21 ideas
17266 | Using modal logic, philosophers tried to handle all metaphysics in modal terms [Correia/Schnieder] |
Full Idea: In the heyday of modal logic, philosophers typically tried to account for any metaphysical notions in modal terms. | |
From: Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 2.4) | |
A reaction: Lewisian realism about possible worlds actually gets rid of purely 'modal' terms, but I suppose they include possible worlds in their remark. Annoying for modal logicians to be told they had a 'heyday' - a nice example of the rhetoric of philosophy. |
17263 | Why do rationalists accept Sufficient Reason, when it denies the existence of fundamental facts? [Correia/Schnieder] |
Full Idea: What is most puzzling about the rationalist tradition is the steadfast certainty with which the Principle of Sufficient Reason was often accepted, since it in effect denies that there are fundamental facts. | |
From: Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: A very simple and interesting observation. The principle implies either a circle of reasons, or an infinite regress of reasons. Nothing can be labelled as 'primitive' or 'foundational' or 'given'. The principle is irrational! |
18877 | Moral realism doesn't seem to entail the existence of any things [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Moral realism isn't realism about things, and it seems strange to suggest that moral realism is existence entailing in the way that realism about unobservable is. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
A reaction: Cameron is questioning whether a realist has to believe in truthmakers. It seems to me that his doubts are because he insists that truthmaking is committed to the existence of 'things'. I assume any moral realism must supervene on nature. |
18868 | Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron] |
Full Idea: What possible reason could one have for thinking of some propositions that they need to be grounded in what there is that doesn't apply to all propositions? | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: Well, if truthmaking said that all truths are grounded, then some could be grounded in what there is, and others in how it is, or maybe even how it isn't (if you get a decent account of negative truths). |
18867 | Orthodox Truthmaker applies to all propositions, and necessitates their truth [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Orthodox truthmaker theory (Armstrong's) entails Maximalism (that every true proposition has at least one truthmaker), and Necessitarianism (that the existence of a truthmaker necessitates the truth of its proposition). | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: I think I accept both of these. If you say only some truths have truthmakers, the other truths are then baffling. And how could a truthmaker fail in its job? But that doesn't necessitate the existence of the proposition. |
18873 | God fixes all the truths of the world by fixing what exists [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The truthmaker thought is that explanation only bottoms out at existence facts; for God to give a complete plan of the world He needs only make an inventory of what is to exist. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: He is defending Necessitarianism about truthmaking. I'm struggling with this. An inventory of the contents of my house doesn't begin to fix all the truths that arise from them. Why is Cameron so resistent to 'how' things are being part of the truthmaking? |
18879 | What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The explanation of the truth of the proposition [p] doesn't stop at it being the case that p, so it's false to claim that whenever a proposition is true it's true in virtue of the world being as the proposition says it is. The features often lie deeper. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
A reaction: [He is opposing Jennifer Hornsby 2005] Cameron offers 'the average family has 2.4 children' as a counterexample' (since no one actually has 2.4 children). That seems compelling. Second example: 'the rose is beautiful'. |
18880 | Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Rivals to the truthmaker claim that facts about what there is are the truthmakers, there are theories that add facts about how the things are, or add dispositional facts, or modal facts, or haecceitistic facts, or maybe moral facts. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
A reaction: [compressed] He seems to think his version has a monopoly on truthmaking, but I don't see why these other theories shouldn't count as truthmaking. The truthmaker for 'live grenades are dangerous' is not just the existence of grenades. |
18874 | Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron] |
Full Idea: It's definitely not sufficient to be a realist that one be a truthmaker theorist, since one can simply be anti-realist about the truthmakers. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
A reaction: It is not quite clear how unreal truth makers could actually MAKE propositions true, rather than just being correlated with them. |
18869 | Without truthmakers, negative truths must be ungrounded [Cameron] |
