23 ideas
18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
Full Idea: It is claimed that truth-makers explain universals, or ontological commitment, or commitment to realism, or to the correspondence theory of truth, or to falsify behaviourism or phenomenalism. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This expands the view that truth-making is based on its explanatory power, rather than on its intuitive correctness. I take the theory to presuppose realism. I don't believe in universals. It marginalises correspondence. Commitment is good! |
18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
Full Idea: The two strategies for justifying the truth-maker principle are that it has an explanatory role (for certain philosophical problems and theses), or that it captures the best philosophical intuition of the situation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 04) | |
A reaction: I would go for 'intuitive', but not in the sense of a pure intuition, but with 'intuitive' as a shorthand for overall coherence. To me the appeal of truth-maker is its place in a naturalistic view of reality. I love explanation, but not here. |
18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
Full Idea: The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-many. In the latter case, different truths may have the same truth-maker, and one truth may have different truth-makers. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: 'There is at least one cat' obviously has many possible truth-makers. Many statements will be made true by the mere existence of a particular cat (such as 'there is an animal in the room' and 'there is a cat in the room'). Many-many wins? |
18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The main full-blooded truth-maker principle is that x is true iff there is a y that is its truth-maker. This implies the principles that if x is true x has a truth-maker, and the principle that if x has a truth-maker then x is true. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 03) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Rami calls the second principle 'maximalism' and the third principle 'purism'. To reject maximalism is to hold a more restricted version of truth-makers. That is, the claim is that lots of truths have truth-makers. |
18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists regard the necessitation of a truth by a truth-maker as a necessary condition of truth-making. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 07) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that reality is crammed full of potential truth-makers, but not crammed full of truths. If there is no thinking in the universe, then there are no truths. If that is false, then what sort of weird beast is a 'truth'? |
18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
Full Idea: Truthmaker anti-monism holds the view that there are truth-makers of different kinds. For example, objects, facts, tropes or events can all be regarded as truthmakers. Objects seem right for existential truths but not others, so anti-monism seems best. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: Presumably we need to identify the different types of truth (analytic, synthetic, general, particular...), and only then ask what truth-makers there are for the different types. To presuppose one type of truthmaker would be crazy. |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: As truth-makers, some theorists only accept states of affairs, some only accept individuals and states of affairs, and some only accept individuals and particular properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 06) | |
A reaction: It seems to me rash to opt for one of these. Truths come in wide-ranging and subtly different types, and the truth-makers probably have a similar range. Any one of these theories will almost certainly quickly succumb to a counterexample. |
18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The thesis that 'truth supervenes on being' (with or without possible worlds) offers only a necessary condition for the truth of contingent propositions, whereas the standard truth-maker theory offers necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: The point, I suppose, is that the change in being might be irrelevant to the proposition in question, so any old change in being will not ensure a change in the truth of the proposition. Again we ask - but what is this truth about? |
18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
Full Idea: The important advantage of 'truth supervenes on being' is that it can be applied to positive and negative contingent truths, without postulating any entities that are responsible for the truth of negative truths. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09) | |
A reaction: [For this reason, Lewis favours a possible worlds version of the theory] I fear that it solves that problem by making the truth-maker theory so broad-brush that it not longer says very much, apart from committing it to naturalism. |
18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
Full Idea: The 'entailment principle' for truth-makers says that if x is a truth-maker for y, and y entails z, then x is a truth-maker for z. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 08) | |
A reaction: I think the correct locution is that 'x is a potential truth-maker for z' (should anyone every formulate z, which in most cases they never will, since the entailments of y are probably infinite). Merricks would ask 'but are y and z about the same thing?'. |
18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
Full Idea: Most truth-maker theorists are internalists about the truth-maker relation. ...But the correspondence theory makes truth an external relation to some portion of reality. So a truth-maker internalist should not claim to be a narrow correspondence theorist. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [wording rearranged] Like many of Rami's distinctions in this article, this feels simplistic. Sharp distinctions can only be made using sharp vocabulary, and there isn't much of that around in philosophy! |
