primitivism

Posted On March 25, 2024

[WORK IN PROGRESS]

 

• G. E. Moore’s idea that truth, goodness, etc. are unanalysable primitives.
• NOTE: Ross indicates that he is closer to primitivists than any of the other modern alternatives!! (Find out where he says this.) And I think what he has in mind is his treatment of understanding which is just an unanalyzable grasp of dematerialized (abstracted) real things. It occurs to me that Ross’s view of understanding also fits well with the idea that a thorough & robust theory of truth must go beyond predicate logic & include metatruth and how are we able to make judgments of metatruth? Like Roger Penrose, Ross feels the need to postulate an unanalyzable faculty for knowing, and coincidentally (or not) Penrose also calls what he has in mind “understanding”.