Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Ethics' and 'On the Nature of Moral Values'

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5 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth
Truth is its own standard [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: Truth is its own standard.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 43S)
     A reaction: A gloriously bold solution to all the problems of epistemology. Read the whole of P43S to see the context.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
Spinoza's life shows that love of truth which he proclaims as the highest value [MacIntyre on Spinoza]
     Full Idea: Spinoza's life unites philosophy and practice; he manifests that very impersonal love of truth which he proclaims in his writings as the highest human value.
     From: comment on Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10
     A reaction: Spinoza has become a secular saint in our times. If the big three values are Beauty, Goodness and Truth, why should the third be given top status? I once heard a philosopher say that truth was the only value.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth
For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton]
     Full Idea: For Spinoza, the intrinsic mark of truth is the property which he calls 'adequacy'.
     From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy §5.6
     A reaction: This is presumably the sort of theory to which early rationalists were confined, and it seems to be no advance on Descartes' 'clear and distinct conceptions'. I take it that the coherence theory is a better account of what they were after.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], I Ax 6)
     A reaction: Allowing for his usage of 'idea' and 'object', this seems to be a straightforward commitment to the modern correspondence theory, perhaps the earliest clear statement of it. I agree with him.
Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine]
     Full Idea: Science, thanks to its links with observation, retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth.
     From: Willard Quine (On the Nature of Moral Values [1978], p.63)
     A reaction: I would describe what he is affirming as a 'robust' theory of truth. An interesting aside, given his usual allegiance to disquotational, and even redundancy, accounts of truth. You can hardly rely on observations if you think they contain no truth.