Full Idea: If negative truths don't have truthmakers then make no mistake: they are ungrounded. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: What would be the grounding for truths which expressed the necessary preconditions for all existence? Could 'nothing whatever exists' ever be a truth? |
18871 | I support the correspondence theory because I believe in truthmakers [Cameron] |
Full Idea: I tend to think that the fundamental reason we can have the correspondence theory of truth is that truthmaker theory is correct. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: [This responds to Fumerton 2006, who gives the opposite view] Cameron gives himself the classic problem of spelling out the correspondence relation (perhaps as 'congruence'). I like truthmaking, but I'm unsure about correspondence. |
18870 | Maybe truthmaking and correspondence stand together, and are interdefinable [Cameron] |
Full Idea: One view says truthmaker theory stands or falls with the correspondence theory of truth, because the truthmaker for p is just the portion of reality that p corresponds to: truthmaker and correspondence can be conversely defined. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: The normal view, which I prefer, is that correspondence is a particular theory of truthmaking, invoking a precise 'correspondence' relation. Hence abolishing correspondence would not abolish truthmaking, if you had a rival account. |
17270 | Is existential dependence by grounding, or do grounding claims arise from existential dependence? [Correia/Schnieder] |
Full Idea: We may take existential dependence to be a relation induced by certain cases of grounding, but one may also think that facts about existential dependence are prior to corresponding ground claims, and in fact ground those claims. | |
From: Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 4.3) | |
A reaction: I would vote for grounding, since dependence seems more abstract, and seems to demand explanation, whereas grounding seems more like a feature of reality, and to resist further intrinsic explanation (on the whole). |
17268 | Grounding is metaphysical and explanation epistemic, so keep them apart [Correia/Schnieder] |
Full Idea: To us it seems advisable to separate the objective notion of grounding, which belongs to the field of metaphysics, from the epistemically loaded notion of explanation. | |
From: Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Paul Audi is the defender of the opposite view. I'm with Audi. The 'epistemically loaded' pragmatic aspect is just contextual - that we have different interests in different aspects of the grounding on different occasions. |
18875 | Realism says a discourse is true or false, and some of it is true [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Realism about a discourse is 1) to think that the sentences are, when construed literally, literally true or false, and 2) to think that some of the sentences of the discourse are non-vacuously true. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
A reaction: [Cameron adds 'non-vacuously' to an idea of Sayre-McCord 199 p.5] This is realism based on what is 'true', without specifying 'commitments', so I like it. Cameron says it makes mathematical postulationists into realists. He likes 'mind-independent'. |
18878 | Realism says truths rest on mind-independent reality; truthmaking theories are about which features [Cameron] |
Full Idea: All that is necessary for realism, I claim, is that truth is grounded in mind-independent features of fundamental reality. Truthmaker theory comes into play because it is a theory about what those features are (…so it isn't a commitment to realism). | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Realism') | |
A reaction: [He cites Michael Devitt for this approach] What is the word 'fundamental' doing here? Because the mind-dependent parts of reality are considered non-fundamental? The no-true-Scotsman-hates-whisky move? His truthmaking is committed to 'things'. |
18881 | For realists it is analytic that truths are grounded in the world [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The analytic commitment of realism is that truths are grounded in the world. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Grounding') | |
A reaction: Certain fifth-level truths might be a long way from the actual world, and deeply interfused with human concepts and theories. Negative truths must be fitted into this picture. |
17267 | The identity of two facts may depend on how 'fine-grained' we think facts are [Correia/Schnieder] |
Full Idea: There is a disagreement on the issue of factual identity, concerning the 'granularity' of facts, the question of how fine-grained they are. | |
From: Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: If they are very fine-grained, then no two descriptions of a supposed fact will capture the same details. If we go broadbrush, facts become fuzzy and less helpful. 'Fact' was never going to be a clear term. |
18872 | We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron] |
Full Idea: I think we should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology [2008], 'Max and Nec') | |
A reaction: An interesting passing remark. Presumably there would be unknowable truths about such worlds, which wouldn't bother a full-blooded realist. Indiscernible to whom? Me? Humanity? A divine mind? |
16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |