Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Thought and Reality' and 'Disputed questions about truth'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being

22103	Being is basic to thought, and all other concepts are additions to being [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: Being is inherently intellect's most intelligible object, in which it finds the basis of all conceptions. ...All of intellect's other conceptions must be arrived at by adding to being, insofar as they express what is not expressed by 'being' itself.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Disputed questions about truth [1267], I.1c), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 09
	A reaction: I like the word 'intelligible' here. We might know reality, or be aware of appearances, but what is intelligible lies nicely in between. What would Berkeley make of that? I presume 'intelligible' means 'makes good sense'.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism

8184	Philosophers should not presume reality, but only invoke it when language requires it [Dummett]
	Full Idea: The philosopher's task is not to make a prior commitment for or against realism, but to discover how far realist considerations must be invoked in order to describe our understanding of our language: they may be invoked only if they must be invoked.
	From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 6)
	A reaction: I don't see why the default position should be solipsism, or a commitment to Ockham's Razor. This is the Cartesian 'Enlightenment Project' approach to philosophy - that everything has to be proved. There is more to ontology than language.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism

8185	We can't make sense of a world not apprehended by a mind [Dummett]
	Full Idea: We can make no clear sense of there being a world that is not apprehended by any mind.
	From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 8)
	A reaction: I find Dummett's view quite baffling. It is no coincidence that Dummett is a theist, along (it seems) Berkeleian lines. I see no more problem with imagining such worlds than with imagining ships sunken long ago which will never be found.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

8163	Since 'no bird here' and 'no squirrel here' seem the same, we must talk of 'atomic' facts [Dummett]
	Full Idea: What complex of objects constitutes the fact that there is no bird on the bough, and how is that distinct from no squirrel on the bough? This drives us to see the world as composed of 'atomic' facts, making complexes into compounds, not reality itself.
	From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 1)
	A reaction: [He cites early Wittgenstein as an example] But 'no patch of red here' (or sense-datum) seems identical to 'no patch of green here'. I suppose you could catalogue all the atomic facts, and note that red wasn't among them. But you could do that for birds.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / c. Facts and truths

8161	We know we can state facts, with true statements [Dummett]
	Full Idea: One thing we know about facts, namely that we can state them. Whenever we make some true statement, we state some fact.
	From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 1)
	A reaction: Then facts become boring, and are subsumed within the problem of what 'true' means. Personally I have a concept of facts which includes unstatable facts. The physical basis of melancholy I take to be a complex fact which is beyond our powers.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / d. Vagueness as linguistic

8180	'That is red or orange' might be considered true, even though 'that is red' and 'that is orange' were not [Dummett]
	Full Idea: A statement of the form 'that is red or orange', said of something on the borderline between the two colours, might rank as true, although neither 'that is red' nor 'that is orange' was true.
	From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 5)
	A reaction: It seems to me that the problem here would be epistemological rather than ontological. One of the two is clearly true, but sometimes we can't decide which. How can anyone say 'It isn't red and it isn't orange, but it is either red or orange'?