Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Reality without Reference' and 'Against 'Ostrich Nominalism''

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12 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
8507 Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals
8506 Particulars and properties are distinguishable, but too close to speak of a relation [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
8505 Refusal to explain why different tokens are of the same type is to be an ostrich [Armstrong]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
6387 A minimum requirement for a theory of meaning is that it include an account of truth [Davidson]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
6391 A theory of truth tells us how communication by language is possible [Davidson]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
6388 Is reference the key place where language and the world meet? [Davidson]
6390 With a holistic approach, we can give up reference in empirical theories of language [Davidson]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / b. Reference by description
6389 To explain the reference of a name, you must explain its sentence-role, so reference can't be defined nonlinguistically [Davidson]
19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial
1554 Contradiction is impossible, since only one side of the argument refers to the true facts [Prodicus, by Didymus the Blind]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique
1555 People used to think anything helpful to life was a god, as the Egyptians think the Nile a god [Prodicus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
535 The gods are just personified human benefits [Prodicus]
1543 He denied the existence of the gods, saying they are just exaltations of things useful for life [Prodicus]