Wittgenstein's conception of logical and conceptual truth is often thought to rival that of the logical positivists. This paper argues that there are important respects in which these conceptions complement each other. Analyticity, in the positivists' sense, coincides, not with Wittgenstein's notion of a grammatical proposition, but rather with his notion of a tautology. Grammatical propositions can usually be construed as analyticity postulates in Carnap's sense of the term. This account of grammatical and analytic propositions will be illustrated by appeal (...) to logical, conceptual and arithmetic truths. Its consequences for an analysis of corresponding modal notions will be indicated. (shrink)

A common account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is that while the former are true solely in virtue of meaning, the latter are true also in virtue of the way of the world. Quine famously disputed this characterization, and his skepticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction has cast a long shadow. Against this skepticism, I argue that the common account comes close to the truth, and that truthmaker theory in particular offers the resources for providing a compelling account (...) of the distinction that preserves the basic ideas behind it, and avoids the standard criticisms facing the distinction. In particular, I argue that analytic truths are truths that ontologically depend in no way whatsoever upon what exists. (shrink)

It is nowadays standard to distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical analyticity. Metaphysical analyticity has been widely rejected, while epistemic analyticity has been widely endorsed. I argue that we also have good reason to reject epistemic analyticity. I do so by considering all the plausible ways of characterizing epistemic analyticity and of drawing the epistemic analytic–synthetic distinction. I argue that on all of them, the distinction fails to carve at the semantic joints. I conclude that there is good reason to think (...) that there is no semantic distinction to be drawn between analytic and synthetic sentences. (shrink)

Truthmakers are supposed to explain the truth of propositions, but it is unclear what kind of explanation truthmakers can provide. In this paper, I argue that ‘truthmaker explanations’ conflate two different explanatory projects. The first project is essentially concerned with truth, while the second project is concerned with reductive explanation. It is the latter project, I maintain, which is really central to truthmaking theory. On this basis, a general account of truthmaking can be formulated, which, when combined with a specific (...) theory of reduction (the ‘conceptual entailment approach’), yields a new analysis of truthmaking. This analysis is intuitively appealing and avoids the problem of necessary truths, which poses a serious obstacle for standard accounts. (shrink)

According to linguistic conventionalism, necessities are to be explained in terms of the conventionally adopted rules that govern the use of linguistic expressions. A number of influential arguments against this view concerns the ‘Truth-Contrast Thesis’. This is the claim that necessary truths are fundamentally different from contingent ones since they are not made true by ‘the facts’. Instead, they are supposed to be something like ‘true in virtue of meaning’. This thesis is widely held to be a core commitment of (...) the conventionalist position, and the view is frequently rejected on the grounds that this thesis is untenable. I argue that this line of reasoning is mistaken. While the thesis should be rejected, it is not, I argue, entailed by linguistic conventionalism – nor was it invariably accepted by the paradigmatic conventionalists. (shrink)

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.

Presento una objeción al intento de Gillian Russell de proporcionar una teoría de la analiticidad en su lectura metafísica —es decir, que una oración es analítica sólo en caso de que sea verdadera en virtud de su significado—. La objeción se centra en los aspectos semánticos de la teoría, y argumento que el tipo de sensibilidad al contexto que se propone en la misma termina produciendo el resultado desastroso de que ninguna oración es analítica en el modo buscado. Analizo y (...) rechazo dos posibles respuestas a la objeción. (shrink)