Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Truth and the Past', 'Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind' and 'Truth-makers and dependence'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence
Either p is true or not-p is true, so something is true, so something exists [Liggins]
     Full Idea: Either p or not-p. If p, then the proposition 'p' is true. If not p, then the proposition 'not p' is true. Either way, something is true. Thus something exists.
     From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.3 n5)
     A reaction: Liggins offers this dodgy argument as an objection to conceptual truths having truth-makers.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)
     A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / b. Relata of grounding
The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates involves a set and a philosopher, not facts [Liggins]
     Full Idea: The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates appears to involve a set and a philosopher, neither of which is a fact.
     From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6)
     A reaction: He points out that defenders of facts as the basis of dependence could find a suitable factual paraphrase here. Socrates is just Socrates, but the singleton has to be understood in a particular way to generate the dependence.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 4. Ontological Dependence
Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood [Liggins]
     Full Idea: Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood.
     From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.8)
     A reaction: Not very helpful, you may be thinking, but it is always helpful to know where we have got to in the enquiry.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins]
     Full Idea: Necessities supervene upon everything, but they do not depend on everything.
     From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4)
     A reaction: I'm not sure if merely existing together counts as sufficiently close to be 'supervenience'. If 2+2 necessitates 4, that hardly seems to 'supervene' on the Eiffel Tower. If so, how close must things be to qualify for supervenience?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett]
     Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past.
     From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3)
     A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past?