Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Apology for Raymond Sebond' and 'The Correspondence Theory of Truth'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


8 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
Virtue is the distinctive mark of truth, and its greatest product [Montaigne]
     Full Idea: The distinctive mark of the Truth we hold ought to be virtue, which is the most exacting mark of Truth, the closest one to heaven and the most worthy thing that Truth produces.
     From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0493)
     A reaction: A long way from Tarski and minimalist theories of truth! But not so far from pragmatism. Personally I think Montaigne is making an important claim, which virtue theorists should be attempting to incorporate into their theory. Aristotle would sympathise.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Must sentences make statements to qualify for truth? [O'Connor]
     Full Idea: Maybe a sentence is not a candidate for truth until it is used to make a statement.
     From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6)
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 / 1. Correspondence Truth
Beliefs must match facts, but also words must match beliefs [O'Connor]
     Full Idea: Our beliefs must claim a correspondence with facts, and then the verbal expression of the belief must correspond to the belief itself.
     From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.4)
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.
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth
The semantic theory requires sentences as truth-bearers, not propositions [O'Connor]
     Full Idea: The Semantic Theory of truth requires that sentences are truth-bearers (rather than statements, or propositions).
     From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6)
What does 'true in English' mean? [O'Connor]
     Full Idea: We do not seem to have any use in ordinary discourse for phrases like 'true in English', 'false in German'.
     From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], II.1)