Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Structure and Content of Truth' and 'Calculus Ratiocinator'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The real objection to correspondence theories is that such theories fail to provide entities to which truth vehicles (as statements, sentence, or utterances) can be said to correspond.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Structure and Content of Truth [1990], p.304), quoted by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography Notes 23
     A reaction: This is the remark which provoked Sommers to come out with Idea 18901, which strikes me as rather profound.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism
A whole is just its parts, but there are no smallest parts, so only minds and perceptions exist [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The whole, if it is assumed to be body or matter, is nothing other than all of its parts; but this is absurd, since there aren't any smallest parts. Therefore there really exist only minds and their perceptions.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Calculus Ratiocinator [1679], A6.4.279), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
     A reaction: Leibniz is sometimes labelled as an 'idealist', but this text is unusual in being so explicit, and he was mainly concerned to explain the reality of individual bodies. Monads were his final attempt to do this, not an attempt to escape into pure minds.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8