Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The iterative conception of Set', 'Ruling Passions' and 'A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility'

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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'
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / h. Axiom of Replacement VII
18192 Do the Replacement Axioms exceed the iterative conception of sets? [Boolos, by Maddy]
     Full Idea: For Boolos, the Replacement Axioms go beyond the iterative conception.
     From: report of George Boolos (The iterative conception of Set [1971]) by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics I.3
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.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
23996 Akrasia is intelligible in hindsight, when we revisit our previous emotions [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: To make my emotion intelligible [in a weakness of will case] is to look back and recognise that my emotions and dispositions were not quite as I had taken them to be. It is quite useless in such a case to invoke a blanket diagnosis of 'irrationality'.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Ruling Passions [1998], p.191)
     A reaction: So Blackburn rejects the idea of akrasia, because there was never really a conflict. He says rational people always aim to maximise their utility (p.135), and if their own act surprises them, it is just a failure to understand their own rationality.