Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Posthumous notes', 'The Reality of Numbers' and 'The Roots of Reference'

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3 ideas

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

18344	Truth and falsehood must track what does or doesn't exist [Bigelow]
	Full Idea: If something is true, then it would not be possible for it to be false unless either certain things were to exist which don't, or else certain things had not existed which do.
	From: John Bigelow (The Reality of Numbers [1988], 19)
	A reaction: This is described by Rami as Bigelow's 'famous' formulation of the idea that 'truth supervenes on being' in a general way. An immediate question would be about fictions. Is Malvolio a stupid man, given that he doesn't exist? We must stretch 'exist'.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

14296	Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine]
	Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition.
	From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3
	A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers?

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism

21971	Transcendental philosophy is the subject becoming the originator of unified reality [Kant]
	Full Idea: Transcendental philosophy is the act of consciousness whereby the subject becomes the originator of itself and, thereby, of the whole object of technical-practical and moral-practical reason in one system - ordering all things in God
	From: Immanuel Kant (Posthumous notes [1799], 21:78, p.245), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06 App
	A reaction: This is evidently Kant's last word on the matter (c.1799), and Moore says he was drifting close to Fichte's idealism, in which reality is actually (sort of) created by our own minds. Disappointing! God's role here is unclear.