Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. A Survey of Logical Realism.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2021 - Synthese 198 (5):4775-4790.
    Logical realism is a view about the metaphysical status of logic. Common to most if not all the views captured by the label ‘logical realism’ is that logical facts are mind- and language-independent. But that does not tell us anything about the nature of logical facts or about our epistemic access to them. The goal of this paper is to outline and systematize the different ways that logical realism could be entertained and to examine some of the challenges that these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Grounding nonexistence.Daniel Muñoz - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (2):209-229.
    Contingent negative existentials give rise to a notorious paradox. I formulate a version in terms of metaphysical grounding: nonexistence can't be fundamental, but nothing can ground it. I then argue for a new kind of solution, expanding on work by Kit Fine. The key idea is that negative existentials are contingently zero-grounded – that is to say, they are grounded, but not by anything, and only in the right conditions. If this is correct, it follows that grounding cannot be an (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • The Negativity of Negative Propositions.Carl Erik Kühl - 2012 - Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 47 (1):87-110.
    The problem of truthmakers for negative propositions was introduced by Bertrand Russell in 1918. Since then the debate has mostly been concerned with whether to accept or reject their existence, and little has been said about what it is that makes a negative proposition negative. This is a problem as it is obvious that you cannot just read it off from the grammar of a sentence. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that propositions may be negative or positive (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • From Falsemakers to Negative Properties.Michele Paolini Paoletti - 2016 - Theoria 83 (1):53-77.
    I shall argue in this article that, if we need to admit of negative facts in our ontology as falsemakers of false propositions, then it is plausible to accept that there are also negative properties conceived of as modes. After having briefly recalled the falsemaker argument, I shall explore five different alternative interpretations of negative facts and I shall demonstrate that each alternative – except for the one involving negative properties – is affected by some problems. Later on, I shall (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • A Note on Kripkenstein's Paradox.Gustavo Picazo - 2016 - Análisis. Revista de Investigación Filosófica 3 (1):3-9.
    In this note I present a solution to Kripkenstein’s paradox, based on a very simple argument: (1) natural language and rule-following are empirical phenomena; (2) no case has been described, in real life, of a person who behaves as Wittgenstein’s or Kripke’s fictional character; (3) therefore, the discussion of such a case is completely devoid of interest. I lay out the example of a ‘Kripkensteinian apple’, which has a normal weight on even days and is weightless on odd days, in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Introduction.Alessandro Torza - 2015 - In Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers. Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language. (Synthese Library vol. 373). Springer. pp. 1-15.
    This introductory chapter provides a summary of the contributions to the volume, as well as some critical remarks.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Necessarily Maybe. Quantifiers, Modality and Vagueness.Alessandro Torza - 2015 - In Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers. Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language. (Synthese Library vol. 373). Springer. pp. 367-387.
    Languages involving modalities and languages involving vagueness have each been thoroughly studied. On the other hand, virtually nothing has been said about the interaction of modality and vagueness. This paper aims to start filling that gap. Section 1 is a discussion of various possible sources of vague modality. Section 2 puts forward a model theory for a quantified language with operators for modality and vagueness. The model theory is followed by a discussion of the resulting logic. In Section 3, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Truths and Processes: A Critical Approach to Truthmaker Theory.Gustavo Picazo - 2014 - Philosophia 42 (3):713-739.
    The starting point of this paper is the idea that linguistic representation is the result of a global process: a process of interaction of a community of cognitive-linguistic agents, with one another and with the environment. I maintain that the study of truth, meaning and related notions should be addressed without losing perspective of this process, and I oppose the ‘static’ or ‘analytic’ approach, which is fundamentally based on our own knowledge of the conventional meaning of words and sentences, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • ∈ : Formal concepts in a material world truthmaking and exemplification as types of determination.Philipp Keller - 2007 - Dissertation, University of Geneva
    In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Necessity of Metaphysics.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2008 - Dissertation, Durham University
    The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that metaphysics is a necessary discipline -- necessary in the sense that all areas of philosophy, all areas of science, and in fact any type of rational activity at all would be impossible without a metaphysical background or metaphysical presuppositions. Because of the extremely strong nature of this claim, it is not possible to put forward a very simple argument, although I will attempt to construct one. A crucial issue here is what (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Absence of action.Randolph Clarke - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (2):361-376.
    Often when one omits to do a certain thing, there's no action that is one's omission; one's omission, it seems, is an absence of any action of some type. This paper advances the view that an absence of an action--and, in general, any absence--is nothing at all: there is nothing that is an absence. Nevertheless, it can result from prior events that one omits to do a certain thing, and there can be results of the fact that one omits to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Being Positive About Negative Facts.Mark Jago & Stephen Barker - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (1):117-138.
