23 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. |
| 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) |
| 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). |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 15200 | How could change consist of a conjunction of changeless facts? [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart objects, to Russell 1903, that change cannot consist of a conjunction of changeless facts. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 (b) | |
| A reaction: I agree with McTaggart. Logicians like to model processes with domains of timeless entities, but it just won't do. |
| 14761 | Change is not just having two different qualities at different points in some series [McTaggart] |
| Full Idea: The fact that it is hot at one point in a series and cold at other points cannot give change, if neither of these facts change. If two points on a line have different properties, this doesn't give change. | |
| From: J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], 33.315-6), quoted by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 6.2 | |
| A reaction: [The second half compresses an example about the Meridian] This objection is aimed at Russell's view, that change is just different properties at different times. I (unlike Sider) am wholly with McTaggart on this one. Change is 'dynamic'. |
| 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) |
| 2608 | For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events [McTaggart, by Ayer] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart says we can speak of events in time in two ways, as past, present or future, or as being before or after or simultaneous with one another. The first cannot be reduced to the second, as the second makes no provision for the passage of time. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], II.329-) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy 1.D |
| 22936 | A-series time positions are contradictory, and yet all events occupy all of them! [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart's proof of time's unreality: A-series positions (past, present and future) are mutually incompatible, so no event can exhibit more than one of them; but since A-series events change position, all events have all A-series posititions. Absurd! | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 08 'McTaggart's' | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that this is any more contradictory than someone being married at one time and unmarried at another. No one is suggesting that an A-series event can be both past and future simultaneously. |
| 4231 | Time involves change, only the A-series explains change, but it involves contradictions, so time is unreal [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart argued that time involves change, only the A-series can explain change, the A-series involves contradictions (past, present and future), and hence time is unreal. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.313 | |
| A reaction: I doubt whether it is a logical contradiction to say Waterloo has been past, present and future, though it is odd. |
| 8591 | There could be no time if nothing changed [McTaggart] |
| Full Idea: It is universally admitted.... that there could be no time if nothing changed. | |
| From: J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], II p.11), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Time Without Change p.49 | |
| A reaction: This is set up alongside Aristotle (Idea 8590) to be attacked by Shoemaker. I think Shoemaker is right, and that the rejection of McTaggart's view is a key result in modern metaphysics. |
| 22935 | The B-series can be inferred from the A-series, but not the other way round [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart says the A-series is more fundamental than the B-series. An objective being could not deduce the present moment of the A-series from the B-series, but the B-series can be deduced from the A-series. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 08 'McTaggart's' | |
| A reaction: [summarised] This has no ontological importance for McTaggart, since he thinks time is unreal either way. But giving the A-series priority because it reveals the present moment seems to nullify the B-series as incomplete. |
| 7802 | A-series uses past, present and future; B-series uses 'before' and 'after' [McTaggart, by Girle] |
| Full Idea: The A-series puts events into past, present and future. The B-series puts events into a series based on relationships of 'before' and 'after'. McTaggart said the A-series was contradictory, and the B-series failed to cope with essential features of time. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Rod Girle - Modal Logics and Philosophy 8.10 | |
| A reaction: The A-series is indexical. |
| 4230 | A-series expressions place things in time, and their truth varies; B-series is relative, and always true [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A-series expressions include words like 'today' and 'five weeks ago', and can be true at one time and false at another; B-series expressions are like 'simultaneously', and are always true, if true at all. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.308 | |
| A reaction: A-series gives time separate existence, where B-series time is purely relational. Intuition favours the A-series, but how fast do events travel against this fixed background? |
| 15199 | The B-series must depend on the A-series, because change must be explained [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart's argument is 1) B-series relations are temporal relations, 2) There cannot be temporal relations unless there is change, 3) There cannot be change unless there is real A-series ordering, so there can't be a B-series unless there is an A-series. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], vol.ii) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 a |
| 1558 | Clearly the gods ignore human affairs, or they would have given us justice [Thrasymachus] |
| Full Idea: The gods pay no attention to human affairs; if they did, they would not have ignored justice, which is the greatest good for men; for we see that men do not act with justice. | |
| From: Thrasymachus (fragments/reports [c.426 BCE], B8), quoted by Hermias - Notes on Plato's 'Phaedrus' 239.22 |