Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Trees, Terms and Truth' and 'The Passions'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
If facts are the truthmakers, they are not in the world [Engelbretsen]
     Full Idea: If there are such things as truthmakers (facts), they are not to be found in the world. As Strawson would say to Austin: there is the cat, there is the mat, but where in the world is the fact that the cat is on the mat?
     From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4)
     A reaction: He cites Strawson, Quine and Davidson for this point.
There are no 'falsifying' facts, only an absence of truthmakers [Engelbretsen]
     Full Idea: A false proposition is not made false by anything like a 'falsifying' fact. A false proposition simply fails to be made true by any fact.
     From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4)
     A reaction: Sounds good. In truthmaker theory, one truth-value (T) is 'made', but the other one is not, so there is no symmetry between the two. Better to talk of T and not-T? See ideas on Excluded Middle.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 10. Making Future Truths
The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: True future events cannot be such as do not possess causes on account of which they will happen; therefore that which is true must possess causes: and so, when the [true future events] happen they will have happened as a result of destiny.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8
     A reaction: [exact ref unclear] Presumably the current causes are the truthmakers for the future events, and so the past is the truthmaker of the future, if you are a determinist.