18 ideas
| 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'. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 5040 | Necessary truths can be analysed into original truths; contingent truths are infinitely analysable [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Derivative truths are of two sorts: some are analysed into original truths, others admit of an infinite process of analysis. The former are necessary, the latter are contingent. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.108) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing proposal. Hume would presumably see contingent truths as being analysed until you reach 'impressions'. Analysis of necessary truths soon comes to the blinding light of what is obvious, but analysis of contingency never gets there. |
| 13159 | Only God sees contingent truths a priori [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Only God sees contingent truths a priori. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.95) | |
| A reaction: This because everything is interconnected, and the whole picture must be seen to understand a contingent truth. |
| 5039 | If non-existents are possible, their existence would replace what now exists, which cannot therefore be necessary [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If certain possibles never exist, then existing things are not always necessary; otherwise it would be impossible for other things to exist instead of them, and so all things that never exist would be impossible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.106) | |
| A reaction: A neat argument, though it is not self-evident that when possibles came into existence they would have to replace what is already there. Can't something be possible, but only in another world, because this one is already booked? |
| 19702 | We can't normally say that we know something 'but it might be false' [Dougherty] |
| Full Idea: It will ordinarily be conversationally inappropriate to say 'I know that p, but p might be false' even if it is true, since this would mislead an interlocutor to infer that that possibility was an epistemically significant one. | |
| From: Trent Dougherty (Fallibilism [2011], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply hypocrisy when a fallibilist philosopher claims (in non-philosophical company) to know something. Fair enough. Philosophers are in a permanent state of hypocrisy about what they are really thinking. That's the fun of it. |
| 19701 | Fallibilism is consistent with dogmatism or scepticism, and is not alternative to them [Dougherty] |
| Full Idea: There has been a tendency to treat fallibilism as an alternative to either dogmatism or scepticism. ...But it is much better to think of fallibilism as consistent with either dogmatism or skepticism. | |
| From: Trent Dougherty (Fallibilism [2011], 'Closure') | |
| A reaction: It seems perfectly reasonably to describe oneself as a 'fallibilist dogmatist' (perhaps from the Pope?), or a 'fallibilist sceptic' (perhaps from Peter Unger?), so this idea sounds correct. |
| 19700 | It is best to see the fallibility in the reasons, rather than in the agents or the knowledge [Dougherty] |
| Full Idea: It seems best to take fallible reasons as the basic notion of fallibilism. So fallible knowers are agents who know what they know on the basis of fallible reasons. Fallible knowledge will be knowledge on basis of fallible reasons. | |
| From: Trent Dougherty (Fallibilism [2011], 'Cognates') | |
| A reaction: This is because an ideal knower would be compelled by the evidence, so if fallibilism is universal it must reside in the evidence and not in the knower (bottom p.131). |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 5041 | God does everything in a perfect way, and never acts contrary to reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We can regard it as certain that everything is done by God in the most perfect way, that he does nothing which is contrary to reason. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.109) | |
| A reaction: The famous optimism which Voltaire laughed at in 'Candide'. I can't help thinking that there is an ideal of God being ABOVE reason. We reason, and give reasons, because we are unsure, and life is a struggle. The highest ideal is mystically self-evident. |