Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz', 'Letters to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle' and 'The Coherence Theory of Truth'

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23 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
19079 For idealists reality is like a collection of beliefs, so truths and truthmakers are not distinct [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: Idealists do not believe that there is an ontological distinction between beliefs and what makes beliefs true. From their perspective, reality is something like a collection of beliefs.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §2.1)
     A reaction: This doesn't seem to me to wholly reject truthmakers, since beliefs can still be truthmakers for one another. This is something like Davidson's view, that only beliefs can justify other beliefs.
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
19076 Coherence theories differ over the coherence relation, and over the set of proposition with which to cohere [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: Coherence theories of truth differ on their accounts of the coherence relation, and on their accounts of the set (or sets) of propositions with which true propositions occur (the 'specified set').
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1)
     A reaction: Coherence is clearly more than consistency or mutual entailment, and I like to invoke explanation. The set has to be large, or the theory is absurd (as two absurdities can 'cohere'). So very large, or very very large, or maximally large?
19077 Two propositions could be consistent with your set, but inconsistent with one another [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: It is unsatisfactory for the coherence relation to be consistency, because two propositions could be consistent with a 'specified set', and yet be inconsistent with each other. That would imply they are both true, which is impossible.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1)
     A reaction: I'm not convinced by this. You first accept P because it is consistent with the set; then Q turns up, which is consistent with everything in the set except P. So you have to choose between them, and might eject P. Your set was too small.
19078 Coherence with actual beliefs, or our best beliefs, or ultimate ideal beliefs? [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: One extreme for the specified set is the largest consistent set of propositions currently believed by actual people. A moderate position makes it the limit of people's enquiries. The other extreme is what would be believed by an omniscient being.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1)
     A reaction: One not considered is the set of propositions believed by each individual person. Thoroughgoing relativists might well embrace that one. Peirce and Putnam liked the moderate one. I'm taken with the last one, since truth is an ideal, not a phenomenon.
19084 Coherent truth is not with an arbitrary set of beliefs, but with a set which people actually do believe [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: It must be remembered that coherentists do not believe that the truth of a proposition consists in coherence with an arbitrarily chosen set of propositions; the coherence is with a set of beliefs, or a set of propositions held to be true.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §3.1)
     A reaction: This is a very good response to critics who cite bizarre sets of beliefs which happen to have internal coherence. You have to ask why they are not actually believed, and the answer must be that the coherence is not extensive enough.
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 2. Coherence Truth Critique
19083 How do you identify the best coherence set; and aren't there truths which don't cohere? [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: The two main objections to the coherence theory of truth are that there is no way to identify the 'specified set' of propositions without contradiction, ...and that some propositions are true which cohere with no set of beliefs.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §3.1/2)
     A reaction: The point of the first is that you need a prior knowledge of truth to say which of two sets is the better one. The second one is thinking of long-lost tiny details from the past, which seem to be true without evidence. A huge set might beat the first one.
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
19075 Deflationary theories reject analysis of truth in terms of truth-conditions [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: Unlike deflationary theories, the coherence and correspondence theories both hold that truth is a property of propositions that can be analyzed in terms of the sorts of truth-conditions propositions have, and the relation propositions stand in to them.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], Intro)
     A reaction: This is presumably because deflationary theories reject the external relations of a proposition as a feature of its truth. This evidently leaves them in need of a theory of meaning, which may be fairly minimal. Horwich would be an example.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
13076 Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
     A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
13102 If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
13103 Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
13104 Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
     A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
13100 Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
     A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
13068 We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
     A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
13069 The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties.
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2)
     A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
13101 Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46)
     A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is!
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
13071 We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
2384 Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (Letters to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle [1652])
2385 If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: When first a man hath an appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he had no appetite or will, the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (Letters to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle [1652])
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
19074 Are truth-condtions other propositions (coherence) or features of the world (correspondence)? [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: For the coherence theory of truth, the truth conditions of propositions consist in other propositions. The correspondence theory, in contrast, states that the truth conditions of propositions are ... objective features of the world.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], Intro)
     A reaction: It is obviously rather important for your truth-conditions theory of meaning that you are clear about your theory of truth. A correspondence theory is evidently taken for granted, even in possible worlds versions.
19082 Coherence truth suggests truth-condtions are assertion-conditions, which need knowledge of justification [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: Coherence theorists can argue that the truth conditions of a proposition are those under which speakers tend to assert it, ...and that speakers can only make a practice of asserting a proposition under conditions they can recognise as justifying it.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §2.2)
     A reaction: [compressed] This sounds rather verificationist, and hence wrong, since if you then asserted anything for which you didn't know the justification, that would remove its truth, and thus make it meaningless.