10 ideas
| 10911 | Part-whole is the key relation among truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: The most important (ontological) relations holding among truth-makers are the part and whole relations. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) | |
| A reaction: Hence Peter Simons goes off and writes the best known book on mereology. Looks very promising to me. |
| 10909 | Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true, because sentences with more than one truth-maker would then be ambiguous, and 'a' and 'a exists' would have the same designatum. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
| 10906 | Moments (objects which cannot exist alone) may serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: A 'moment' is an existentially dependent or non-self-sufficient object, that is, an object which is of such a nature that it cannot exist alone, ....... and we suggest that moments could serve as truth-makers. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §2) | |
| A reaction: [These three writers invented the term 'truth-maker'] |
| 10907 | The truth-maker for a sentence may not be unique, or may be a combination, or several separate items [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: A proposition may have a minimal truth-maker which is not unique, or a sentence may be made true by no single truth-maker but only by several jointly, or again only by several separately. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
| 10912 | Despite negative propositions, truthmakers are not logical complexes, but ordinary experiences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: Because of negative propositions, investigators of truth-makers have said that they are special non-objectual entities with a logical complexity, but we think a theory is possible in which the truth relation is tied to ordinary and scientific experience. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) |
| 10908 | Correspondence has to invoke facts or states of affairs, just to serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence theory of truth invokes a special category of non-objectual entities - facts, states of affairs, or whatever - simply to serve as truth-makers. | |
| From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
| 9224 | Proceduralism offers a version of logicism with no axioms, or objects, or ontological commitment [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: My Proceduralism offers axiom-free foundations for mathematics. Axioms give way to the stipulation of procedures. We obtain a form of logicism, but with a procedural twist, and with a logic which is ontologically neutral, and no assumption of objects. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Our Knowledge of Mathematical Objects [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: [See Ideas 9222 and 9223 for his Proceduralism] Sounds like philosophical heaven. We get to take charge of mathematics, without the embarrassment of declaring ourselves to be platonists. Someone, not me, should evaluate this. |
| 9222 | The objects and truths of mathematics are imperative procedures for their construction [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I call my new approach to mathematics 'proceduralism'. It agrees with Hilbert and Poincaré that the objects and truths are postulations, but takes them to be imperatival rather than indicative in form; not propositions, but procedures for construction. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Our Knowledge of Mathematical Objects [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how an object or a truth can be a procedure, any more than a house can be a procedure. If a procedure doesn't have a product then it is an idle way to pass the time. The view seems to be related to fictionalism. |
| 9223 | My Proceduralism has one simple rule, and four complex rules [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: My Proceduralism has one simple rule (introduce an object), and four complex rules: Composition (combining two procedures), Conditionality (if A, do B), Universality (do a procedure for every x), and Iteration (rule to keep doing B). | |
| From: Kit Fine (Our Knowledge of Mathematical Objects [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: It sounds like a highly artificial and private game which Fine has invented, but he claims that this is the sort of thing that practising mathematicians have always done. |
| 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? |