Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth'' and 'What is Critique?'

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5 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
To be true a sentence must express a proposition, and not be ambiguous or vague or just expressive [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Sentences or assertions can be derivately called true, if they succeed in expressing determinate propositions. A sentence can be ambiguous or vague or paradoxical or ungrounded or not declarative or a mere expression of feeling.
     From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001], p.276)
     A reaction: Lewis has, of course, a peculiar notion of what a proposition is - it's a set of possible worlds. I, with my more psychological approach, take a proposition to be a particular sort of brain event.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
Truthmakers are about existential grounding, not about truth [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Instances of the truthmaker principle are equivalent to biconditionals not about truth but about the existential grounding of all manner of other things; the flying pigs, or what-have-you.
     From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001])
     A reaction: The question then is what the difference is between 'existential grounding' and 'truth'. There wouldn't seem to be any difference at all if the proposition in question was a simple existential claim.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence
Truthmaker is correspondence, but without the requirement to be one-to-one [Lewis]
     Full Idea: The truthmaker principle seems to be a version of the correspondence theory of truth, but differs mostly in denying that the correspondence of truths to facts must be one-to-one.
     From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001], p.277)
     A reaction: In other words, several different sentences might have exactly the same truthmaker.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
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').
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government
The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
     Full Idea: How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self.
     From: Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9
     A reaction: A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army.