display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 21533 | Contingency arises from tensed verbs changing the propositions to which they refer [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Contingency derives from the fact that a sentence containing a verb in the present tense - or sometimes in the past or the future - changes its meaning continually as the present changes, and stands for different propositions at different times. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Meinong on Complexes and Assumptions [1904], p.26) | |
| A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a bad example of the linguistic approach to philosophy. As if we (like any animal) didn't have an apprehension prior to any language that most parts of experience are capable of change. |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If electrons and gravitational fields have definite natures, why not reality itself? And if reality has a nature, if this makes sense, then reality grounds the deepest necessities of all. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.09) | |
| A reaction: Nice speculation! Scientists and verificationists seem to cry 'foul!' when philosophers offer such wild speculations, but I say that's exactly what we pay them do. I'm not sure whether I understand reality having its own nature, though! |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If the other possible worlds are merely useful fictions, we are left wondering what the truthmakers for all those modal judgements might be. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.07) | |
| A reaction: I suddenly see that this is the train of thought that led me to believe in real powers and dispositions, and which retrospectively led me to love the truthmaker idea. Even real Lewisian worlds don't seem adequate as truthmakers here. |