Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Truth'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth

10835	True sentences says the appropriate descriptive thing on the appropriate demonstrative occasion [Austin,JL]
	Full Idea: A sentence is said to be true when the historic state of affairs to which it is correlated by the demonstrative conventions (the one to which it 'refers') is of a type with which the sentence used in making it is correlated by the descriptive conventions.
	From: J.L. Austin (Truth [1950], §3)
	A reaction: This is correspondence by convention rather than correspondence by mapping. Personally I prefer some sort of mapping account, despite all the difficulty and vagueness of specifying what maps onto what.

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique

10836	Correspondence theorists shouldn't think that a country has just one accurate map [Austin,JL]
	Full Idea: Correspondence theorists too often talk as one would who held that every map is either accurate or inaccurate; that every country can have but one accurate map.
	From: J.L. Austin (Truth [1950], n 24)
	A reaction: A well-made point, for those who intuitively hang on to correspondence as not only good common sense, but also some sort of salvation for a realist view of the world which might give us certainty in epistemology.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 6. Constitution of an Object

6019	If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus]
	Full Idea: If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist.
	From: Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11
	A reaction: Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance?

23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 2. Hedonism

5954	All inventions of the mind aim at pleasure, and those that don't are worthless [Metrodorus of Lamp., by Plutarch]
	Full Idea: Metrodorus says that all the wonderful, ingenious and brilliant inventions of the mind have been contrived for the sake of pleasure of the flesh or for the sake of looking forward to it, and any accomplishment not leading to this end is worthless.
	From: report of Metrodorus (Lamp) (fragments/reports [c.291 BCE], Fr 6) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1125
	A reaction: It is very hard to think of counterexamples! Would anyone bother to work out the theorems of number theory if they didn't enjoy doing it? Would any sensible person make great sacrifices if they didn't think that increased happiness would result?