Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'poems', 'Philosophical Fragments' and 'Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge'

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

5 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 1. For Truthmakers
18487 We want to know what makes sentences true, rather than defining 'true' [McFetridge]
     Full Idea: The generalisation 'What makes a (any) sentence true?' is not a request for definitions of 'true' (the concept), but rather requests for (partial) explanations of why certain particular sentences are true.
     From: Ian McFetridge (Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge [1977], II)
     A reaction: McFetridge is responding to the shortcomings of Tarski's account of truth. The mystery seems to be why some of our representations of the world are 'successful', and others are not.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence
16007 I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40)
     A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / a. Facts
18488 We normally explain natural events by citing further facts [McFetridge]
     Full Idea: If one were asked 'What makes salt soluble in water?', the most natural answer would be something of the style 'The fact that it has such-and-such structure'.
     From: Ian McFetridge (Truth, Correspondence, Explanation and Knowledge [1977], II)
     A reaction: Personally I would want to talk about its 'powers' (dispositional properties), rather than its 'structure' (categorical properties). This defends facts, but you could easily paraphrase 'fact' out of this reply (as McFetridge realised).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
16013 Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Can the necessary come into existence? That is a change, and everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary. The necessary already 'is'.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.74)
     A reaction: [SY]
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.