display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The thesis of 'expressibility' says that for all being, there is a proposition (perhaps one never formulated by any mind at any time) that truly renders the existence and nature of this being. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3.2) | |
| A reaction: [He credits Stephen Read 2000:68-9 for this] Armstrong accepts this, but I deny it. I can't make any sense of this vast plethora of propositions, each exactly expressing some minute nuance of the infinity complexity of all being. |
| 18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: We could not stand in any causal or nomic relation to a realm of propositions over and above the space-time world, ...so it is unclear that such a postulation is of any explanatory value. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: I agree, and I like Armstrong's appeal to explanation as a criterion for whether we should make an ontological commitment here. I am baffled by anyone who thinks reality is crammed full of unarticulated propositions. Only a philosopher.... |
| 23490 | A thought is mental constituents that relate to reality as words do [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Does a Gedanke [thought] consist of words? No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of relation to reality as words. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letters to Russell [1919], p.125), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 4B | |
| A reaction: This is roughly my view of propositions, as non-lingustic mental events. The 'psychical constituents' seem to be concepts, in a psychological rather than a Fregean sense. This idea allowed transfer of his representation theory from thought to language. |