Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Ethical Studies', 'Causality and Explanation' and 'Metaphysical Dependence'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen]
     Full Idea: Our relation of 'in virtue of' is among facts or truths, whereas Fine's relation (if it is a relation at all) is a relation between a given truth and items whose natures ground that truth.
     From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 07 n10)
     A reaction: This disagreement between two key players in the current debate on grounding looks rather significant. I think I favour Fine's view, as it seems more naturalistic, and less likely to succumb to conventionalism.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / a. Facts
Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients [Rosen]
     Full Idea: Facts are structured entities built up from worldly items rather as sentences are built up from words. They might be identified with Russellian propositions. They are individuated by their constituents and composition, and are fine-grained.
     From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 04)
     A reaction: I'm a little cautious about the emphasis on being sentence-like. We have Russell's continual warnings against imposing subject-predicate structure on things. I think we should happily talk about 'facts' in metaphysics.