    Negative facts get a bad press. One reason for this is that it is not clear what negative facts are. We provide a theory of negative facts on which they are no stranger than positive atomic facts. We show that none of the usual arguments hold water against this account. Negative facts exist in the usual sense of existence and conform to an acceptable Eleatic principle. Furthermore, there are good reasons to want them around, including their roles in causation, chance-making (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   61 citations  
  • (1 other version)Dialetheism.Francesco Berto, Graham Priest & Zach Weber - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2018 (2018).
    A dialetheia is a sentence, A, such that both it and its negation, ¬A, are true (we shall talk of sentences throughout this entry; but one could run the definition in terms of propositions, statements, or whatever one takes as her favourite truth-bearer: this would make little difference in the context). Assuming the fairly uncontroversial view that falsity just is the truth of negation, it can equally be claimed that a dialetheia is a sentence which is both true and false.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   73 citations  
  • Presentism and truth-making.Jonathan Tallant - 2009 - Erkenntnis 71 (3):407-416.
    Here, I defend the view that there is no sensible way to pin a truth-maker objection on presentism. First, I suggest that if we adopt truth-maker maximalism then the presentist can requisition appropriate ontological resources with impunity. Second, if we deny maximalism, then the presentist can sensibly restrict the truth-maker principle in order to avoid the demand for truth-makers for talk about the non-present.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  • The Law of Non-Contradiction as a Metaphysical Principle.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Logic 7:32-47.
    The goals of this paper are two-fold: I wish to clarify the Aristotelian conception of the law of non-contradiction as a metaphysical rather than a semantic or logical principle, and to defend the truth of the principle in this sense. First I will explain what it in fact means that the law of non-contradiction is a metaphysical principle. The core idea is that the law of non-contradiction is a general principle derived from how things are in the world. For example, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • The Metaphysical Status of Logic.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2008 - In Michal Peliš (ed.), The Logica Yearbook 2007. Filosofia.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of logic from a metaphysical point of view – what is logic grounded in and what is its relationship with metaphysics. There are three general lines that we can take. 1) Logic and metaphysics are not continuous, neither discipline has no bearing on the other one. This seems to be a rather popular approach, at least implicitly, as philosophers often skip the question altogether and go about their business, be it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Truth.Michael Glanzberg - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  • Άδύνατον and material exclusion 1.Francesco Berto - 2008 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2):165 – 190.
    Philosophical dialetheism, whose main exponent is Graham Priest, claims that some contradictions hold, are true, and it is rational to accept and assert them. Such a position is naturally portrayed as a challenge to the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). But all the classic formulations of the LNC are, in a sense, not questioned by a typical dialetheist, since she is (cheerfully) required to accept them by her own theory. The goal of this paper is to develop a formulation of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • If you believe in positive facts, you should believe in negative facts.Gunnar Björnsson - 2007 - Hommage À Wlodek. Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz.
    Substantial metaphysical theory has long struggled with the question of negative facts, facts capable of making it true that Valerie isn’t vigorous. This paper argues that there is an elegant solution to these problems available to anyone who thinks that there are positive facts. Bradley’s regress and considerations of ontological parsimony show that an object’s having a property is an affair internal to the object and the property, just as numerical identity and distinctness are internal to the entities that are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • The reality of absences.Boris Kukso - 2006 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (1):21 – 37.
    In this paper, I make a contribution to a naturalistically-minded theory of truthmakers by proposing a solution to the nasty problem of truthmakers for negative truths. After formulating the difficulty, I consider and reject a number of solutions to the problem, including Armstrong's states of affairs of totality, incompatibility accounts, and JC Beall 's polarity view. I then defend the position that absences of truthmakers are real and are responsible for making negative truths true. According to the positive account of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  • Is Dialetheism an Idealism? The Russellian Fallacy and the Dialetheist’s Dilemma.Francesco Berto - 2007 - Dialectica 61 (2):235–263.
    In his famous work on vagueness, Russell named “fallacy of verbalism” the fallacy that consists in mistaking the properties of words for the properties of things. In this paper, I examine two (clusters of) mainstream paraconsistent logical theories – the non-adjunctive and relevant approaches –, and show that, if they are given a strongly paraconsistent or dialetheic reading, the charge of committing the Russellian Fallacy can be raised against them in a sophisticated way, by appealing to the intuitive reading of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Logical pluralism.Jc Beall & Greg Restall - 2000 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (4):475 – 493.
