49 ideas
19199 | Some say metaphysics is a highly generalised empirical study of objects [Tarski] |
Full Idea: For some people metaphysics is a general theory of objects (ontology) - a discipline which is to be developed in a purely empirical way, and which differs from other empirical disciplines in its generality. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 19) | |
A reaction: Tarski says some people despise it, but for him such metaphysics is 'not objectionable'. I subscribe to this view, but the empirical aspect is very remote, because it's too general for detail observation or experiment. Generality is the key to philosophy. |
19193 | Disputes that fail to use precise scientific terminology are all meaningless [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Disputes like the vague one about 'the right conception of truth' occur in all domains where, instead of exact, scientific terminology, common language with its vagueness and ambiguity is used; and they are always meaningless, and therefore in vain. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 14) | |
A reaction: Taski taught a large number of famous philosophers in California in the 1950s, and this approach has had a huge influence. Recently there has been a bit of a rebellion. E.g. Kit Fine doesn't think it can all be done in formal languages. |
19179 | For a definition we need the words or concepts used, the rules, and the structure of the language [Tarski] |
Full Idea: We must specify the words or concepts which we wish to use in defining the notion of truth; and we must also give the formal rules to which the definition should conform. More generally, we must describe the formal structure of the language. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 01) | |
A reaction: This, of course, is a highly formal view of how definition should be achieved, offered in anticipation of one of the most famous definitions in logic (of truth, by Tarski). Normally we assume English and classical logic. |
19178 | Definitions of truth should not introduce a new version of the concept, but capture the old one [Tarski] |
Full Idea: The desired definition of truth does not aim to specify the meaning of a familiar word used to denote a novel notion; on the contrary, it aims to catch hold of the actual meaning of an old notion. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 01) | |
A reaction: Tarski refers back to Aristotle for an account of the 'old notion'. To many the definition of Tarski looks very weird, so it is important to see that he is trying to capture the original concept. |
19177 | A definition of truth should be materially adequate and formally correct [Tarski] |
Full Idea: The main problem of the notion of truth is to give a satisfactory definition which is materially adequate and formally correct. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 01) | |
A reaction: That is, I take it, that it covers all cases of being true and failing to be true, and it fits in with the logic. The logic is explicitly classical logic, and he is not aiming to give the 'nature' or natural language understanding of the concept. |
19186 | A rigorous definition of truth is only possible in an exactly specified language [Tarski] |
Full Idea: The problem of the definition of truth obtains a precise meaning and can be solved in a rigorous way only for those languages whose structure has been exactly specified. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 06) | |
A reaction: Taski has just stated how to exactly specify the structure of a language. He says definition can only be vague and approximate for natural languages. (The usual criticism of the correspondence theory is its vagueness). |
19194 | We may eventually need to split the word 'true' into several less ambiguous terms [Tarski] |
Full Idea: A time may come when we find ourselves confronted with several incompatible, but equally clear and precise, conceptions of truth. It will then become necessary to abandon the ambiguous usage of the word 'true', and introduce several terms instead. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 14) | |
A reaction: There may be a whiff of the pragmatic attitude to truth here, though that view is not necessarily pluralist. Analytic philosophy needs much more splitting of difficult terms into several more focused terms. |
19196 | Scheme (T) is not a definition of truth [Tarski] |
Full Idea: It is a mistake to regard scheme (T) as a definition of truth. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 15) | |
A reaction: The point is, I take it, that the definition is the multitude of sentences which are generated by the schema, not the schema itself. |
19180 | It is convenient to attach 'true' to sentences, and hence the language must be specified [Tarski] |
Full Idea: For several reasons it appears most convenient to apply the term 'true' to sentences, and we shall follow this course. Consequently, we must always relate the notion of truth, like that of a sentence, to a specific language. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 02) | |
A reaction: Personally I take truth to attach to propositions, since sentences are ambiguous. In Idea 17308 the one sentence expresses three different truths (in my opinion), even though a single sentence (given in the object language) specifies it. |
19181 | In the classical concept of truth, 'snow is white' is true if snow is white [Tarski] |
Full Idea: If we base ourselves on the classical conception of truth, we shall say that the sentence 'snow is white' is true if snow is white, and it is false if snow is not white. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 04) | |
