Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Ethical Studies', 'True to the Facts' and 'Resemblance Nominalism and Russell's Regress'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers

8188	Davidson takes truth to attach to individual sentences [Davidson, by Dummett]
	Full Idea: Davidson, by contrast to Frege, has taken truth as attaching to linguistic items, that is, to actual or hypothetical token sentences.
	From: report of Donald Davidson (True to the Facts [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Truth and the Past 1
	A reaction: My personal notion of truth is potentially applicable to animals, so this doesn't appeal to me. I am happy to think of animals as believing simple propositions that never get as far as language, and being right or wrong about them.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

18435	Resemblance Nominalists say that resemblance explains properties (not the other way round) [Rodriquez-Pereyra]
	Full Idea: Resemblance Nominalists cannot explain the resemblance between particulars in terms of their properties, because they explain particulars' properties in terms of their resemblances.
	From: Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Resemblance Nominalism and Russell's Regress [2001], p.397), quoted by Douglas Edwards - Properties 5.5.1
	A reaction: While resemblance does seem to be a primitive fact of experience, and it points us towards the properties, to say that resemblance explains properties is obviously (as so often...) getting things the wrong way round. Properties ARE resemblances??

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness

5655	Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self.
	From: report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16
	A reaction: Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452).