    Consequence is at the heart of logic; an account of consequence, of what follows from what, offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. Since philosophy itself proceeds by way of argument and inference, a clear view of what logical consequence amounts to is of central importance to the whole discipline. In this book JC Beall and Greg Restall present and defend what thay call logical pluralism, the view that there is more than one genuine deductive consequence relation, a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   302 citations  
  • The Logical and Philosophical Foundations for the Possibility of True Contradictions.Ben Martin - 2014 - Dissertation, University College London
    The view that contradictions cannot be true has been part of accepted philosophical theory since at least the time of Aristotle. In this regard, it is almost unique in the history of philosophy. Only in the last forty years has the view been systematically challenged with the advent of dialetheism. Since Graham Priest introduced dialetheism as a solution to certain self-referential paradoxes, the possibility of true contradictions has been a live issue in the philosophy of logic. Yet, despite the arguments (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Disentangling Nature's Joints.Tuomas Tahko - 2017 - In William M. R. Simpson, Robert Charles Koons & Nicholas Teh (eds.), Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science. New York: Routledge. pp. 147-166.
    Can the neo-Aristotelian uphold a pluralist substance ontology while taking seriously the recent arguments in favour of monism based on quantum holism and other arguments from quantum mechanics? In this article, Jonathan Schaffer’s priority monism will be the main target. It will be argued that the case from quantum mechanics in favour of priority monism does face some challenges. Moreover, if the neo-Aristotelian is willing to consider alternative ways to understand ‘substance’, there may yet be hope for a pluralist substance (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Reference fiction, and omission.Samuel Murray - 2018 - Synthese 195 (1):235-257.
    In this paper, I argue that sentences that contain ‘omission’ tokens that appear to function as singular terms are meaningful while maintaining the view that omissions are nothing at all or mere absences. I take omissions to be fictional entities and claim that the way in which sentences about fictional characters are true parallels the way in which sentences about omissions are true. I develop a pragmatic account of fictional reference and argue that my fictionalist account of omissions implies a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • (1 other version)Dialetheism.Graham Priest - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    A dialetheia is a sentence, A, such that both it and its negation, A, are true (we shall talk of sentences throughout this entry; but one could run the definition in terms of propositions, statements, or whatever one takes as her favourite truth bearer: this would make little difference in the context). Assuming the fairly uncontroversial view that falsity just is the truth of negation, it can equally be claimed that a dialetheia is a sentence which is both true and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • Two in one: contradictory Christology without gluts?Franca D’Agostini - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):1-27.
    The central thesis of JC Beall’s paraconsistent Christology is that Christ, being human and divine, is a contradictory being, and a rational Christology can accept it, since logic nowadays does not exclude the possibility of true contradictions. In this paper, I move from Beall’s theory and I present an alternative view. I quote seven statements of the so-called ‘Athanasian Creed’ which synthesizes the results of conciliar Christology. The aim of the Creed is to combat monophysitism by stressing the duplicity and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Something Negative about Totality Facts.Andrea Raimondi - 2023 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 19 (2):(A5)1-17.
    Armstrong famously argued in favour of introducing totality facts in our ontology. Contrary to fully negative (absence) facts, totality facts yield a theory of “moderate” or “partial” negativity, which allegedly provides an elegant solution to the truthmaking problem of negative claims and, at the same time, avoids postulating (many) first-order absences. Friends of totality facts argue that partial negativity is (i) tolerable vis-à-vis the Eleatic principle qua mark of the real, and (ii) achieves a significant advantage in terms of ontological (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Truthmaker-Dialetheism.Graham Stevens - 2008 - Logique Et Analyse 51 (203):293-302.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Negative Truth and Falsehood.Stephen Mumford - 2007 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt1):45 - 71.
    What makes it true when we say that something is not the case? Truthmaker maximalists think that every truth has a truthmaker—some fact in the world—that makes it true. No such facts can be found for the socalled negative truths. If a proposition is true when it has a truthmaker, then it would be false when it has no truthmaker. I therefore argue that negative truths, such as t<p>, are best understood as falsehoods, f<p>.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Truthmakers and the groundedness of truth.David Liggins - 2008 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt2):177-196.
    Truthmaker theorists claim that for every truth, there is something in virtue of which it is true—or, more cautiously, that for every truth in some specified class of truths, there is something in virtue of which it is true. I argue that it is hard to see how the thought that truth is grounded in reality lends any support to truthmaker theory.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • True by Default.Aaron Griffith - 2022 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8 (1):92-109.
    This paper defends a new version of truthmaker non-maximalism. The central feature of the view is the notion of a default truth-value. I offer a novel explanation for default truth-values and use it to motivate a general approach to the relation between truth-value and ontology, which I call truth-value-maker theory. According to this view, some propositions are false unless made true, whereas others are true unless made false. A consequence of the theory is that negative existential truths need no truthmakers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Analysing causation.Morgan Jennifer Margaret - unknown
    This thesis will survey several prominent approaches to analysing causation, discuss their differences and similarities, and look at a number of problems which are common to all of them. I will be arguing for the following claims about how we should approach the process of analysing causation. Firstly, I will be arguing that a reductive analysis is desirable, since if we can reductively analyse causation in terms of something empirically accessible, we can explain how it is possible to know anything (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Negative truths and truthmaker principles.Julian Dodd - 2007 - Synthese 156 (2):383-401.