A reaction: I had not realised, prior to his, how closely Tarski is sticking to Aristotle's famous formulation of truth. The point is that you can only specify 'what is' using a language. Putting 'true' in the metalanguage gives specific content to Aristotle. |
19183 | Each interpreted T-sentence is a partial definition of truth; the whole definition is their conjunction [Tarski] |
Full Idea: In 'X is true iff p' if we replace X by the name of a sentence and p by a particular sentence this can be considered a partial definition of truth. The whole definition has to be ...a logical conjunction of all these partial definitions. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 04) | |
A reaction: This seems an unprecedented and odd way to define something. Define 'red' by '"This tomato is red" iff this tomato is red', etc? Define 'stone' by collecting together all the stones? The complex T-sentences are infinite in number. |
19182 | Use 'true' so that all T-sentences can be asserted, and the definition will then be 'adequate' [Tarski] |
Full Idea: We wish to use the term 'true' in such a way that all the equivalences of the form (T) [i.e. X is true iff p] can be asserted, and we shall call a definition of truth 'adequate' if all these equivalences follow from it. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 04) | |
A reaction: The interpretation of Tarski's theory is difficult. From this I'm thinking that 'true' is simply being defined as 'assertible'. This is the status of each line in a logical proof, if there is a semantic dimension to the proof (and not mere syntax). |
19198 | We don't give conditions for asserting 'snow is white'; just that assertion implies 'snow is white' is true [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Semantic truth implies nothing regarding the conditions under which 'snow is white' can be asserted. It implies only that, whenever we assert or reject this sentence, we must be ready to assert or reject the correlated sentence '"snow is white" is true'. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 18) | |
A reaction: This appears to identify truth with assertibility, which is pretty much what modern pragmatists say. How do you distinguish 'genuine' assertion from rhetorical, teasing or lying assertions? Genuine assertion implies truth? Hm. |
19184 | The best truth definition involves other semantic notions, like satisfaction (relating terms and objects) [Tarski] |
Full Idea: It turns out that the simplest and most natural way of obtaining an exact definition of truth is one which involves the use of other semantic notions, e.g. the notion of satisfaction (...which expresses relations between expressions and objects). | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 05) | |
A reaction: While the T-sentences appear to be 'minimal' and 'deflationary', it seems important to remember that 'satisfaction', which is basic to his theory, is a very robust notion. He actually mentions 'objects'. But see Idea 19185. |
19191 | Specify satisfaction for simple sentences, then compounds; true sentences are satisfied by all objects [Tarski] |
Full Idea: To define satisfaction we indicate which objects satisfy the simplest sentential functions, then state the conditions for compound functions. This applies automatically to sentences (with no free variables) so a true sentence is satisfied by all objects. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 11) | |
A reaction: I presume nothing in the domain of objects can conflict with a sentence that has been satisfied by some of them, so 'all' the objects satisfy the sentence. Tarski doesn't use the word 'domain'. Basic satisfaction seems to be stipulated. |
19188 | We can't use a semantically closed language, or ditch our logic, so a meta-language is needed [Tarski] |
Full Idea: In a 'semantically closed' language all sentences which determine the adequate usage of 'true' can be asserted in the language. ...We can't change our logic, so we reject such languages. ...So must use two different languages to discuss truth. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 08-09) | |
A reaction: This section explains why a meta-language is required. It rests entirely on the existence of the Liar paradox is a semantically closed language. |
19189 | The metalanguage must contain the object language, logic, and defined semantics [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Every sentence which occurs in the object language must also occur in the metalanguage, or can be translated into the metalanguage. There must also be logical terms, ...and semantic terms can only be introduced in the metalanguage by definition. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 09) | |
A reaction: He suggest that if the languages are 'typed', the meta-languag, to be 'richer', must contain variables of a higher logica type. Does this mean second-order logic? |
10824 | If listing equivalences is a reduction of truth, witchcraft is just a list of witch-victim pairs [Field,H on Tarski] |
Full Idea: By similar standards of reduction to Tarski's, one might prove witchcraft compatible with physicalism, as long as witches cast only a finite number of spells. We merely list witch-and-victim pairs, with no mention of the terms of witchcraft theory. | |
From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 04) by Hartry Field - Tarski's Theory of Truth §4 |
19190 | We need an undefined term 'true' in the meta-language, specified by axioms [Tarski] |
Full Idea: We have to include the term 'true', or some other semantic term, in the list of undefined terms of the meta-language, and to express fundamental properties of the notion of truth in a series of axioms. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 10) | |
