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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Intro to Contemporary Epistemology' and 'Difference and Repetition'

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7 ideas

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.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object and is stamped and molded in accordance wth the existing object itself.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46
     A reaction: [in lost Physics Bk 2] The big modern anguish over truth-as-correspondence is how you are supposed to verify the 'accordance'. This idea seems to blur the ideas of truth and justification (the 'criterion'), and you can't have both as accordance.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: One cannot say that the soul grasps the externally existing objects by means of the states of the senses on the basis of the similarity of these states to the externally existing objects. For on what basis will it know the similarity?
     From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.74
     A reaction: This exactly the main modern reason for rejecting the correspondence theory of truth. You are welcome to affirm a robust view of truth, but supporting it by claiming a correspondence or resemblance is dubious.
The correspondence theory also has the problem that two sets of propositions might fit the facts equally well [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: The correspondence theory as well as the coherence theory has the problem of more than one set of truths. Why can't two sets of propositions "fit the facts" equally well?
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2)
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
Rescher says that if coherence requires mutual entailment, this leads to massive logical redundancy [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: Rescher complains that if coherence requires mutual entailment, then what is entailed is logically redundant, and the whole system is infected with mutual redundancy.
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.1)
If one theory is held to be true, all the other theories appear false, because they can't be added to the true one [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: From the point of view of someone with a theory every other theory is false, because it cannot be added to the true theory.
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2)
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 2. Coherence Truth Critique
Even with a tight account of coherence, there is always the possibility of more than one set of coherent propositions [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: No matter how tight our account of coherence we have to admit that there may be more than one set of coherent propositions (as Russell pointed out (1907)).
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2)