Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Value of Science', 'The Truth in Relativism' and 'Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 1. For Truthmakers

18487	We want to know what makes sentences true, rather than defining 'true' [McFetridge]
	Full Idea: The generalisation 'What makes a (any) sentence true?' is not a request for definitions of 'true' (the concept), but rather requests for (partial) explanations of why certain particular sentences are true.
	From: Ian McFetridge (Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge [1977], II)
	A reaction: McFetridge is responding to the shortcomings of Tarski's account of truth. The mystery seems to be why some of our representations of the world are 'successful', and others are not.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / a. Facts

18488	We normally explain natural events by citing further facts [McFetridge]
	Full Idea: If one were asked 'What makes salt soluble in water?', the most natural answer would be something of the style 'The fact that it has such-and-such structure'.
	From: Ian McFetridge (Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge [1977], II)
	A reaction: Personally I would want to talk about its 'powers' (dispositional properties), rather than its 'structure' (categorical properties). This defends facts, but you could easily paraphrase 'fact' out of this reply (as McFetridge realised).

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 / 11. Against Laws of Nature

15877	The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
	Full Idea: In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
	From: report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
	A reaction: I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.