24 ideas
18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
Full Idea: It is claimed that truth-makers explain universals, or ontological commitment, or commitment to realism, or to the correspondence theory of truth, or to falsify behaviourism or phenomenalism. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This expands the view that truth-making is based on its explanatory power, rather than on its intuitive correctness. I take the theory to presuppose realism. I don't believe in universals. It marginalises correspondence. Commitment is good! |
18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
Full Idea: The two strategies for justifying the truth-maker principle are that it has an explanatory role (for certain philosophical problems and theses), or that it captures the best philosophical intuition of the situation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: I would go for 'intuitive', but not in the sense of a pure intuition, but with 'intuitive' as a shorthand for overall coherence. To me the appeal of truth-maker is its place in a naturalistic view of reality. I love explanation, but not here. |
18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
Full Idea: The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-many. In the latter case, different truths may have the same truth-maker, and one truth may have different truth-makers. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: 'There is at least one cat' obviously has many possible truth-makers. Many statements will be made true by the mere existence of a particular cat (such as 'there is an animal in the room' and 'there is a cat in the room'). Many-many wins? |
18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The main full-blooded truth-maker principle is that x is true iff there is a y that is its truth-maker. This implies the principles that if x is true x has a truth-maker, and the principle that if x has a truth-maker then x is true. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 03) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Rami calls the second principle 'maximalism' and the third principle 'purism'. To reject maximalism is to hold a more restricted version of truth-makers. That is, the claim is that lots of truths have truth-makers. |
18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists regard the necessitation of a truth by a truth-maker as a necessary condition of truth-making. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 07) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that reality is crammed full of potential truth-makers, but not crammed full of truths. If there is no thinking in the universe, then there are no truths. If that is false, then what sort of weird beast is a 'truth'? |
18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
Full Idea: Truthmaker anti-monism holds the view that there are truth-makers of different kinds. For example, objects, facts, tropes or events can all be regarded as truthmakers. Objects seem right for existential truths but not others, so anti-monism seems best. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: Presumably we need to identify the different types of truth (analytic, synthetic, general, particular...), and only then ask what truth-makers there are for the different types. To presuppose one type of truthmaker would be crazy. |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: As truth-makers, some theorists only accept states of affairs, some only accept individuals and states of affairs, and some only accept individuals and particular properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 06) | |
A reaction: It seems to me rash to opt for one of these. Truths come in wide-ranging and subtly different types, and the truth-makers probably have a similar range. Any one of these theories will almost certainly quickly succumb to a counterexample. |
18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The thesis that 'truth supervenes on being' (with or without possible worlds) offers only a necessary condition for the truth of contingent propositions, whereas the standard truth-maker theory offers necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: The point, I suppose, is that the change in being might be irrelevant to the proposition in question, so any old change in being will not ensure a change in the truth of the proposition. Again we ask - but what is this truth about? |
18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The important advantage of 'truth supervenes on being' is that it can be applied to positive and negative contingent truths, without postulating any entities that are responsible for the truth of negative truths. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: [For this reason, Lewis favours a possible worlds version of the theory] I fear that it solves that problem by making the truth-maker theory so broad-brush that it not longer says very much, apart from committing it to naturalism. |
18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
Full Idea: The 'entailment principle' for truth-makers says that if x is a truth-maker for y, and y entails z, then x is a truth-maker for z. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 08) | |
A reaction: I think the correct locution is that 'x is a potential truth-maker for z' (should anyone every formulate z, which in most cases they never will, since the entailments of y are probably infinite). Merricks would ask 'but are y and z about the same thing?'. |
18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists are internalists about the truth-maker relation. ...But the correspondence theory makes truth an external relation to some portion of reality. So a truth-maker internalist should not claim to be a narrow correspondence theorist. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [wording rearranged] Like many of Rami's distinctions in this article, this feels simplistic. Sharp distinctions can only be made using sharp vocabulary, and there isn't much of that around in philosophy! |
18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
Full Idea: One guiding intuition concerning a correspondence theory of truth says that the relation that accounts for the truth of a truth-bearer is some kind of representation relation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: I unfashionably cling on to some sort of correspondence theory. The paradigm case is of a non-linguistic animal which forms correct or incorrect views about its environment. Truth is a relation, not a property. I see the truth in a bad representation. |
