Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'poems', 'On the Source of Necessity' and 'Anselm and Actuality'

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5 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / g. System S4
15102 S4 says there must be some necessary truths (the actual ones, of which there is at least one) [Cameron]
     Full Idea: S4 says there must be some necessary truths, because the actual necessary truths must be necessary. (It says if there are some actual necessary truths then that is so - but the S4 axiom is an actual necessary truth, if true).
     From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 2)
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
16456 For modality Lewis rejected boxes and diamonds, preferring worlds, and an index for the actual one [Lewis, by Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: Lewis was suspicious of boxes and diamonds as regimenting ordinary modal thought, …preferring a first-order extensional theory including possible worlds in its domain and an indexical singular term for the actual world.
     From: report of David Lewis (Anselm and Actuality [1970]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 3.8
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
15103 Blackburn fails to show that the necessary cannot be grounded in the contingent [Cameron]
     Full Idea: I conclude that Blackburn has not shown that any grounding of the necessary in the contingent (the Contingency Horn of his dilemma) is doomed to failure.
     From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 2)
     A reaction: [You must read the article for details of Cameron's argument!] He goes on to also reject the Necessity Horn (that there is a regress if necessities must rely on necessities).
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
6017 Nomos is king [Pindar]
     Full Idea: Nomos is king.
     From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture
     A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / f. Eternalism
15104 The 'moving spotlight' theory makes one time privileged, while all times are on a par ontologically [Cameron]
     Full Idea: What seems so wrong about the 'moving spotlight' theory is that here one time is privileged, but all the times are on a par ontologically.
     From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 4)
     A reaction: The whole thing is baffling, but this looks like a good point. All our intuitions make presentism (there's only the present) look like a better theory than the moving spotlight (that the present is just 'special').