13 ideas
21959 | Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. | |
From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too. |
19079 | For idealists reality is like a collection of beliefs, so truths and truthmakers are not distinct [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: Idealists do not believe that there is an ontological distinction between beliefs and what makes beliefs true. From their perspective, reality is something like a collection of beliefs. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §2.1) | |
A reaction: This doesn't seem to me to wholly reject truthmakers, since beliefs can still be truthmakers for one another. This is something like Davidson's view, that only beliefs can justify other beliefs. |
19076 | Coherence theories differ over the coherence relation, and over the set of proposition with which to cohere [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: Coherence theories of truth differ on their accounts of the coherence relation, and on their accounts of the set (or sets) of propositions with which true propositions occur (the 'specified set'). | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1) | |
A reaction: Coherence is clearly more than consistency or mutual entailment, and I like to invoke explanation. The set has to be large, or the theory is absurd (as two absurdities can 'cohere'). So very large, or very very large, or maximally large? |
19077 | Two propositions could be consistent with your set, but inconsistent with one another [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: It is unsatisfactory for the coherence relation to be consistency, because two propositions could be consistent with a 'specified set', and yet be inconsistent with each other. That would imply they are both true, which is impossible. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced by this. You first accept P because it is consistent with the set; then Q turns up, which is consistent with everything in the set except P. So you have to choose between them, and might eject P. Your set was too small. |
19078 | Coherence with actual beliefs, or our best beliefs, or ultimate ideal beliefs? [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: One extreme for the specified set is the largest consistent set of propositions currently believed by actual people. A moderate position makes it the limit of people's enquiries. The other extreme is what would be believed by an omniscient being. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §1) | |
A reaction: One not considered is the set of propositions believed by each individual person. Thoroughgoing relativists might well embrace that one. Peirce and Putnam liked the moderate one. I'm taken with the last one, since truth is an ideal, not a phenomenon. |
19084 | Coherent truth is not with an arbitrary set of beliefs, but with a set which people actually do believe [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: It must be remembered that coherentists do not believe that the truth of a proposition consists in coherence with an arbitrarily chosen set of propositions; the coherence is with a set of beliefs, or a set of propositions held to be true. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §3.1) | |
A reaction: This is a very good response to critics who cite bizarre sets of beliefs which happen to have internal coherence. You have to ask why they are not actually believed, and the answer must be that the coherence is not extensive enough. |
19083 | How do you identify the best coherence set; and aren't there truths which don't cohere? [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: The two main objections to the coherence theory of truth are that there is no way to identify the 'specified set' of propositions without contradiction, ...and that some propositions are true which cohere with no set of beliefs. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §3.1/2) | |
A reaction: The point of the first is that you need a prior knowledge of truth to say which of two sets is the better one. The second one is thinking of long-lost tiny details from the past, which seem to be true without evidence. A huge set might beat the first one. |
19075 | Deflationary theories reject analysis of truth in terms of truth-conditions [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: Unlike deflationary theories, the coherence and correspondence theories both hold that truth is a property of propositions that can be analyzed in terms of the sorts of truth-conditions propositions have, and the relation propositions stand in to them. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is presumably because deflationary theories reject the external relations of a proposition as a feature of its truth. This evidently leaves them in need of a theory of meaning, which may be fairly minimal. Horwich would be an example. |
21958 | Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW] |
Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality. | |
From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507) |
19074 | Are truth-condtions other propositions (coherence) or features of the world (correspondence)? [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: For the coherence theory of truth, the truth conditions of propositions consist in other propositions. The correspondence theory, in contrast, states that the truth conditions of propositions are ... objective features of the world. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], Intro) | |
A reaction: It is obviously rather important for your truth-conditions theory of meaning that you are clear about your theory of truth. A correspondence theory is evidently taken for granted, even in possible worlds versions. |
19082 | Coherence truth suggests truth-condtions are assertion-conditions, which need knowledge of justification [Young,JO] |
Full Idea: Coherence theorists can argue that the truth conditions of a proposition are those under which speakers tend to assert it, ...and that speakers can only make a practice of asserting a proposition under conditions they can recognise as justifying it. | |
From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], §2.2) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This sounds rather verificationist, and hence wrong, since if you then asserted anything for which you didn't know the justification, that would remove its truth, and thus make it meaningless. |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |