display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We distinguish between the necessary truths proper, those that hold whatever the circumstances, and the transcendent truths, those that hold regardless of the circumstances. | |
From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro) | |
A reaction: Fine's project seems to be dividing the necessities which derive from essence from the necessities which tended to be branded in essentialist discussions as 'trivial'. |
14283 | A conditional probability does not measure the probability of the truth of any proposition [Lewis, by Edgington] |
Full Idea: Lewis was first to prove this remarkable result: there is no proposition A*B such that, in all probability distributions, p(A*B) = pA(B) [second A a subscript]. A conditional probability does not measure the probability of the truth of any proposition. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Probabilities of Conditionals [1976]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals (Stanf) 3.1 | |
A reaction: The equation says the probability of the combination of A and B is not always the same as the probability of B given A. Bennett refers to this as 'The Equation' in the theory of conditionals. Edgington says a conditional is a supposition and a judgement. |
15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: It is of the nature of Socrates to be a man; and from this it appears to follow that necessarily he is a man. | |
From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 04) | |
A reaction: I'm always puzzled by this line of thought, because it is only the intrinsic nature of beings like Socrates which decides in the first place what a 'man' is. How can something help to create a category, and then necessarily belong to that category? |
15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: An alternative conception of a possible world says it is constituted, not by the totality of facts, or of how things might be, but by the totality of circumstances, or how things might turn out. | |
From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 02) | |
A reaction: The general idea is to make a possible world more limited than in Idea 15068. It only contains properties arising from 'engagement with the world', and won't include timeless sentences. It is a bunch of possibilities, not of actualities? |
15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We are accustomed think of the actual world as the totality of facts, and so we think of any possible world as being like the actual world in settling the truth-value of every single proposition. | |
From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 02) | |
A reaction: Hence it is normal to refer to a possible world as a 'maximal' set of of propositions (sentences, etc). See Idea 15069 for his proposed alternative view. |