Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'General Facts,Phys Necessity, and Metaph of Time', 'Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification' and 'fragments/reports'

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


3 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 3. Truthmaker Maximalism
The truth-maker principle is that every truth has a sufficient truth-maker [Forrest]
     Full Idea: Item x is said to be a sufficient truth-maker for truth-bearer p just in case necessarily if x exists then p is true. ...Every truth has a sufficient truth-maker. Hence, I take it, the sum of all sufficient truth-makers is a universal truth-maker.
     From: Peter Forrest (General Facts,Phys Necessity, and Metaph of Time [2006], 1)
     A reaction: Note that it is not 'necessary', because something else might make p true instead.
14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / b. Raven paradox
Read 'all ravens are black' as about ravens, not as about an implication [Belnap]
     Full Idea: 'All ravens are black' might profitably be read as saying not that being a raven 'implies' being black, but rather something more like 'Consider the ravens: each one is black'.
     From: Nuel D. Belnap (Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification [1970], p.7), quoted by Stephen Yablo - Aboutness 04.5
     A reaction: Belnap is more interested in the logic than in the paradox of confirmation, since he evidently thinks that universal generalisations should not be read as implications. I like Belnap's suggestion.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god."
     From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5