Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility', 'The Problem of Natural Laws' and 'The Truth in Relativism'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 6. Making Negative Truths

15547	Negative existentials have 'totality facts' as truthmakers [Armstrong, by Lewis]
	Full Idea: Armstrong offers 'totality facts' (complete states of affairs) as truthmakers for negative existentials, and for negated predications.
	From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'The demand'

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility

15542	All possibilities are recombinations of properties in the actual world [Armstrong, by Lewis]
	Full Idea: Armstrong's thesis is that recombination gives all the possibilities there are. There is no 'outer sphere' of possibilities wherein are found new and different universals alien to the actual world. No extra fundamental properties of fundamental particles.
	From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'Combinatorialism'
	A reaction: I can't grasp what Armstrong's basis would be for such a claim. I surmise that current fundamental particles can only have the properties they currently have, but I can't see the impossibility of new stuff with new properties.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism

22450	If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot]
	Full Idea: If some societies with divergent moral systems merely confront each other, having no use for the assertion that their own systems are true and the others false except to mark the system to which they adhere, then relativism is a true theory of morality.
	From: report of Bernard Williams (The Truth in Relativism [1974]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Relativism p.3
	A reaction: 'Having no use for' an assertion is not the same as the assertion being impossible. Some liberal cultures refuse to criticise others because their highest value is tolerance, even when the target culture wholly contradicts the critics' other values.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities

4800	Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos]
	Full Idea: Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction.
	From: report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1
	A reaction: The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms.