Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Why Constitution is not Identity' and 'Outline of a Theory of Truth'

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12 ideas

3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth
Kripke's semantic theory has actually inspired promising axiomatic theories [Kripke, by Horsten]
     Full Idea: Kripke has a semantic theory of truth which has inspired promising axiomatic theories of truth.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Outline of a Theory of Truth [1975]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 01.2
     A reaction: Feferman produced an axiomatic version of Kripke's semantic theory.
Kripke offers a semantic theory of truth (involving models) [Kripke, by Horsten]
     Full Idea: One of the most popular semantic theories of truth is Kripke's theory. It describes a class of models which themselves involve a truth predicate (unlike Tarski's semantic theory).
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Outline of a Theory of Truth [1975]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.3
     A reaction: The modern versions explored by Horsten are syntactic versions of this, derived from Feferman's axiomatisation of the Kripke theory.
3. Truth / G. Axiomatic Truth / 1. Axiomatic Truth
The Tarskian move to a metalanguage may not be essential for truth theories [Kripke, by Gupta]
     Full Idea: Kripke established that, contrary to the prevalent Tarskian dogma, attributions of truth do not always force a move to a metalanguage.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Outline of a Theory of Truth [1975], 5.1) by Anil Gupta - Truth
     A reaction: [Gupta also cites Martin and Woodruff 1975]
Certain three-valued languages can contain their own truth predicates [Kripke, by Gupta]
     Full Idea: Kripke showed via a fixed-point argument that certain three-valued languages can contain their own truth predicates.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Outline of a Theory of Truth [1975]) by Anil Gupta - Truth
     A reaction: [Gupta also cites Martin and Woodruff 1975] It is an odd paradox that truth can only be included if one adds a truth-value of 'neither true nor false'. The proposed three-valued system is 'strong Kleene logic'.
3. Truth / G. Axiomatic Truth / 3. KF Truth Axioms
Kripke classified fixed points, and illuminated their use for clarifications [Kripke, by Halbach]
     Full Idea: Kripke's main contribution was …his classification of the different consistent fixed points and the discussion of their use for discriminating between ungrounded sentences, paradoxical sentences, and so on.
     From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Outline of a Theory of Truth [1975]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 15.1
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Clay is intrinsically and atomically the same as statue (and that lacks 'modal properties') [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Arguments for statue being the clay are: that the clay is intrinsically like the statue, that the clay has the same atoms as the statue', that objects don't have modal properties such as being necessarily F, and the reference of 'property' changes.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], II)
     A reaction: [my summary of the arguments she identifies - see text for details] Rudder Baker attempts to refute all four of these arguments, in defence of constitution as different from identity.
The clay is not a statue - it borrows that property from the statue it constitutes [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: I argue that a lump of clay borrows the property of being a statue from the statue. The lump is a statue because, and only because, there is something that the lump constitutes that is a statue.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], n9)
     A reaction: It is skating on very thin metaphysical ice to introduce the concept of 'borrowing' a property. I've spent the last ten minutes trying to 'borrow' some properties, but without luck.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
Is it possible for two things that are identical to become two separate things? [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: A strong intuition shared by many philosophers is that some things that are in fact identical might not have been identical.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV)
     A reaction: This flies in the face of the Kripkean view that if Hesperus=Phosphorus then the identity is necessary. I don't think I have an intuition that some given thing might have been two things - indeed the thought seems totally weird. Amoeba? Statue/clay?
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 6. Constitution of an Object
Constitution is not identity, as consideration of essential predicates shows [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: I want to resuscitate an essentialist argument against the view that constitution is identity, of the form 'x is essentially F, y is not essentially F, so x is not y'.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], Intro)
     A reaction: The point is that x might be essentially F and y only accidentally F. Thus a statue is essentially so, but a lump if clay is not essentially a statue. Another case where 'necessary' would do instead of 'essentially'.
The constitution view gives a unified account of the relation of persons/bodies, statues/bronze etc [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Constitution-without-identity is superior to constitution-as-identity in that it provides a unified view of the relation between persons and bodies, statues and pieces of bronze, and so on.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV)
     A reaction: I have a problem with the intrinsic dualism of this whole picture. Clay needs shape, statues need matter - there aren't two 'things' here which have a 'relation'.
Statues essentially have relational properties lacked by lumps [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: The statue has relational properties which the lump of clay does not have essentially.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], V)
     A reaction: She has in mind relations to the community of artistic life. I don't think this is convincing. Is something only a statue if it is validated by an artistic community? That sounds like relative identity, which she doesn't like.
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