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Ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things' and 'A Defense of Presentism'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce]
     Full Idea: To set up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward the truth is the one unpardonable offence in reasoning.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV)
     A reaction: This is Popper's rather dubious objection to essentialism in science. Yet Popper tried to do the same thing with his account of induction.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 9. Making Past Truths
Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian]
     Full Idea: Presentism has a problem with singular propositions about non-present objects. ...When Socrates popped out of existence, according to Presentism, all those singular propositions about him also popped out of existence.
     From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.1)
     A reaction: He seems to treat propositions in a Russellian way, as things which exist independently of thinkers, which I struggle to grasp. Markosian offers various strategies for this [§3.5].
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
'Holding for true' is either practical commitment, or provisional theory [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Whether or not 'truth' has two meanings, I think 'holding for true' has two kinds. One is practical holding for true which alone is entitled to the name of Belief; the other is the acceptance of a proposition, which in pure science is always provisional.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV)
     A reaction: The problem here seems to be that we can act on a proposition without wholly believing it, like walking across thin ice.