18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
Full Idea: According to the moderate deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 10) | |
A reaction: [He cites Horwich 1998] That is, I presume, that truth is embodied in an infinity of propositions of the form '"p" is true iff p'. |
18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
Full Idea: There are good reasons for the truth-maker theorist to reject the converse Barcan formula. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], note 16) | |
A reaction: In the text (p.15) Rami cites the inference from 'necessarily everything exists' to 'everything exists necessarily'. [See Williamson 1999] |
13430 | Infinity: there is an infinity of distinguishable individuals [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: The Axiom of Infinity means that there are an infinity of distinguishable individuals, which is an empirical proposition. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], §5) | |
A reaction: The Axiom sounds absurd, as a part of a logical system, but Ramsey ends up defending it. Logical tautologies, which seem to be obviously true, are rendered absurd if they don't refer to any objects, and some of them refer to infinities of objects. |
13428 | Reducibility: to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: The Axiom of Reducibility asserted that to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function [note: two functions are equivalent when the same arguments render them both true or both false]. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], §2) | |
A reaction: Ramsey in the business of showing that this axiom from Russell and Whitehead is not needed. He says that the axiom seems to be needed for induction and for Dedekind cuts. Since the cuts rest on it, and it is weak, Ramsey says it must go. |
13427 | Either 'a = b' vacuously names the same thing, or absurdly names different things [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: In 'a = b' either 'a' and 'b' are names of the same thing, in which case the proposition says nothing, or of different things, in which case it is absurd. In neither case is it an assertion of a fact; it only asserts when a or b are descriptions. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], §1) | |
A reaction: This is essentially Frege's problem with Hesperus and Phosphorus. How can identities be informative? So 2+2=4 is extensionally vacuous, but informative because they are different descriptions. |
13334 | Contradictions are either purely logical or mathematical, or they involved thought and language [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Group A consists of contradictions which would occur in a logical or mathematical system, involving terms such as class or number. Group B contradictions are not purely logical, and contain some reference to thought, language or symbolism. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], p.171), quoted by Graham Priest - The Structure of Paradoxes of Self-Reference 1 | |
A reaction: This has become the orthodox division of all paradoxes, but the division is challenged by Priest (Idea 13373). He suggests that we now realise (post-Tarski?) that language is more involved in logic and mathematics than we thought. |
13426 | Formalists neglect content, but the logicists have focused on generalizations, and neglected form [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: The formalists neglected the content altogether and made mathematics meaningless, but the logicians neglected the form and made mathematics consist of any true generalisations; only by taking account of both sides can we obtain an adequate theory. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], §1) | |
A reaction: He says mathematics is 'tautological generalizations'. It is a criticism of modern structuralism that it overemphasises form, and fails to pay attention to the meaning of the concepts which stand at the 'nodes' of the structure. |
13425 | Formalism is hopeless, because it focuses on propositions and ignores concepts [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: The hopelessly inadequate formalist theory is, to some extent, the result of considering only the propositions of mathematics and neglecting the analysis of its concepts. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], §1) | |
A reaction: You'll have to read Ramsey to see how this thought pans out, but it at least gives a pointer to how to go about addressing the question. |
18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: An internal relation is 'existential' if x and y relate in that way whenever they both exist. An internal relation is 'qualitative' if x and y relate in that way whenever they have certain intrinsic properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [compressed - Rami likes to write these things in fashionable quasi-algebra, but I have a strong prejudice in this database for expressing ideas in English; call me old-fashioned] The distinction strikes me as simplistic. I would involve dispositions. |
22328 | I just confront the evidence, and let it act on me [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: I can but put the evidence before me, and let it act on my mind. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], p.202), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 70 'Deg' | |
A reaction: Potter calls this observation 'downbeat', but I am an enthusiastic fan. It is roughly my view of both concept formation and of knowledge. You soak up the world, and respond appropriately. The trick is in the selection of evidence to confront. |
22325 | A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: I have always said that a belief was knowledge if it was 1) true, ii) certain, iii) obtained by a reliable process. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], p.258), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 66 'Rel' | |
A reaction: Not sure why it has to be 'certain' as well as 'true'. It seems that 'true' is objective, and 'certain' subjective. I think I know lots of things of which I am not fully certain. Reliabilism long preceded Alvin Goldman. |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |