28 ideas
18365 | If truths are just identical with facts, then truths will make themselves true [David] |
Full Idea: According to the identity theory of truth, a proposition is true if and only if it is identical with a fact. ...This leads to the unacceptable claim that every true proposition makes itself true (because it is identical to its fact). | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], n 14) |
18362 | Examples show that truth-making is just non-symmetric, not asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: That 'there is at least one proposition' ...is a case where something makes itself true, which generates a counterexample to the natural assumption that truth-making is asymmetric; truth-making, it seems, is merely non-symmetric. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
18360 | It is assumed that a proposition is necessarily true if its truth-maker exists [David] |
Full Idea: Friends of the truth-maker principle usually hold that the following states a crucial necessary condition on truth-making: if x makes y true, then, necessarily, if x exists then y is true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: My objection is that the proposition y is taken to pre-exist, primly awaiting the facts that will award it 'truth'. An ontology that contains an infinity of propositions, most of which so far lack a truth-value, is incoherent. You can have x, but no y! |
18358 | Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker [David] |
Full Idea: Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker. For example, 'L is happy or L is hungry', and 'L is happy or L is thirsty', which are both made true by the fact that L is happy. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
18355 | What matters is truth-making (not truth-makers) [David] |
Full Idea: The term 'truthmaker' just labels whatever stands in the truth-making relation to a truth. The truth-making relation is crucial. It would have been just as well to refer to the truth-'maker' principle as the truth-'making' principle. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: This is well said. The commitment of this theory is to something which makes each proposition true. There is no initial commitment to any theories about what sorts of things do the job. |
18363 | Correspondence theorists see facts as the only truth-makers [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence theorists are committed to the view that, since truth is correspondence with a fact, only facts can make true propositions true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
18356 | Correspondence is an over-ambitious attempt to explain truth-making [David] |
Full Idea: Truth-maker theory says that the attempt by correspondence to fill in the generic truth-maker principle with something more informative fails. It is too ambitious, offering a whole zoo of funny facts that are not needed. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: A typical funny fact is a disjunctive fact, which makes 'he is hungry or thirsty' true (when it can just be made true by the simple fact that he is thirsty). |
18354 | Correspondence is symmetric, while truth-making is taken to be asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence appears to be a symmetric relation while truth-making appears to be, or is supposed to be, an asymmetric relation. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], Intro) |
18364 | Correspondence theory likes ideal languages, that reveal the structure of propositions [David] |
Full Idea: Correspondence theorists tend to promote ideal languages, ...which is intended to mirror perfectly the structure of the propositions it expresses. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], n 03) |
18359 | One proposition can be made true by many different facts [David] |
Full Idea: One proposition can be made true by many different facts (such as 'there are some happy dogs'). | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
18357 | What makes a disjunction true is simpler than the disjunctive fact it names [David] |
Full Idea: The proposition that 'L is happy or hungry' can be made true by the fact that L is happy. This does not have the same complexity or constituent structure as the proposition it makes true. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
18680 | To avoid misunderstandings supervenience is often expressed negatively: no A-change without B-change [Orsi] |
Full Idea: It is no part of supervenience that 'if p then q' entails 'if not p then not q'. To avoid such misunderstandings, it is common (though not more accurate) to describe supervenience in negative terms: no difference in A without a difference in B. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 5.2) | |
A reaction: [compressed] In other words it is important to avoid the presupposition that the given supervenience is a two-way relation. The paradigm case of supervenience is stalking. |
18361 | A reflexive relation entails that the relation can't be asymmetric [David] |
Full Idea: An asymmetric relation must be irreflexive: any case of aRa will yield a reductio of the assumption that R is asymmetric. | |
From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 4) |
18684 | Rather than requiring an action, a reason may 'entice' us, or be 'eligible', or 'justify' it [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Many have suggested alternative roles or sorts of reasons, which are not mandatory. Dancy says some reasons are 'enticing' rather than peremptory; Raz makes options 'eligible' rather than required; Gert says they justify rather than require action. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 6.4) | |
A reaction: The third option is immediately attractive - but then it would only justify the action because it was a good reason, which would need explaining. 'Enticing' captures the psychology in a nice vague way. |
18685 | Final value is favoured for its own sake, and personal value for someone's sake [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Final value is to be favoured for its own sake; personal value is to be favoured for someone's sake. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 7.2) | |
A reaction: This gives another important dimension for discussions of value. I like the question 'what gives rise to this value?', but we can also ask (given the value) why we should then promote it. Health isn't a final value, and truth isn't a personal value? |
