12 ideas
10911 | Part-whole is the key relation among truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: The most important (ontological) relations holding among truth-makers are the part and whole relations. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) | |
A reaction: Hence Peter Simons goes off and writes the best known book on mereology. Looks very promising to me. |
10906 | Moments (objects which cannot exist alone) may serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: A 'moment' is an existentially dependent or non-self-sufficient object, that is, an object which is of such a nature that it cannot exist alone, ....... and we suggest that moments could serve as truth-makers. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §2) | |
A reaction: [These three writers invented the term 'truth-maker'] |
10909 | Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true, because sentences with more than one truth-maker would then be ambiguous, and 'a' and 'a exists' would have the same designatum. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
10907 | The truth-maker for a sentence may not be unique, or may be a combination, or several separate items [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: A proposition may have a minimal truth-maker which is not unique, or a sentence may be made true by no single truth-maker but only by several jointly, or again only by several separately. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
10912 | Despite negative propositions, truthmakers are not logical complexes, but ordinary experiences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: Because of negative propositions, investigators of truth-makers have said that they are special non-objectual entities with a logical complexity, but we think a theory is possible in which the truth relation is tied to ordinary and scientific experience. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §6) |
10908 | Correspondence has to invoke facts or states of affairs, just to serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
Full Idea: The correspondence theory of truth invokes a special category of non-objectual entities - facts, states of affairs, or whatever - simply to serve as truth-makers. | |
From: Mulligan/Simons/Smith (Truth-makers [1984], §3) |
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'). |
23061 | Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray] |
Full Idea: A free-thinking atheism would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Conc) | |
A reaction: He seems to be referring to 'humanism', which I take to be quite different from atheism. I take it as obvious that simple atheism is entirely neutral on the question of whether we should have 'faith' in humanity (which presumably mean optimism). |
23057 | Gnosticism has a supreme creator God, giving way to a possibly hostile Demiurge [Gray] |
Full Idea: Gnostic traditions envisage a supreme God that created the universe and then withdrew into itself, leaving the world to be ruled by a lesser god, or Demiurge, which might be indifferent or hostile to mankind. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: It doesn't seem to solve any problems, given that the first God is 'supreme', and is therefore responsible for the introduction and actions of the later Demiurge. |
23056 | Judaism only became monotheistic around 550 BCE [Gray] |
Full Idea: It was only sometime around the sixth century BC, during the period when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, that the idea that there is only one God emerged in Jewish religion. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a parallel move among the Greeks to elevate Zeus to special status. |
23055 | Christians introduced the idea that a religion needs a creed [Gray] |
Full Idea: The notion that religions are creeds - lists of propositions or doctrines that everyone must accept or reject - emerged only with Christianity. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: With a creed comes the possibility of heresy. I''m not happy with children being taught to recite something which begins 'I believe…', but which they have never thought about and barely understand. |
23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
Full Idea: Buddhism says nothing of any divine mind and rejects any idea of the soul. The world consists of processes and events. The human sense of self is an illusion; freedom is found in ridding oneself of this illusion. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why shaking off the illusion of a self is a superior state. Freedom to do what? Presumably nothing at all, since there is no self to desire anything. |