36 ideas
| 15585 | Later Heidegger sees philosophy as more like poetry than like science [Heidegger, by Polt] |
| Full Idea: In his later work Heidegger came to view philosophy as closer to poetry than to science. | |
| From: report of Martin Heidegger (The Origin of the Work of Art [1935], p.178) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs' |
| 14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A ground does not merely necessitate its truth. A ground is also what its truth is appropriately about. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.II) |
| 14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is not always obvious what (if anything) a truth is about, in the sense of 'about' relevant to Truthmaker and truth-supervenient-on-being. Prior says 'Queen Anne is dead' is not about Queen Anne, and may be about the Earth. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.III) | |
| A reaction: A very nice and rather subtle objection to the Truthmaker thesis. Specifying the truthmaker for a given truth looks like a doddle in simple cases, but clearly it can become extremely elusive in other cases. |
| 14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If a single ball goes from being red to being white, Truthmaker implies that something exists which makes it true that the second thing follows the first. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
| 14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaker makes it impossible simply to remove an entity. One must always replace it with something else; namely, a truthmaker for the claim that that entity does not exist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I-3) | |
| A reaction: This is a particularly strong and persuasive argument from Merricks against the truthmaker view. Clearly the truthmaker for non-existence can't be there when it exists, and the destruction bringing the negative truthmaker into existence sounds odd. |
| 14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaker says that, for each truth, there is something that, by its mere existence, makes that truth true, …so Truthmaker has de re modality at its core. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.III) | |
| A reaction: I have no problem with de re modality, so this doesn't bother me. Merricks brings out nicely the baggage which you must carry if you are a Truthmaker. |
| 14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The claim 'that Fido is brown' seems to demand only a brown Fido, but Truthmaker demands more. It demands both that a state of affairs along the lines of 'Fido's being brown' exists, and also that this state has its constituents essentially. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I) | |
| A reaction: One would need to reread Merricks to get this clear, but my instinct is that the two scenarios are not very different. 'A brown Fido' would require Fido to be necessarily brown to do the job. |
| 14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: 'Truth supervenes on being' says that any two possible worlds alike with respect to what entities exist and which properties (and relations) each of those entities exemplifies are thereby alike with respect to what is true. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4) | |
| A reaction: Merricks says this view is found in early Wittgenstein, as well as in David Lewis. He suggests that this is a weaker and more plausible thesis than the full commitment to truthmakers. It still allows some truths to lack truthmakers. Sounds plausible. |
| 14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If 'truth supervenes on being' aims to articulate the idea that truth depends on being, it must say more than that truth supervenes on being. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.VI) | |
| A reaction: This is a perennial problem with supervenience accounts, such as the supervenience of beauty on the object, or of mind on brain. |
| 14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is implausible that a claim asserting that a thing fails to exist is made true by - and so is appropriately about - some other, existing thing. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
| 14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Because Truthmaker offers no analysis of being true, Truthmaker is not the correspondence theory of truth. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 1.IV) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that the correspondence theory offers an 'analysis' of truth. It doesn't seem to do much more than offer a word which suggests an analogy with some relation in the world. |
| 14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: That 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' is true, but not appropriately about any existing entities or their properties. Since Truthmaker says that all truths are about existing entities, it must be false. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.VI) | |
| A reaction: Since I don't necessarily agree that 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' (see Scientific Essentialism), and I take the disagreement to have some basis, I doubt this idea. What stops 'there could be circular squares' from being true? |
| 14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but it is not obvious that that proposition is thus about me. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the general rather good objection that it is often unclear what a truth is 'about' (Idea 14408). The original Gettier examples about justification illustrate this problem. They make things true, in a surprising way. |
| 14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Being true is not a relation. …Being true is a monadic property. …Being true is a primitive property. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.IV) | |
| A reaction: Even after reading Merricks on this, I am not sure I understand it. If a single sentence floats in the void, it is hard to see how the 'monadic' property of truth could accrue to it. |
| 14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Suppose for the sake of argument that the correspondence theory is correct. Then it is analytic that each necessary truth, in virtue of being true, corresponds to something. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 2.II) | |
| A reaction: The sort of nice simple observation for which I admire Merricks. You don't have to give up on the correspondence theory at this point, but you will have to go through with some substantial metaphysics to keep it afloat. |
| 14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I take 'deflationism' to be nothing other than the claim that there is no property of being true. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.V) |
| 14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The claim that the totality state is the sole truthmaker for negative existential truths emerges as the best position for a truthmaker theorist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.III) |
| 14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Some properties (perhaps negative charge, or the relation of identity) admit of no analysis, and so are primitive. But others are analysable, and so not primitive | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) |
| 14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is possible for an object to have a disposition even though the relevant conditional is false. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.III) | |
| A reaction: This is the now standard observation that finks (killing the disposition) and antidotes (blocking the effect of the disposition) can intervene, as in safety mechanisms in electrical gadgets. There may be replies available here. |