18666 | Value-maker concepts (such as courageous or elegant) simultaneously describe and evaluate [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Examples of value-maker concepts are courageous, honest, cowardly, corrupt, elegant, tacky, melodious, insightful. Employing these concepts normally means both evaluating and describing the thing or person one way or another. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.2) | |
A reaction: The point being that they tell you two things - that this thing has a particular value, and also why it has that value. Since I am flirting with the theory that all values must have 'value-makers' this is very interesting. |
18667 | The '-able' concepts (like enviable) say this thing deserves a particular response [Orsi] |
Full Idea: The '-able' concepts, such as valuable, enviable, contemptible, wear on their sleeve the idea that the thing so evaluated merits or is worth a certain attitude or response (of valuing, envying, despising). | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.2) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 18666. Hence some concepts point to the source of value in the thing, and others point to the source of the value in the normative attitude of the speaker. Interesting. |
18679 | Things are only valuable if something makes it valuable, and we can ask for the reason [Orsi] |
Full Idea: If a certain object is valuable, then something other than its being valuable must make it so. ...One is always in principle entitled to an answer as to why it is good or bad. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 5.2) | |
A reaction: What Orsi calls the 'chemistry' of value. I am inclined to think that this is the key to a philosophical study of value. Without this assumption the values float free, and we drift into idealised waffle. Note that here he only refers to 'objects'. |
18682 | A complex value is not just the sum of the values of the parts [Orsi] |
Full Idea: The whole 'being pleased by cats being tortured' is definitely not better, and is likely worse, than cats being tortured. So its value cannot result from a sum of the intrinsic values of the parts. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 5.3) | |
A reaction: This example is simplistic. It isn't a matter of just adding 'pleased' and 'tortured'. 'Pleased' doesn't have a standalone value. Only a rather gormless utilitarian would think it was always good if someone was pleased. I suspect values don't sum at all. |
18683 | Trichotomy Thesis: comparable values must be better, worse or the same [Orsi] |
Full Idea: It is natural to assume that if we can compare two objects or states of affairs, X and Y, then X is either better than, or worse than, or as good as Y. This has been called the Trichotomy Thesis. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 6.2) | |
A reaction: This is the obvious starting point for a discussion of the difficult question of the extent to which values can be compared. Orsi says even if there was only one value, like pleasure, it might have incommensurable aspects like duration and intensity. |
18686 | The Fitting Attitude view says values are fitting or reasonable, and values are just byproducts [Orsi] |
Full Idea: The main claims of the Fitting Attitude view of value are Reduction: values such are goodness are reduced to fitting attitudes, having reasons, and Normative Redundancy: goodness provides no reasons for attitudes beyond the thing's features. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 8.2) | |
A reaction: Orsi's book is a sustained defence of this claim. I like the Normative Redundancy idea, but I am less persuaded by the Reduction. |
18672 | Values from reasons has the 'wrong kind of reason' problem - admiration arising from fear [Orsi] |
Full Idea: A support for the fittingness account (against the buck-passing reasons account) is the 'wrong kind of reasons' problem. There are many reasons for positive attitudes towards things which are not good. We might admire a demon because he threatens torture. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.4) | |
A reaction: [compressed] I like the Buck-Passing view, but was never going to claim that all reasons for positive attitudes bestow value. I only think that there is no value without a reason |
18677 | A thing may have final value, which is still derived from other values, or from relations [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Many believe that final values can be extrinsic: objects which are valuable for their own sake partly thanks to their relations to other objects. ...This might depend on the value of other things...or an object's relational properties. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 2.3) | |
A reaction: It strikes me that virtually nothing (or even absolutely nothing) has final value in total isolation from other things (Moore's 'isolation test'). Values arise within a tangled network of relations. Your final value is my instrumental value. |
18668 | Truths about value entail normative truths about actions or attitudes [Orsi] |
Full Idea: My guiding assumption is that truths about value, at least, regularly entail normative truths of some sort about actions or attitudes. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Not quite as clear as it sounds. If I say 'the leaf is green' I presume a belief that it is green, which is an attitude. If I say 'shut the door' that implies an action with no value. One view says that values are entirely normative in this way. |
18669 | Values can be normative in the Fitting Attitude account, where 'good' means fitting favouring [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Version one of the normative view of values is the Fitting Attitude account, which says that 'x is good' means 'it is fitting to respond favourably to (or 'favour') x'. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Brentano is mentioned. Orsi favours this view. The rival normative view is Scanlon's [1998:95-8] Buck-Passing account, in Idea 18670. I am interested in building a defence of the Buck-Passing account, which seems to suit a naturalistic realist like me. |
18670 | The Buck-Passing view of normative values says other properties are reasons for the value [Orsi] |
Full Idea: Version two of the normative view of values is the Buck-Passing account, which says that 'x is good' means 'x has the property of having other properties that provide reasons to favour x'. | |
From: Francesco Orsi (Value Theory [2015], 1.4) | |
A reaction: [He cites Scanlon 1998:95-8] I think this is the one to explore. We want values in the world, bridging the supposed 'is-ought gap', and not values that just derive from the way human beings are constituted (and certainly not supernatural values!). |
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. |