Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 12:21 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:26 am
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 12:27 pm
The responses to this should be:
(1)
What "other" complexes?
In the introduction to the article;
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/states-of-affairs/
Note the following;
Before pressing on a note about terminology: many philosophers follow Armstrong’s (1993: 429) terminology who uses “states of affairs” to refer to facts. (Armstrong’s book A World of States of Affairs is solely concerned with facts.)
This article is not devoted to “Armstrongian” states of affairs,
but to states of affairs in the sense that is prominent in the work of such philosophers as Reinach, Russell (at one time), the early-Wittgenstein and Plantinga.
LOL re completely failing to name an "other complex." The answer to "
What 'other complexes'?" would need to at least name one other complex.
You are too literal and rigid which make me wonder you may be autistic?
The article already stated it is not devoted to [/b]
“Armstrongian” states of affairs
but to
states of affairs in the sense that is prominent in the work of such philosophers as
Reinach,
Russell (at one time), the
early-Wittgenstein and
Plantinga.
Therefore we should focus in this case on,
states of affairs in the sense that is prominent in the work of such philosophers as
Reinach,
Russell (at one time), the
early-Wittgenstein and
Plantinga.
To deal with other complex state of affairs would be off topic.
This is why I did not bother to waste time reading Armstrong's book for his examples.
and
(2) One is reading "state of affairs" to (need to be) countable and namely and unitary "thing" of sorts because _____?
Not sure of your question.
The author took "state of affairs" to be a countable, "unified" "thing" of sorts. I'm asking
why the author interpreted it that way.
I searched but there is nothing that mentioned 'countable'.
You can read the article re why unification is so critical to 'state-of-affairs.'
One interesting point which I would agree with would be;
Roughly speaking, the external unifier can bring the constituents of states of affairs together even if they don’t constitute a fact.
A psychological version of the External Theory is proposed in Valicella 2000.
According to him, the external ground of unity is the judging consciousness that brings about the unity of a state of affairs (Valicella 2000: 252).
Section 5:2
I downloaded Valicella's article, his conclusion indicated the current views of what is state of affairs are false, thus his version re consciousness as the unifer is a possibility for unifications - but his conclusion is not accepted by others.
6. Conclusion
The truthmaker argument takes us from contingent truths to their ontological grounds in worldly states of affairs.
But states of affairs are problematic entities.
They are composed of simpler entities, their constituents, and so one naturally tries to understand them as reducible to their constituents.
This reductionist attempt, however, cannot account for the unity of states of affairs and so motivates the view that states of affairs are irreducible entities distinct from their constituents.
But this view is equally unacceptable since it cannot explain how a state of affairs, a complex, can be distinct from the very constituents of which it is composed and without which it is nothing at all.
Now if these were the only two ways of construing states of affairs—if they were logical contradictories of one another—we would have to conclude that the concept of a state of affairs is internally incoherent, and that the truthmaker argument for states of affairs is unsound.
But the two ways of construing states of affairs are logical contraries of one another, and so can both be false.
There is the possibility that the unity of a state of affairs derives from an external unifier.
~And it is the only other possibility.! So if the truthmaker argument for states of affairs is sound, then states of affairs have an external unifier.
I would apply Modus Ponens at this point; others will reach for Modus Tollens.53
Three Conceptions of States of Affairs
William F. Vallicella