| 14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A Fregean about existence claims would say that 'that hobbits do not exist' is nothing other than the claim that 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.II) | |
| A reaction: 'My passport has ceased to exist' seems to be a bit more dramatic than a relationship with a concept. |
| 14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Your belief that you existed in the year 2000 is true; the belief of a segment of you that it then existed is false; so, by the indiscernibility of identicals, there must be two beliefs here. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n20) | |
| A reaction: Merricks may be begging the question here. But in the segment view there is nothing which can truly believe it existed a year ago, so therefore nothing here has continued existence, so the segments cannot be part of a single thing. |
| 14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual is not appropriately about the way anything is, …but about how something would be, had other things differed from how they actually are. As a result, true counterfactuals have neither truthmakers nor a superveniece base. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.IV) | |
| A reaction: Might not the truthmakers for counterfactuals reside in the dispositional facts about actuality? We assess the truth of counterfactuals in degrees, so something must determine our views. |
| 14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If Fido's being possibly black reduces (in Lewis's account) to the existence of black counterparts of Fido, then 'Fido is possibly black' is actually true, but it has no actually existing truthmaker. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.I) | |
| A reaction: This problem is increasingly the target of my views about dispositions and powers. Fido is not possibly a prize-winning novelist, but is possibly dead or in good health, because of the actual nature and dispositions of Fido. |
| 23438 | Full rationality must include morality [Foot] |
| Full Idea: You haven't got a full idea of rationality until you've got morality within it. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.35) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean that mathematical proofs are not rational, or that they are moral? |
| 23437 | Practical reason is goodness in choosing actions [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Practical rationality is goodness in respect of reason for actions, just as rationality of thinking is goodness in respect of beliefs. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.35) | |
| A reaction: It is very Greek to think that rationality involves goodness. There seems to be a purely instrumental form of practical reason that just gets from A to B, as when giving accurate street directions to someone. |
| 23436 | It is an odd Humean view to think a reason to act must always involve caring [Foot] |
| Full Idea: One would need a very special, very Humean, view about reasons for actions to think a man doesn't have a reason unless he cares. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.34-5) | |
| A reaction: She says she used to believe this, but was wrong. It is hard to imagine acting for reasons if they don't care about anything at all (even that it's their job). But then people just do care about things. |
| 23431 | Human defects are just like plant or animal defects [Foot] |
| Full Idea: We describe defects in human beings in the same way as we do defects in plants and animals. …You cannot talk about a river as being defective. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
| A reaction: This is a much clearer commitment to naturalistic ethics than I have found in her more academic writings. My opinion of Foot (which was already high) went up when I read this interview. …She says vice is a defect of the will. |
| 23432 | Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot] |
| Full Idea: There are concepts which apply only to living things, considered in their own right, which would include function, welfare, flourishing, interests and the good of something. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
| A reaction: This is a very Aristotelian view, with which I entirely agree. The central concept is function. |
| 23433 | Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot] |
| Full Idea: A plant needs strong roots in the same way human beings need courage. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite convince by the analogy, but I strongly agree with her basic approach. |
| 23434 | There is no fact-value gap in 'owls should see in the dark' [Foot] |
| Full Idea: If you say 'an owl should be able to see in the dark' …you're not going to think that there's a gap between facts and evaluation. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a major and fundamental idea, which pinpoints the failure of Humeans to understand the world correctly. There is always total nihilism, of course, but that is a sort of blindness to how things are. Demanding 'proof' of values is crazy. |
| 23439 | Principles are not ultimate, but arise from the necessities of human life [Foot] |
| Full Idea: I don't believe in ultimate principles that must be simply affirmed or denied, but rather in an appeal to the necessities of human life. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], p.37) | |
| A reaction: I agree. Humans have a strong tendency to elevate anything which they consider important into an absolute (such as the value of life, or freedom). |
| 23435 | If you demonstrate the reason to act, there is no further question of 'why should I?' [Foot] |
| Full Idea: You lose the sense of 'should' if you go on saying 'why should I?' when you've finished the argument about what is rational to do, what you've got reason to do. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Interview with Philippa Foot [2003], P.34) | |
| A reaction: Some people reify the concept of duty, so that they do what is required without caring about the reason. I suppose that would wither if they were shown that no reason exists. |
| 14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Presentists deny that everything is instantaneous; they think that many objects not only exist, but also have existed and will exist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: The second half is because presentists are committed to the truth of tensed existence claims (despite a lack of any theory as to how they work). Does anyone hold a theory of Instantaneousism? |
| 14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I think presentists should deny that there is anything at all that is the present time, just as they should deny that there are past times or future times. They should say that existing at the present time is just 'existing'. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: The whole context is needed to understand Merrick's interesting claim. If there is no present, when can events happen? |
| 14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Maybe presentism alone allows for genuine change, by permitting the direct having of a property by something and then, later, the absolute lacking of that property by that same thing. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n23) | |
| A reaction: Four-dimensionalism (perdurantism) is the view which is most often charged with not explaining change, and that tends to be associated with eternalism. Are there just two coherent packages of views here? |
| 14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I am not sure what account presentists should give of an object's having existed. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am pretty puzzled by the eternalist and growing-block accounts of an object having existed, so we are all up a gum tree here. The best bet is to pull truth and existence apart, but heaven knows what that implies. See Idea 14399. |