27 ideas
| 20320 | Truth is what unites, and the profound truths create a community [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Truth is what unites. ...[p.145] The most profound truth is that which all men might understand so as to form one community. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: Nice slogan, for robust realists like me. The hallmark of truth is our convergence on it. This is a 20th century existentialist perfectly expounding the enlightenment dream. The best rhetoric is truthful rhetoric. |
| 18877 | Moral realism doesn't seem to entail the existence of any things [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Moral realism isn't realism about things, and it seems strange to suggest that moral realism is existence entailing in the way that realism about unobservable is. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: Cameron is questioning whether a realist has to believe in truthmakers. It seems to me that his doubts are because he insists that truthmaking is committed to the existence of 'things'. I assume any moral realism must supervene on nature. |
| 18868 | Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: What possible reason could one have for thinking of some propositions that they need to be grounded in what there is that doesn't apply to all propositions? | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: Well, if truthmaking said that all truths are grounded, then some could be grounded in what there is, and others in how it is, or maybe even how it isn't (if you get a decent account of negative truths). |
| 18867 | Orthodox Truthmaker applies to all propositions, and necessitates their truth [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Orthodox truthmaker theory (Armstrong's) entails Maximalism (that every true proposition has at least one truthmaker), and Necessitarianism (that the existence of a truthmaker necessitates the truth of its proposition). | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: I think I accept both of these. If you say only some truths have truthmakers, the other truths are then baffling. And how could a truthmaker fail in its job? But that doesn't necessitate the existence of the proposition. |
| 18873 | God fixes all the truths of the world by fixing what exists [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The truthmaker thought is that explanation only bottoms out at existence facts; for God to give a complete plan of the world He needs only make an inventory of what is to exist. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: He is defending Necessitarianism about truthmaking. I'm struggling with this. An inventory of the contents of my house doesn't begin to fix all the truths that arise from them. Why is Cameron so resistent to 'how' things are being part of the truthmaking? |
| 18879 | What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The explanation of the truth of the proposition [p] doesn't stop at it being the case that p, so it's false to claim that whenever a proposition is true it's true in virtue of the world being as the proposition says it is. The features often lie deeper. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: [He is opposing Jennifer Hornsby 2005] Cameron offers 'the average family has 2.4 children' as a counterexample' (since no one actually has 2.4 children). That seems compelling. Second example: 'the rose is beautiful'. |
| 18880 | Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Rivals to the truthmaker claim that facts about what there is are the truthmakers, there are theories that add facts about how the things are, or add dispositional facts, or modal facts, or haecceitistic facts, or maybe moral facts. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He seems to think his version has a monopoly on truthmaking, but I don't see why these other theories shouldn't count as truthmaking. The truthmaker for 'live grenades are dangerous' is not just the existence of grenades. |
| 18874 | Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: It's definitely not sufficient to be a realist that one be a truthmaker theorist, since one can simply be anti-realist about the truthmakers. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: It is not quite clear how unreal truth makers could actually MAKE propositions true, rather than just being correlated with them. |
| 18869 | Without truthmakers, negative truths must be ungrounded [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: If negative truths don't have truthmakers then make no mistake: they are ungrounded. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: What would be the grounding for truths which expressed the necessary preconditions for all existence? Could 'nothing whatever exists' ever be a truth? |
| 18871 | I support the correspondence theory because I believe in truthmakers [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I tend to think that the fundamental reason we can have the correspondence theory of truth is that truthmaker theory is correct. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: [This responds to Fumerton 2006, who gives the opposite view] Cameron gives himself the classic problem of spelling out the correspondence relation (perhaps as 'congruence'). I like truthmaking, but I'm unsure about correspondence. |
| 18870 | Maybe truthmaking and correspondence stand together, and are interdefinable [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: One view says truthmaker theory stands or falls with the correspondence theory of truth, because the truthmaker for p is just the portion of reality that p corresponds to: truthmaker and correspondence can be conversely defined. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: The normal view, which I prefer, is that correspondence is a particular theory of truthmaking, invoking a precise 'correspondence' relation. Hence abolishing correspondence would not abolish truthmaking, if you had a rival account. |
| 18881 | For realists it is analytic that truths are grounded in the world [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The analytic commitment of realism is that truths are grounded in the world. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
| A reaction: Certain fifth-level truths might be a long way from the actual world, and deeply interfused with human concepts and theories. Negative truths must be fitted into this picture. |
| 18875 | Realism says a discourse is true or false, and some of it is true [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Realism about a discourse is 1) to think that the sentences are, when construed literally, literally true or false, and 2) to think that some of the sentences of the discourse are non-vacuously true. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: [Cameron adds 'non-vacuously' to an idea of Sayre-McCord 199 p.5] This is realism based on what is 'true', without specifying 'commitments', so I like it. Cameron says it makes mathematical postulationists into realists. He likes 'mind-independent'. |
| 18878 | Realism says truths rest on mind-independent reality; truthmaking theories are about which features [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: All that is necessary for realism, I claim, is that truth is grounded in mind-independent features of fundamental reality. Truthmaker theory comes into play because it is a theory about what those features are (…so it isn't a commitment to realism). | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Michael Devitt for this approach] What is the word 'fundamental' doing here? Because the mind-dependent parts of reality are considered non-fundamental? The no-true-Scotsman-hates-whisky move? His truthmaking is committed to 'things'. |
| 15201 | That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN] |
| Full Idea: The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact. | |
| From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b | |
| A reaction: He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful. |
| 18872 | We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I think we should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
| A reaction: An interesting passing remark. Presumably there would be unknowable truths about such worlds, which wouldn't bother a full-blooded realist. Indiscernible to whom? Me? Humanity? A divine mind? |
| 20323 | Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Without knowledge there is no freedom ....and without an arbitrary act there is no freedom, ....and there is no freedom without law. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: He emphasises that an arbitrary act is not a free act, but it is a precondition for being free. The submission to law is active freedom. If you believe in education (and you should) you must believe that knowledge is liberating. |
| 20322 | I am aware that freedom is possible, and the freedom is not in theory, but in seeking freedom [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Either there is no freedom or it is in asking about it. But what makes me ask is an original will to be free, so my freedom is anticipated in the fact of asking. I cannot prove it first, then will it. I will it because I am conscious of its possibility. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This presents the subjective claims for free will rather more persuasively than usual. I am conscious of a possibility that I might flap my arms and fly, so that doesn't establish anything. But yearning to be free is a sort of freedom. |
| 20324 | My freedom increases as I broaden my vision of possiblities and motives [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: I become free by incessantly broadening my worldly orientation, by limitlessly visualising premises and possibilities of action, and by allowing all motives to speak to me. ...The more the totality determines my vision the freer I know I am. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This matches my naturalistic view of responsibility for actions, which are those performed by the 'full' and knowing self. I note that freedom comes in degrees for him, so he presumably don't believe in absolute freedom. It is wholly subjective. |
| 20318 | My helplessness in philosophising reveals my being, and begins its upsurge [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Philosophising, not knowing, brings me to myself. The helplessness to which philosophising reduces me when I doubt its origin is an expressions of the helplessness of my self-being, and the reality of philosophising is the incipient upsurge of that being. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: I like the sound of 'philosophy as a way of life', and loosely aspire to it, but I'm still not sure what it means, other than a good way to pass the time. The idea that it leads to higher modes of being sounds a bit arrogant. But it is a good thing! |
| 20321 | The struggle for Existenz is between people who are equals, and are utterly honest [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: The struggle for Existenz has to do with ...with utter candour, with the elimination of all kinds of power and superiority, with the other's self-being as well as with my own. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This is reminiscent of Aristotle's conclusion that democracy is the society which is most conducive to true friendship. I like Jaspers's idea that existential enquiry is a team game. |
| 20325 | Once we grasp freedom 'from' things, then freedom 'for' things becomes urgent [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Once the question of 'freedom from what?' has been answered by shattering all objectivities, the question of 'freedom for what?' becomes all the more urgent. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: A quintessential existentialist idea, and its most appealing aspect. Message to all teenagers: don't get bogged down in what you are prevented from doing, but focus on what you can do. The first problem will melt away. (Unless you are in handcuffs....). |
| 20317 | Mundane existence is general, falling under universals, but Existens is unique to individuals [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Mundane being, the being we know, is general because it is generally valid for everyone. ...Existenz is never general, and thus not a case that might be subsumed as particular under a universal. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to visualise a mode of existence which would fulfil only me, answering to my unique nature, but it looks like a vain delusion. I may be a one-off combination, but I see all of my ingredients in various other people. |
| 20319 | We want the correct grasp on being that is neither solipsism nor absorption in the crowd [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: We want our philosophising to illuminate the free, original, communicative grasp on being that will let us meet the constant threat of solipsism or universalism in existence. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the political wing of existentialism: the aim to get the right relationship between citizens - not too withdrawn, and not swallowed in the crowd. Liberal democracy, I should think. |
| 20315 | 'Existenz' is the potential being, which I could have, and ought to have [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: There is the being which in the phenomenality of existence is not but can be, ought to be, and therefore decides in time whether it is in eternity. This being is myself as 'Existenz'. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This is quintessentially existentialist, in its claim that my mode of being could be quite other than it is. Personally I aim to fulfil the being I've got. Play the cards you have been dealt. |
| 20316 | Every decision I make moves towards or away from fulfilled Existenz [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: My Existenz, as a possibility, takes a step toward being or away from being, toward nothingness, in every choice or decision I make. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: The existential idea of action involves what you are, as well as what you do. There seems to be a paradox. My being is plastic, and can change enormously, so I should take responsibility for the change. But who is in charge of the changes? |
| 22899 | 'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN] |
| Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'. | |
| From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive' | |
| A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein? |