A reaction: It sounds as if Tarski semantic theory gives truth for the object language, but then an axiomatic theory of truth is also needed for the metalanguage. Halbch and Horsten seem to want an axiomatic theory in the object language. |
19197 | Truth can't be eliminated from universal claims, or from particular unspecified claims [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Truth can't be eliminated from universal statements saying all sentences of a certain type are true, or from the proof that 'all consequences of true sentences are true'. It is also needed if we can't name the sentence ('Plato's first sentence is true'). | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 16) | |
A reaction: This points to the deflationary view of truth, if its only role is in talking about other sentences in this way. Tarski gives the standard reason for rejecting the Redundancy view. |
19185 | Semantics is a very modest discipline which solves no real problems [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Semantics as it is conceived in this paper is a sober and modest discipline which has no pretensions to being a universal patent-medicine for all the ills and diseases of mankind, whether imaginary or real. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 05) | |
A reaction: Written in 1944. This remark encourages the minimal or deflationary interpretation of his theory of truth, but see the robust use of 'satisfaction' in Idea 19184. |
19195 | Truth tables give prior conditions for logic, but are outside the system, and not definitions [Tarski] |
Full Idea: Logical sentences are often assigned preliminary conditions under which they are true or false (often given as truth tables). However, these are outside the system of logic, and should not be regarded as definitions of the terms involved. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 15) | |
A reaction: Hence, presumably, the connectives are primitives (with no nature or meaning), and the truth tables are axioms for their use? This opinion of Tarski's may have helped shift the preference towards natural deduction introduction and elimination rules. |
8195 | Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett] |
Full Idea: I once wrote that there are three linguistic devices that make it possible for us to frame undecidable statements: quantification over infinity totalities, as expressed by word such as 'never'; the subjunctive conditional form; and the past tense. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
A reaction: Dummett now repudiates the third one. Statements containing vague concepts also appear to be undecidable. Personally I have no problems with deciding (to a fair extent) about 'never x', and 'if x were true', and 'it was x'. |
19192 | The truth definition proves semantic contradiction and excluded middle laws (not the logic laws) [Tarski] |
Full Idea: With our definition of truth we can prove the laws of contradiction and excluded middle. These semantic laws should not be identified with the related logical laws, which belong to the sentential calculus, and do not involve 'true' at all. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 12) | |
A reaction: Very illuminating. I wish modern thinkers could be so clear about this matter. The logic contains 'P or not-P'. The semantics contains 'P is either true or false'. Critics say Tarski has presupposed 'classical' logic. |
8525 | Relations need terms, so they must be second-order entities based on first-order tropes [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Because there cannot be relations without terms, in a meta-physic that makes first-order tropes the terms of all relations, relational tropes must belong to a second, derivative order. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §8) | |
A reaction: The admission that there could be a 'derivative order' may lead to trouble for trope theory. Ostrich Nominalists could say that properties themselves are derivative second-order abstractions from indivisible particulars. Russell makes them first-order. |
19187 | The Liar makes us assert a false sentence, so it must be taken seriously [Tarski] |
Full Idea: In my judgement, it would be quite wrong and dangerous from the point of view of scientific progress to depreciate the importance of nhtinomies like the Liar Paradox, and treat them as jokes. The fact is we have been compelled to assert a false sentence. | |
From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 07) | |
A reaction: This is the heartfelt cry of the perfectionist, who wants everything under control. It was the dream of the age of Frege to Hilbert, which gradually eroded after Gödel's Incompleteness proof. Short ordinary folk panic about the Liar? |
8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
Full Idea: There is surely no number n such that "n grains of sand do not make a heap, although n+1 grains of sand do" is true. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
A reaction: It might be argued that there is such a number, but no human being is capable of determing it. Might God know the value of n? On the whole Dummett's view seems the most plausible. |
8190 | Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett] |
Full Idea: The intuitionist account of the meaning of mathematical statements does not employ the notion of a statement's being true, but only that of something's being a proof of the statement. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
A reaction: I remain unconvinced that anyone could give an account of proof that didn't discreetly employ the notion of truth. What are we to make of "we suspect this is true, but no one knows how to prove it?" (e.g. Goldbach's Conjecture). |
8198 | A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett] |
Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events. |
8518 | Events are trope-sequences, in which tropes replace one another [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Events are widely acknowledged to be particulars, but they are plainly not ordinary concrete particulars. They are best viewed as trope-sequences, in which one condition gives way to another. They are changes in which tropes replace one another. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §3) | |
A reaction: If nothing exists except bundles of tropes, it is worth asking WHY one trope would replace another. Some tropes are active (i.e. they are best described as 'powers'). |
8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past? |
8513 | Two red cloths are separate instances of redness, because you can dye one of them blue [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: If we have two cloths of the very same shade of redness, we can show there are two cloths by burning one and leaving the other unaffected; we show there are two cases of redness in the same way: dye one blue, leaving the other unaffected. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §1) | |
A reaction: This has to be one of the basic facts of the problem accepted by everyone. If you dye half of one of the pieces, was the original red therefore one instance or two? Has it become two? How many red tropes are there in a red cloth? |
8514 | Red could only recur in a variety of objects if it was many, which makes them particulars [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: If there are a varied group of red objects, the only element that recurs is the colour. But it must be the colour as a particular (a 'trope') that is involved in the recurrence, for only particulars can be many in the way required for recurrence. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §1) | |
A reaction: This claim seems to depend on the presupposition that rednesses are countable things, but it is tricky trying to count the number of blue tropes in the sky. |
8522 | Tropes solve the Companionship Difficulty, since the resemblance is only between abstract particulars [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The 'companionship difficulty' cannot arise if the members of the resemblance class are tropes rather than whole concrete particulars. The instances of having a heart, as abstract particulars, are quite different from instances of having a kidney. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §6) | |
A reaction: The companionship difficulty seems worst if you base your account of properties just on being members of a class. Any talk of resemblance eventually has to talk about 'respects' of resemblance. Is a trope a respect? Is a mode an object? |
8523 | Tropes solve the Imperfect Community problem, as they can only resemble in one respect [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The 'problem of imperfect community' cannot arise where our resemblance sets are sets of tropes. Tropes, by their very nature and mode of differentiation can only resemble in one respect. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §6) | |
A reaction: You arrive at very different accounts of what resemblance means according to how you express the problem verbally. We can only find a solution through thinking which transcends language. Heresy! |
8524 | Trope theory makes space central to reality, as tropes must have a shape and size [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The metaphysics of abstract particulars gives a central place to space, or space-time, as the frame of the world. ...Tropes are, of their essence, regional, which carries with it the essential presence of shape and size in any trope occurrence. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §7) | |
A reaction: Trope theory has a problem with Aristotle's example (Idea 557) of what happens when white is mixed with white. Do two tropes become one trope if you paint on a second coat of white? How can particulars merge? How can abstractions merge? |
8521 | Nominalism has the problem that without humans nothing would resemble anything else [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The objection to nominalism is its consequence that if there were no human race (or other living things), nothing would be like anything else. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §6) | |
A reaction: Anti-realists will be unflustered by this difficulty. Personally it strikes me as obvious that some aspects of resemblance are part of reality which we did not contribute. This I take to be a contingent fact, founded on the existence of natural kinds. |
8515 | Tropes are basic particulars, so concrete particulars are collections of co-located tropes [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: If tropes are basic particulars, then concrete particulars count as dependent realities. They are collections of co-located tropes, depending on these tropes as a fleet does upon its component ships. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §2) | |
A reaction: If I sail my yacht through a fleet, do I become part of it? Presumably trope theory could avoid a bundle view of objects. A bare substratum could be a magnet which attracts tropes. |
8519 | Bundles must be unique, so the Identity of Indiscernibles is a necessity - which it isn't! [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Each individual is distinct from each other individual, so the bundle account of objects requires each bundle to be different from every other bundle. So the Identity of Indiscernibles must be a necessary truth, which, unfortunately, it is not. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §5) | |
