Russellian Facts About the Slingshot

Axiomathes 24 (4):533-547 (2014)
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Abstract

The so-called “Slingshot” argument purports to show that an ontology of facts is untenable. In this paper, we address a minimal slingshot restricted to an ontology of physical facts as truth-makers for empirical physical statements. Accepting that logical matters have no bearing on the physical facts that are truth-makers for empirical physical statements and that objects are themselves constituents of such facts, our minimal slingshot argument purportedly shows that any two physical statements with empirical content are made true by one and the same fact. It is well-known that Russell’s theory of descriptions may be employed to reveal a scope fallacy in the slingshot argument. This paper reveals that there is a quite independent Russellian criticism of the slingshot argument based on the thesis that facts are structured entities

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Gregory Landini
University of Iowa

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References found in this work

Truth and meaning.Donald Davidson - 1967 - Synthese 17 (1):304-323.
Truth and meaning.Donald Davidson - 1967 - Synthese 17 (1):304-323.
Principia mathematica.A. N. Whitehead - 1926 - Mind 35 (137):130.
True to the facts.Donald Davidson - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (21):748-764.
Russell's hidden substitutional theory.Gregory Landini - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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