Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds', 'Probability and Logic of Rational Belief' and 'Truthmakers'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Different types of 'grounding' seem to have no more than a family resemblance relation [MacBride]
     Full Idea: The concept of 'grounding' appears to cry out for treatment as a family resemblance concept, a concept whose instances have no more in common than different games do.
     From: Fraser MacBride (Truthmakers [2013], 1.6)
     A reaction: I like the word 'determinations', though MacBride's point my also apply to that. I take causation to be one species of determination, and truth-making to be another. They form a real family, with no adoptees.
Which has priority - 'grounding' or 'truth-making'? [MacBride]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers define 'grounding' in terms of 'truth-making', rather than the other way around.
     From: Fraser MacBride (Truthmakers [2013], 1.6)
     A reaction: [Cameron exemplifies the first, and Schaffer the second] I would have thought that grounding was in the world, but truth-making required the introduction of propositions about the world by minds, so grounding is prior. Schaffer is right.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / d. Logical atoms
Russell allows some complex facts, but Wittgenstein only allows atomic facts [MacBride]
     Full Idea: The logical atomism of Russell admitted some logically complex facts but not others - in contrast to Wittgenstein's version which admitted only atomic facts.
     From: Fraser MacBride (Truthmakers [2013], 2.1.3)
     A reaction: For truthmakers, it looks as if the Wittgenstein version might do a better job (e.g. with negative truths). I quite like the Russell approach, where complex facts underwrite the logical connectives. Disjunctive, negative, conjunctive, hypothetical facts.