A reaction: Clearly the Identity of Indiscernibles is not a necessary truth (consider just two identical spheres). Location and time must enter into it. Could we not add a further individuation requirement to the necessary existence of a bundle? (Quinton) |
4033 | Two pure spheres in non-absolute space are identical but indiscernible [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The Identity of Indiscernibles is not a necessary truth. It fails in possible worlds where there are two identical spheres in a non-absolute space, or worlds without beginning or end where events are exactly cyclically repeated. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §5) | |
A reaction: The principle was always very suspect, and these seem nice counterexamples. As so often, epistemology and ontology had become muddled. |
8199 | The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett] |
Full Idea: The existence of a universe from which sentience was permanently absent is an unintelligible fantasy. What exists is what can be known to exist. What is true is what can be known to be true. Reality is what can be experienced and known. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense. The fact that we cannot think about a universe without introducing a viewpoint does not mean that we cannot 'intellectually imagine' its existence devoid of viewpoints. Nothing could ever experience a star's interior. |
8512 | Abstractions come before the mind by concentrating on a part of what is presented [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: An item is abstract if it is got before the mind by an act of abstraction, that is, by concentrating attention on some, but not all, of what is presented. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §1) | |
A reaction: I think this point is incredibly important. Pure Fregean semantics tries to leave out the psychological component, and yet all the problems in semantics concern various sorts of abstraction. Imagination is the focus of the whole operation. |
8193 | Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett] |
Full Idea: Verification is not an individual but a collective activity. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: This generates problems. Are deceased members of the community included? (Yes, says Dummett). If someone speaks to angels (Blake!), do they get included? Is a majority necessary? What of weird loners? Etc. |
8189 | Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett] |
Full Idea: To demonstrate the necessity of a truth-conditional theory of meaning, a proponent of such a theory must argue that use cannot be described without appeal to the conditions for the truth of statements. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Unlike Dummett, I find that argument rather appealing. How do you decide the possible or appropriate use for a piece of language, if you don't already know what it means. Basing it all on social conventions means it could be meaningless ritual. |
8191 | The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett] |
Full Idea: It is not enough for the truth-condition theorist to argue that we need the concept of truth: he must show that we should have the same conception of truth that he has. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
A reaction: Davidson invites us to accept Tarski's account of truth. It invites the question of what the theory would be like with a very robust correspondence account of truth, or a flabby rather subjective coherence view, or the worst sort of pragmatic view. |
8517 | Causal conditions are particular abstract instances of properties, which makes them tropes [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: The conditions in causal statements are usually particular cases of properties. A collapse results from the weakness of this cable (not any other). This is specific to a time and place; it is an abstract particular. It is, in short, a trope. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §3) | |
A reaction: The fan of universals could counter this by saying that the collapse results from this unique combination of universals. Resemblance nominalist can equally build an account on the coincidence of certain types of concrete particulars. |
8516 | Davidson can't explain causation entirely by events, because conditions are also involved [Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Not all singular causal statements are of Davidson's event-event type. Many involve conditions, so there are condition-event (weakness/collapse), event-condition (explosion/movement), and condition-condition (hot/warming) causal connections. | |
From: Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §3) | |
A reaction: Fans of Davidson need to reduce conditions to events. The problem of individuation keeps raising its head. Davidson makes it depend on description. Kim looks good, because events, and presumably conditions, reduce to something small and precise. |
8197 | Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett] |
Full Idea: Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'. |
8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
Full Idea: The idea that only the present is real cannot be sustained. St Augustine pointed out that the present has no duration; it is a mere boundary between past and future, and dependent on them. It also denies truth-value to statements about past or future. | |
From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: To defend Presentism, I suspect that one must focus entirely on the activities of consciousness and short-term memory. All truths, of past or future, must refer totally to such mental events. But what could an event be if there is no enduring time? |