Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Truth-makers' and 'Reasons for Actions and Desires'

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8 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
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.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
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']
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)
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)
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)
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
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)
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
I don't understand the idea of a reason for acting, but it is probably the agent's interests or desires [Foot]
     Full Idea: I am sure I do not understand the idea of a reason for acting, and I wonder whether anyone else does either. I incline to the view that all such reasons depend either on the agent's interests (meaning here what is in his interest) or else on his desires.
     From: Philippa Foot (Reasons for Actions and Desires [1972], p.156 Post)
     A reaction: It seems common to assume that a reason for an action must be something rational, but it makes sense to say that the reason for someone's action was an irrational whim. Is the reason for an action just the cause of the action?
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').