Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Truth and Ontology' and 'Letter to Herodotus'

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53 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
If we are to use words in enquiry, we need their main, unambiguous and uncontested meanings [Epicurus]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth
Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / b. Objects make truths
If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks]
Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks]
If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / c. States of affairs make truths
Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths
If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks]
If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 6. Making Negative Truths
It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence
Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks]
I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks]
If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus]
If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
The totality is complete, so there is no room for it to change, and nothing extraneous to change it [Epicurus]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Astronomical movements are blessed, but they don't need the help of the gods [Epicurus]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes
The perceived accidental properties of bodies cannot be conceived of as independent natures [Epicurus]
Accidental properties give a body its nature, but are not themselves bodies or parts of bodies [Epicurus]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional
An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 4. Impossible objects
Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
Bodies have impermanent properties, and permanent ones which define its conceived nature [Epicurus]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / c. Possible but inconceivable
Above and below us will never appear to be the same, because it is inconceivable [Epicurus]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
We aim to dissolve our fears, by understanding their causes [Epicurus]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
Atoms only have shape, weight and size, and the properties which accompany shape [Epicurus]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 3. Illusion Scepticism
Illusions are not false perceptions, as we accurately perceive the pattern of atoms [Epicurus, by Modrak]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
The soul is fine parts distributed through the body, resembling hot breath [Epicurus]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus]
Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
There exists an infinity of each shape of atom, but the number of shapes is beyond our knowledge [Epicurus]
Atoms just have shape, size and weight; colour results from their arrangement [Epicurus]
There cannot be unlimited division, because it would reduce things to non-existence [Epicurus]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
We aim to know the natures which are observed in natural phenomena [Epicurus]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 1. Void
The void cannot interact, but just gives the possibility of motion [Epicurus]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 4. Substantival Space
Space must exist, since movement is obvious, and there must be somewhere to move in [Epicurus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks]
Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks]
Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / k. Temporal truths
How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 10. Multiverse
There are endless cosmoi, some like and some unlike this one [Epicurus]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]