Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A History of God', 'Properties' and 'Pragmatism and Deflationism'

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35 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver]
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
Truth makes disagreements matter, or worth settling [Misak]
For pragmatists the loftiest idea of truth is just a feature of what remains forever assertible [Misak]
'True' is used for emphasis, clarity, assertion, comparison, objectivity, meaning, negation, consequence... [Misak]
'That's true' doesn't just refer back to a sentence, but implies sustained evidence for it [Misak]
Truth isn't a grand elusive property, if it is just the aim of our assertions and inquiries [Misak]
Truth is proper assertion, but that has varying standards [Misak]
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 1. Tarski's Truth / a. Tarski's truth definition
Disquotation is bivalent [Misak]
Disquotations says truth is assertion, and assertion proclaims truth - but what is 'assertion'? [Misak]
Disquotationalism resembles a telephone directory [Misak]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
Deflating the correspondence theory doesn't entail deflating all the other theories [Misak]
Deflationism isn't a theory of truth, but an account of its role in natural language [Misak]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
The anti-realism debate concerns whether indefeasibility is a plausible aim of inquiry [Misak]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong]
To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta
Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong]
We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong]
There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong]
Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
In the Bible God changes his mind (repenting of creating humanity, in the Flood) [Armstrong,K]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 1. Monotheism
Monotheism introduced intolerance into religious thinking [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
Around 800 BCE teachers superseded gods in India [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 2. Judaism
There is virtually no sign of monotheism in the Pentateuch [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity
The idea that Jesus was God was only settled in the fourth century [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / e. Fideism
Faith is not just belief in propositions, but also putting trust in them [Armstrong,K]