Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'General Facts,Phys Necessity, and Metaph of Time', 'Meaning and Necessity' and 'Rationality and Goodness'

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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.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
     Full Idea: Carnap's proposal is to understand the category of intensions appropriate to sentences (his 'propositions') as sets of possible worlds. The intension of the sentence is taken as the set of all possible worlds in which the sentence is true.
     From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Meaning and Necessity [1947]) by David Kaplan - Transworld Heir Lines p.90
     A reaction: [reference?] This extension of the truth-conditions view of meaning strikes me as being very attractive. Except that whole worlds hardly seem to be relevant to my remark about how lunch might have been improved.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / d. Virtue theory critique
Good and bad are a matter of actions, not of internal dispositions [Foot]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers insist that dispositions, motives and other 'internal' elements are the primary determinants of moral goodness and badness. I have never been a 'virtue ethicist' is this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.
     From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Goodness [2004], p.2), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 4 'Virtue'
     A reaction: [She mentions Hursthouse, Slote, Swanton] I'm quite struck by this. Aristotle insists that morality concerns actions. It doesn't seem that a person could be a saint by having wonderful dispositions, but doing nothing. Paraplegics?