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17263
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Why do rationalists accept Sufficient Reason, when it denies the existence of fundamental facts? [Correia/Schnieder]
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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.
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From:
Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 2.2)
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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!
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17270
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Is existential dependence by grounding, or do grounding claims arise from existential dependence? [Correia/Schnieder]
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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.
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From:
Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 4.3)
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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).
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17267
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The identity of two facts may depend on how 'fine-grained' we think facts are [Correia/Schnieder]
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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.
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From:
Correia,F/Schnieder,B (Grounding: an opinionated introduction [2012], 3.3)
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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.
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13857
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Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington]
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Full Idea:
How likely is a fair die landing on an even number to land six? My approach is, assume an even number, so three possibilities, one a six, so 'one third'; the truth-functional approach is it's true if it is not-even or six, so 'two-thirds'.
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From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 3)
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A reaction:
The point is that in the truth-functional approach, if the die lands not-even, then the conditional comes out as true, when she says it should be irrelevant. She seems to be right about this.
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13853
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It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington]
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Full Idea:
The mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be.
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From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
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A reaction:
'If pigs could fly we would never catch them' may not be about the world, but 'if you press this switch the light comes on' seems to be. Actually even the first one is about the world. I've an inkling that Edgington is wrong about this. Powers!
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13854
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Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington]
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Full Idea:
It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes.
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From:
Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
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A reaction:
This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world.
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