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8188
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Davidson takes truth to attach to individual sentences [Davidson, by Dummett]
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Full Idea:
Davidson, by contrast to Frege, has taken truth as attaching to linguistic items, that is, to actual or hypothetical token sentences.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (True to the Facts [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Truth and the Past 1
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A reaction:
My personal notion of truth is potentially applicable to animals, so this doesn't appeal to me. I am happy to think of animals as believing simple propositions that never get as far as language, and being right or wrong about them.
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16629
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By comparing qualities and features, reason can gradually infer the nature of substance [Grosseteste]
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Full Idea:
Awakened reason distinguishes color from size and shape from body and then shape and size from the substance of body, and so by drawing distinctions and abstracting, it arrives at a grasp of the substance of body, which supports size, shape and color.
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From:
Robert Grosseteste (Commentary on 'Posterior Analytics' [1226], I.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.4
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A reaction:
This optimistic view influenced Aquinas, and is called 'incrementalism' by Pasnau. It is the spirit of scientific essentialism, and a nice instance of inference to the best explanation (though 'substance' in itself explains virtually nothing).
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