Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Truth and Ontology' and 'Concerning the Author'

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85 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
I am saturated with the spirit of physical science [Peirce]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Everything happens necessarily, and for a reason [Democritus]
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]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / a. Units
Two can't be a self-contained unit, because it would need to be one to do that [Democritus, by Aristotle]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
True Being only occurs when it is completely full, with atoms and no void [Democritus, by Aristotle]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
Being does not exist more than non-being [Democritus, by Aristotle]
The non-existent exists as much as the existent, because it has causal powers [Democritus]
The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / g. Particular being
The only distinctions are Configuration (shape), Disposition (order) and Turning (position) [Democritus, by Aristotle]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
Nothing comes from non-existence, or passes into it [Democritus, by Diog. Laertius]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
It is not possible to know what sort each thing is [Democritus]
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 / 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
Democritus denies reality to large objects, because atomic entities can't combine to produce new ones [Benardete,JA on Democritus]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
Democritus said that substances could never be mixed, so atoms are the substances [Democritus, by Aristotle]
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 / 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 / B. Certain Knowledge / 3. Fallibilism
Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / a. Qualities in perception
Sensible qualities can't be real if they appear different to different creatures [Democritus, by Theophrastus]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
Man is separated from reality [Democritus]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
All evidence comes from senses, so they are indispensable to the mind [Democritus]
Obscure knowledge belongs to the five senses, and genuine knowledge is the other type [Democritus]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Association of ideas is the best philosophical idea of the prescientific age [Peirce]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Democritus says there is either no truth, or it is concealed from us [Democritus, by Aristotle]
We actually know nothing, and opinions are mere flux [Democritus]
We in fact know nothing, but we each restructure our reality with beliefs [Democritus]
It is obviously impossible to understand the reality of each thing [Democritus]
We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss [Democritus]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Duns Scotus offers perhaps the best logic and metaphysics for modern physical science [Peirce]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Democritus was devoted to discovering causal explanations [Democritus, by Eusebius]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
Democritus says soul consists of smooth round bodies brought together in accidental collision [Democritus, by Cicero]
Atomists say soul has a rational part in the chest, and a diffused non-rational part [Democritus, by Aetius]
The soul is the same as the mind [Democritus, by Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 7. Animal Minds
Animals have a share of reason [Democritus, by Porphyry]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
The directive centre is located in the whole head [Democritus, by Ps-Plutarch]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
Democritus said everything happens of necessity, by natural motion of atoms [Democritus, by Cicero]
Some say there is a determinate cause for every apparently spontaneous event [Democritus, by Aristotle]
Democritus said atoms only move by their natural motions, which are therefore necessary [Democritus, by Cicero]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Democritus says spherical atoms are fire, and constitute the soul [psuche] [Democritus, by Aristotle]
Democritus says the soul is the body, and thinking is thus the mixture of the body [Democritus, by Theophrastus]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 1. Acting on Desires
Pleasure and pain guide our choices of good and bad [Democritus]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health
Wisdom creates a healthy passion-free soul [Democritus]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / f. Good as pleasure
Happiness is identifying and separating the pleasures [Democritus, by Stobaeus]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
Contentment comes from moderation and proportion in life [Democritus, by Stobaeus]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 4. External Goods / c. Wealth
Democritus says wealth is a burden to the virtuous mind [Democritus, by Seneca]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
Atoms cling together, until a stronger necessity disperses them [Democritus, by Aristotle]
Atoms are irregular, hooked, concave, convex, and many other shapes [Democritus, by Aristotle]
'Full' and 'Void' secularised Parmenides's Being and Not-being [Democritus, by Heisenberg]
Atomists say there are only three differences - in shape, arrangement and position [Democritus, by Aristotle]
Experiences are merely convention; only atoms and the void are real [Democritus]
If only atoms are real and the rest is convention, we wouldn't bother to avoid pain [Democritus, by Diogenes of Oen.]
When atoms touch, why don't they coalesce, like water drops? [Aristotle on Democritus]
Because appearance is infinitely varied, atomists assume infinitely many shapes of atom [Democritus, by Aristotle]
There could be an atom the size of the world [Democritus, by Ps-Plutarch]
There must be atoms, to avoid the absurdity of infinite division down to nothing [Democritus, by Aristotle]
The basic atoms are without qualities - which only arise from encounters between atoms [Democritus, by Galen]
If a cone is horizontally sliced the surfaces can't be equal, so it goes up in steps [Democritus]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
Greeks explained regularity by intellectual design, not by laws [Democritus, by Frede,M]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 1. Void
Growth and movement would not exist if there were no void to receive them [Democritus]
Democritus is wrong: in a void we wouldn't see a distant ant in exact detail [Aristotle on Democritus]
Movement is impossible in a void, because nothing can decide the direction of movement [Aristotle on Democritus]
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 / 1. Cosmology
There are unlimited worlds of varying sizes, some without life or water [Democritus, by Hippolytus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique
Democritus said people imagined gods as the source of what awed or frightened them [Democritus, by Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
The soul is destroyed with the body [Democritus, by Ps-Plutarch]