11 ideas
3745 | Must sentences make statements to qualify for truth? [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Maybe a sentence is not a candidate for truth until it is used to make a statement. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
3742 | Beliefs must match facts, but also words must match beliefs [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Our beliefs must claim a correspondence with facts, and then the verbal expression of the belief must correspond to the belief itself. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.4) |
3744 | The semantic theory requires sentences as truth-bearers, not propositions [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: The Semantic Theory of truth requires that sentences are truth-bearers (rather than statements, or propositions). | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
3749 | What does 'true in English' mean? [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: We do not seem to have any use in ordinary discourse for phrases like 'true in English', 'false in German'. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], II.1) |
3746 | Logic seems to work for unasserted sentences [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: If sentences can have truth-values only when they occur as asserted, it would be impossible to have a truth-functional basis to logic. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.6) |
3747 | Events are fast changes which are of interest to us [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: The standard cases of events are physical changes which happen sufficiently fast to be observed as changes, and which are of sufficient interest to us to be noticed or commented on. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.7) |
3743 | We can't contemplate our beliefs until we have expressed them [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: It is only when beliefs are given some symbolic expression that they acquire the precision and stability that enables us to entertain them. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.5) |
3748 | Without language our beliefs are particular and present [O'Connor] |
Full Idea: Without language we would be restricted to particular beliefs about the here and now. | |
From: D.J. O'Connor (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [1975], Ch.8) |
20992 | Right and wrong concerns what other people cannot reasonably reject [Scanlon] |
Full Idea: Thinking about right and wrong is, at the most basic level, thinking about what could be justified to others on grounds that they, if appropriately motivated, could not reasonably reject. | |
From: Thomas M. Scanlon (What We Owe to Each Other [1998], Intro) | |
A reaction: The tricky bit is that the acceptance by others must be 'reasonable', so we need a reasonably objective view of rationality. Don't picture your neighbours, picture the locals when you are on holiday in a very different culture. Other Nazis? |
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. |