54 ideas
2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
8920 | Equivalence relations are reflexive, symmetric and transitive, and classify similar objects [Lipschutz] |
18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |
18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |