Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A World of States of Affairs', 'Why there isn't a ready-made world' and 'Ontological Relativity'

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17 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
4742 Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
21642 If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
1633 Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
17644 Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
17648 It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 7. Fictionalism
9497 Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
18964 Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
15550 Properties are contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time [Armstrong, by Lewis]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
17643 Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
18965 We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
4743 The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
17642 The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
1634 Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
8470 Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
18963 Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
17645 An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
4798 In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation [Armstrong, by Psillos]