7 ideas
| 18470 | Maybe truth-making is an unanalysable primitive, but we can specify principles for it [Smith,B] |
| Full Idea: The signs are that truth-making is not analysable in terms of anything more primitive, but we need to be able to say more than just that. So we ought to consider it as specified by principles of truth-making. | |
| From: Barry Smith (Truth-maker Realism: response to Gregory [2000], p.20), quoted by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the axiomatic approach to such problems - treat the target concept as an undefinable, unanalysable primitive, and then give rules for its connections. Maybe all metaphysics should work like that, with a small bunch of primitives. |
| 18469 | God might necessitate that something happen, but He is not the truth-maker for it [Smith,B] |
| Full Idea: Suppose that God wills that John kiss Mary now. God's willing thereby necessitates the truth of 'John is kissing Mary'. But God's act is not a truth-maker for this judgement. | |
| From: Barry Smith (Truth-maker Realism [1999], p.6), quoted by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that truth-making relates to the fact that it happened, not what necessitated it to happen. But Armstrong might reply that his truth-maker 'necessitation' primitive is not the kind of necessitation found in worldly relations. |
| 18430 | We accept properties because of type/tokens, reference, and quantification [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Three main reasons for thinking properties exist: the one-over-many argument (that a type can have many tokens), the reference argument (to understand predicates and singular terms), and the quantification argument (that we quantify over them). | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Bits in brackets are compressions of his explanations]. I don't find any of these remotely persuasive. Why would we infer how the world is, simply from how we talk about or reason about the world? His first reason is the only interesting one. |
| 18432 | Quineans say that predication is primitive and inexplicable [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: The Quinean claims that the application of a predicate cannot, in principle, be explained - it is a 'primitive' fact. | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: I am not clear what 'principle' could endorse this claim. There just seems to be a possible failure of all the usual attempts at explaining predication. |
| 18437 | Resemblance nominalism requires a second entity to explain 'the rose is crimson' [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: For resemblance nominalism the sentence 'the rose is crimson' commits us to at least one other entity that the rose resembles in order for it to be crimson. | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.5.2) | |
| A reaction: If the theory really needs this, then it has just sunk without trace. It can't suddenly cease to be crimson when the last resembling entity disappears. |
| 18434 | That a whole is prior to its parts ('priority monism') is a view gaining in support [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: The view of 'priority monism' - that the whole is prior to its parts - is controversial, but has been growing in support | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.4.4) | |
| A reaction: The simple and plausible thought is, I take it, that parts only count as parts when a whole comes into existence, so a whole is needed to generate parts. Thus the whole must be prior to the parts. Fine by me. |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
| From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |