individual essence' is a property that in addition to being essential is also unique to the object, in the sense that it is not possible that something distinct from that object possesses that property.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §5)
     A reaction: She cites a 'haecceity' (or mere bare identity) as a trivial example of an individual essence.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential
     Full Idea: According to 'sortal essentialism', an object could not have been of a radically different kind than it in fact is.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §4)
     A reaction: This strikes me as thoroughly wrong. Things belong in kinds because of their properties. Could you remove all the contingent features of a tiger, leaving it as merely 'a tiger', despite being totally unrecognisable?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties
     Full Idea: It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property that a thing could not lack, with a property it could not lose. My having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee is a non-essential property I could not lose.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: The idea that having spent Christmas in Tennessee is a property I find quite bewildering. Is my not having spent my Christmas in Tennessee one of my properties? I suspect that real unlosable properties are essential ones.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility
     Full Idea: The usual view is that 'physical possibilities' are a natural subset of the 'metaphysical possibilities', which in turn are a subset of the 'logical possibilities'.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: [She cites Fine 2002 for an opposing view] I prefer 'natural' to 'physical', leaving it open where the borders of the natural lie. I take 'metaphysical' possibility to be 'in all naturally possible worlds'. So is a round square a logical possibility?
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 2. Epistemic possibility
If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible'
     Full Idea: There is 'epistemic possibility' when it is 'for all I know'. That is, P is epistemically possible for agent A just in case P is consistent with what A knows.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: Two problems: maybe 'we' know, and A knows we know, but A doesn't know. And maybe someone knows, but we are not sure about that, which seems to introduce a modal element into the knowing. If someone knows it's impossible, it's impossible.