Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Logical Foundations of Probability' and 'On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood'

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5 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
For Russell, both propositions and facts are arrangements of objects, so obviously they correspond [Horwich on Russell]
     Full Idea: Given Russell's notion of a proposition, as an arrangement of objects and properties, it is hard to see how there could be any difference at all between such a proposition and the fact corresponding to it, since they each involve the same arrangement.
     From: comment on Bertrand Russell (On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood [1910]) by Paul Horwich - Truth (2nd edn) Ch.7.35
     A reaction: This seems a little unfair, given that Russell (in 1912) uses the notion now referred to as 'congruence', so that the correspondence is not in the objects and properties, but in how they are 'ordered', which may differ between proposition and fact.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
     Full Idea: Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.
     From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1
     A reaction: [compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 6. Propositions Critique
In 1906, Russell decided that propositions did not, after all, exist [Russell, by Monk]
     Full Idea: With a characteristic readiness to abandon views that he had previously considered definitively correct, Russell declared in 1906 that there were, after all, no such 'things' as propositions. It is judgements that are true or false.
     From: report of Bertrand Russell (On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood [1910]) by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.6
     A reaction: Written 1906. Russell developed a 'multiple relation theory of judgement'. But if a judgement is an assessment of truth or falsehood, what is it that is being assessed?
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.