    This paper argues that a consideration of the problem of providing truthmakers for negative truths undermines truthmaker theory. Truthmaker theorists are presented with an uncomfortable dilemma. Either they must take up the challenge of providing truthmakers for negative truths, or else they must explain why negative truths are exceptions to the principle that every truth must have a truthmaker. The first horn is unattractive since the prospects of providing truthmakers for negative truths do not look good neither absences, nor totality (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   69 citations  
  • Is metaphysical nihilism interesting?David Efird & Tom Stoneham - 2009 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2):210-231.
    Suppose nothing exists. Then it is true that nothing exists. What makes that true? Nothing! So it seems that if nothing existed, then the principle that every truth is made true by something (the truthmaker principle) would be false. So if it is possible that nothing exists, a claim often called 'metaphysical nihilism', then the truthmaker principle is not necessary. This paper explores various ways to resolve this conflict without restricting metaphysical nihilism in such a way that it would become (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • How negative truths are made true.Aaron M. Griffith - 2015 - Synthese 192 (1):317-335.
    Identifying plausible truthmakers for negative truths has been a serious and perennial problem for truthmaker theory. I argue here that negative truths are indeed made true but not in the way that positive truths are. I rely on a distinction between “existence-independence” and “variation-independence” drawn by Hoffman and Horvath to characterize the unique form of dependence negative truths exhibit on reality. The notion of variation-independence is then used to motivate a principle of truthmaking for contingent negative truths.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • How to Derive a 'Not' from an 'Is': A Defense of the Incompatibility View of Negative Truths.Michael Veber - 2008 - Metaphysica 9 (1):79-91.
    Truthmaker maximalism is the claim that every truth has a truthmaker. The case of negative truths leads some philosophers to postulate negative states of affairs or to give up on truthmaker maximalism. This paper defends a version of the incompatibility view of negative truths. Negative truths can be made true by positive facts, and thus, truthmaker maximalism can be maintained without postulating negative states of affairs.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Believing and Asserting Contradictions.Manuel Bremer - 2007 - Logique Et Analyse (200):341.
    The debate around “strong” paraconsistency or dialetheism (the view that there are true contradictions) has – apart from metaphysical concerns - centred on the questions whether dialetheism itself can be definitely asserted or has a unique truth value, and what it should mean, if it is possible at all, to believe a contradiction one knows to be contradictory (i.e. an explicit contradiction). And what should it mean, if it is possible at all, to assert a sentence one knows to be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Setting the Facts Straight.Mark Jago - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 40 (1):33-54.
    Substantial facts are not well-understood entities. Many philosophers object to their existence on this basis. Yet facts, if they can be understood, promise to do a lot of philosophical work: they can be used to construct theories of property possession and truthmaking, for example. Here, I give a formal theory of facts, including negative and logically complex facts. I provide a theory of reduction similar to that of the typed λ -calculus and use it to provide identity conditions for facts. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Positive truthmakers for negative truths: a solution to Molnar’s problem.Jonas Waechter - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (3):579-592.
    The present paper addresses Molnar’s problem :72–86, 2000): that of finding positive truthmakers for negative truths. The proposed solution, called, is to hold truth and falsity to be primitive and positive features of propositions and to take every literal negative truth to be made true by the falsity of the atomic proposition that it embeds. The solution is shown to be compatible with Maximalism, Necessitarianism and with the Entailment Thesis, as well as with most if not all possible variants of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Minimalism and the dialetheic challenge.B. Armour-Garb & Jc Beall - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3):383 – 401.
    Minimalists, following Horwich, claim that all that can be said about truth is comprised by all and only the nonparadoxical instances of (E) p is true iff p. It is, accordingly, standard in the literature on truth and paradox to ask how the minimalist will restrict (E) so as to rule out paradox-inducing sentences (alternatively: propositions). In this paper, we consider a prior question: On what grounds does the minimalist restrict (E) so as to rule out paradox-inducing sentences and, thereby, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Future Contradictions.Jc Beall - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (3):547-557.
    A common and much-explored thought is Łukasiewicz's idea that the future is ‘indeterminate’—i.e., ‘gappy’ with respect to some claims—and that such indeterminacy bleeds back into the present in the form of gappy ‘future contingent’ claims. What is uncommon, and to my knowledge unexplored, is the dual idea of an overdeterminate future—one which is ‘glutty’ with respect to some claims. While the direct dual, with future gluts bleeding back into the present, is worth noting, my central aim is simply to sketch (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations