Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Classical Cosmology (frags)', 'Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth'' and 'Response to David Armstrong'

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

---

5 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers

10845	To be true a sentence must express a proposition, and not be ambiguous or vague or just expressive [Lewis]
	Full Idea: Sentences or assertions can be derivately called true, if they succeed in expressing determinate propositions. A sentence can be ambiguous or vague or paradoxical or ungrounded or not declarative or a mere expression of feeling.
	From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001], p.276)
	A reaction: Lewis has, of course, a peculiar notion of what a proposition is - it's a set of possible worlds. I, with my more psychological approach, take a proposition to be a particular sort of brain event.

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation

10847	Truthmakers are about existential grounding, not about truth [Lewis]
	Full Idea: Instances of the truthmaker principle are equivalent to biconditionals not about truth but about the existential grounding of all manner of other things; the flying pigs, or what-have-you.
	From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001])
	A reaction: The question then is what the difference is between 'existential grounding' and 'truth'. There wouldn't seem to be any difference at all if the proposition in question was a simple existential claim.

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence

10846	Truthmaker is correspondence, but without the requirement to be one-to-one [Lewis]
	Full Idea: The truthmaker principle seems to be a version of the correspondence theory of truth, but differs mostly in denying that the correspondence of truths to facts must be one-to-one.
	From: David Lewis (Forget the 'correspondence theory of truth' [2001], p.277)
	A reaction: In other words, several different sentences might have exactly the same truthmaker.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

18398	Space, time, and some other basics, are not causal powers [Ellis]
	Full Idea: Spatial, temporal, and other primary properties and relationships are not causal powers.
	From: Brian Ellis (Response to David Armstrong [1999], p.42), quoted by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 10.4
	A reaction: It is hard to see how time and space could actually be powers, but future results in physics (or even current results about 'fields') might change that.

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology

5994	Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]
	Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning.
	From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out.