Philosophical discussion of truthmaking has flourished in recent times, but what exactly does it mean to ‘make’ a truth-bearer true? I argue that ‘making’ is a concept with modal force, and this renders it a problematic deployment for truthmaker theorists with nominalist sympathies, which characterises most current theories. I sketch the outlines of what I argue is a more genuinely realist truthmaker theory, which is capable of answering the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its (...) particular truthbearer(s) true? I do this by drawing on recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a ‘particular double structure’, according to which a proposition not only depicts certain characters of an object, it also depicts itself claiming those characters to pertain to the object. This double structure, I shall argue, also resolves important issues in analytic philosophers’ truthmaker theory, including the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning an infinite regress of truthmaking. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to trace the development of a particular current of thought known under the label ‘pragmatism’ in the last part of the Twentieth century and the beginning of the Twenty-first. I address three questions about this current of thought. First, what is its actual historical development? Second, does it constitute a single, coherent, philosophical outlook? Third, in what form, if any, does it constitute an attractive philosophical outlook. In the course of addressing these questions I (...) identify a potential tension between the two main proponents of this current of thought (Huw Price and Simon Blackburn), namely the attitude they take to what I refer to as their ‘naturalist master narrative’. (shrink)

Is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between particulars and universals another unsupported dogma of metaphysics? F. P. Ramsey famously rejected the particular – universal distinction but neglected to consider the many different conceptions of the distinction that have been advanced. As a contribution to the piecemeal investigation of this issue three interrelated conceptions of the particular – universal distinction are examined: universals, by contrast to particulars, are unigrade; particulars are related to universals by an asymmetric tie of exemplification; universals (...) are incomplete whereas particulars are complete. It is argued that these conceptions are wanting in several respects. Sometimes they fail to mark a significant division amongst entities. Sometimes they make substantial demands upon the shape of reality; once these demands are understood aright it is no longer obvious that the distinction merits our acceptance. The case is made via a discussion of the possibility of multigrade universals. (shrink)

The Reference Principle states that co-referring expressions are everywhere intersubstitutable salva congruitate. On first glance, looks like a truism, but a truism with some bite: transforms difficult philosophical questions about co-reference into easy grammatical questions about substitutability. This has led a number of philosophers to think that we can use to make short work of certain longstanding metaphysical debates. For example, it has been suggested that all we need to do to show that the predicate ‘ is a horse’ does (...) not refer to a property is point out that ‘ is a horse’ and ‘the property of being a horse’ are not everywhere intersubstitutable salva congruitate. However, when we understand ‘substitution’ in the simplest and most straightforward way, is no truism; in fact, natural languages are full of counterexamples to the principle. In this paper, I introduce a new notion of substitution, and then develop and argue for a version of that is immune to these counterexamples. Along the way I touch on the following topics: the relation between argument forms and their natural language instances; the reification of sense; the difference between terms and predicates; and the relation between reference and disquotation. I end by arguing that my new version of cannot be used to settle metaphysical debates quite as easily as some philosophers would like. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn ‘Universals’, Ramsey declares that we do not, and cannot, know the forms of atomic propositions. A year later, in a symposium with Braithwaite and Joseph, he announces a change of mind: atomic propositions may, after all, be discoverable by analysis. It is clear from the 1926 paper that Ramsey intends this to be a revision of the 1925 claim. Puzzlingly, however, Ramsey does not mention analysis in 1925. My task in this article is to provide a justification for that (...) change of mind. My argument consists of two parts. I first show what relation holds between the negative 1925 assertion and the more positive 1926 assertion which allows us to read the latter claim as a retraction of the former, as Ramsey appears to have intended it. Then I shall argue that the retraction of the 1925 claim is forced upon Ramsey by reflection on the fact that three theses, all of which he held in or around the relevant period, are, rather surprisingly, revealed to be inconsistent. (shrink)