18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
Full Idea: One guiding intuition concerning a correspondence theory of truth says that the relation that accounts for the truth of a truth-bearer is some kind of representation relation. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: I unfashionably cling on to some sort of correspondence theory. The paradigm case is of a non-linguistic animal which forms correct or incorrect views about its environment. Truth is a relation, not a property. I see the truth in a bad representation. |
18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
Full Idea: According to the moderate deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 10) | |
A reaction: [He cites Horwich 1998] That is, I presume, that truth is embodied in an infinity of propositions of the form '"p" is true iff p'. |
18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
Full Idea: There are good reasons for the truth-maker theorist to reject the converse Barcan formula. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], note 16) | |
A reaction: In the text (p.15) Rami cites the inference from 'necessarily everything exists' to 'everything exists necessarily'. [See Williamson 1999] |
18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
Full Idea: An internal relation is 'existential' if x and y relate in that way whenever they both exist. An internal relation is 'qualitative' if x and y relate in that way whenever they have certain intrinsic properties. | |
From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 05) | |
A reaction: [compressed - Rami likes to write these things in fashionable quasi-algebra, but I have a strong prejudice in this database for expressing ideas in English; call me old-fashioned] The distinction strikes me as simplistic. I would involve dispositions. |
19419 | Not all of perception is accompanied by consciousness [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I do not think that the Cartesians have ever proved or can prove that every perception is accompanied by consciousness. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.195) | |
A reaction: This idea is very important in Leibniz, because non-conscious or barely conscious thoughts and perceptions explain a huge amount about behaviour, reality and morality. |
19421 | Souls act as if there were no bodies, and bodies act as if there were no souls [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Everything takes place in souls as if there were no body, and everything takes place in bodies as if there were no souls. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.198) | |
A reaction: I don't think I have ever encountered a modern thinker who accepts this view. Leibniz rejected Occasionalism, but his account depends entirely on the role of God, to set up the pre-established harmony. Why would God do that? |
19420 | Death and generation are just transformations of an animal, augmented or diminished [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Death, like generation, is only the transformation of the same animal, which is sometimes augmented and sometimes diminished. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.195) | |
A reaction: Leibniz has a very unusual view of death, since neither minds nor their bodies can ever be wholly destroyed. Death is a kind of shrinking. I suspect that he was wrong about that. |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
19416 | Not all of matter is animated, any more than a pond full of living fish is animated [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It must not be said that each portion of matter is animated, just as we do not say that a pond full of fishes is an animated body, although a fish is. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.190) | |
A reaction: This is a particularly clear picture of the role of monads in matter. Monads are attached to bodies, which are entirely inanimate, but monads suffuse matter and give it its properties, like particularly bubbly champagne. Cf Idea 19422. |
19422 | Every particle of matter contains organic bodies [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: There is no particle of matter which does not contain organic bodies. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.198) | |
A reaction: Cf Idea 19416. There seems to be an interaction problem here (solved, presumably, by pre-established harmony). The organic bodies are there to explain the active behaviour of matter, but the related matter seems intrinsically inert. |
19418 | Mechanics shows that all motion originates in other motion, so there is a Prime Mover [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The maxim that there is no motion which has not its origin in another motion, according to the laws of mechanics, leads us again to the Prime Mover. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.194) | |
A reaction: This is Leibniz's endorsement (uncredited) to Aquinas's First Way. It is hard to see how the laws of mechanics could have anything to say about the origin of movement. And doesn't the law say that the motions of God need a mover? |
19417 | All substances are in harmony, even though separate, so they must have one divine cause [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: My system of Pre-established Harmony furnishes a new proof of God's existence, since it is manifest that the agreement of so many substances, of which the one has no influence upon the other, could only come from a general cause on which they all depend. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.192) | |
A reaction: Adjacent harmony seems self-explanatory, but remote harmony is interesting evidence for God. Hence modern quantum non-locality should make us all wonder whether there is a deeper explanation. |