Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Morals and Modals' and 'The Status of Content'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 3. Minimalist Truth
6345 Minimalism is incoherent, as it implies that truth both is and is not a property [Boghossian, by Horwich]
     Full Idea: Boghossian argues that minimalism is incoherent because it says truth both is and is not a property; the essence of minimalism is that, unlike traditional theories, truth is not a property, yet properties are needed to explain the theory.
     From: report of Paul Boghossian (The Status of Content [1990]) by Paul Horwich - Truth (2nd edn) Post.8
     A reaction: I doubt whether this is really going to work as a demolition, because it seems to me that no philosophers are even remotely clear about what a property is. If properties are defined causally, it is not quite clear how truth would ever be a property.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
490 Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus]
     Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity.
     From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where?
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
14629 If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: If we ask why A must be the case, and A is then proved from B, that explains it if B must be so. If the eventual source cites some truth F, then if F just is so, there is strong pressure to feel that the original necessity has not been explained.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], 1)
     A reaction: [compressed] Ross Cameron wrote a reply to this which I like. I'm fishing for the idea that essence is the source of necessity (as Kit Fine says), but that essence itself is not necessary (as only I say, apparently!).
14529 If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
     Full Idea: Blackburn asks of what theorists propose as underlying the necessity of a proposition, the question whether they themselves are conceived as obtaining of necessity or merely contingently.
     From: report of Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], p.120-1) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 1
     A reaction: I've seen a reply to this somewhere: I think the thought was that a necessity wouldn't be any less necessary if it had a contingent source, any more than the father of a world champion boxer has to be a world champion boxer.