In spite of its significance for everyday and philosophical discourse, the explanatory connective has not received much treatment in the philosophy of logic. The present paper develops a logic for based on systematic connections between and the truth-functional connectives.

The article is primarily concerned with the notion of a truth-maker. An explication for this notion is offered, which relates it to other notions of making something such-and-such. In particular, it is shown that the notion of a truth-maker is a close relative of a concept employed by van Inwagen in the formulation of his Consequence Argument. This circumstance helps understanding the general mechanisms of the concepts involved. Thus, a schematic explication of a whole battery of related notions is offered. (...) It is based on an explanatory notion, introduced by the sentential connector “because”, whose function is examined in some detail. Finally, on the basis of the explication proposed, an argument is developed to the effect that the objects usually regarded as truth-makers are not apt to play this role. (shrink)

This bulletin contains a summary of the main topics of discussion in truthmaker theory, namely: the definition of truthmakers, problems with Truthmaker Necessitarianism and Truthmaker Maximalism, the ontological burden of truthmakers and the recalcitrant topic of truthmakers for negative truths.

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 (...) states of affairs, nor Graham Priest and J.C. Beall’s ‘polarities’ (Beall, 2000; Priest, 2000) are up to the job. The second horn, meanwhile, is problematic because restricting the truthmaker principle to atomic truths, or weakening it to the thesis that truth supervenes on being, undercuts truthmaker theory’s original motivation. The paper ends by arguing that truthmaker theory is, in any case, an under-motivated doctrine because the groundedness of truth can be explained without appeal to the truthmaker principle. This leaves us free to give the ommonsensical and deflationary explanation of negative truths that common-sense suggests. (shrink)

This article for the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy provides a state of the art survey and assessment of the contemporary debate about truth-makers, covering both the case for and against truth-makers. It explores 4 interrelated questions about truth-makers, (1) What is it to be a truth-maker? (2) Which range, or ranges, of truths are eligible to be made true (if any are)? (3) What kinds of entities are truth-makers? (4) What is the motivation for adopting a theory of truth-makers? And (...) adds that there's another question to often put aside by metaphysicians but has critical consequences for truth-makers: (5) What are the truth-bearers? (shrink)

In this paper I undermine the Entailment Principle according to which if an entity is a truthmaker for a certain proposition and this proposition entails another, then the entity in question is a truthmaker for the latter proposition. I argue that the two most promising versions of the principle entail the popular but false Conjunction Thesis, namely that a truthmaker for a conjunction is a truthmaker for its conjuncts. One promising version of the principle understands entailment as strict implication but (...) restricts the field of application of the principle to purely contingent truths (i.e. those that contain no necessary proposition at any level of analysis). But a conjunction of purely contingent truths strictly implies its conjuncts. So this version of the principle is committed to the Conjunction Thesis. The same is true of the version of the principle where entailment is understood in the sense of systems T, R, and E of relevant logic, since in these systems conjunctions entail their conjuncts. I argue that the Conjunction Thesis is false because a truthmaker is that in virtue of what a certain proposition is true and it is false that, for example, what the proposition that Peter is a man is true in virtue of is the conjunctive fact that Peter is man and Saturn is a planet (or the facts that Peter is a man and that Saturn is a planet taken together). I also argue against other versions of the principle. (shrink)

I argue that there is no metaphysically substantive property of truth. Although many take this thesis to be central to deflationism about truth, it is sometimes left unclear what a metaphysically substantive property of truth is supposed to be. I offer a precise account by relying on the distinction between the property and concept of truth. Metaphysical substantivism is the view that the property of truth is a sparse property, regardless of how one understands the nature of sparse properties. I (...) then offer two new arguments against metaphysical substantivism that employ ideas involving recombination and truthmaking. First, I argue that there are no theoretically compelling reasons to posit the existence of a metaphysically substantive property of truth. Secondly, I argue that if we do posit the existence of such a property, then we end up with a view that is either contradictory or unmotivated. What we’re left with is a metaphysically deflationary account of the property of truth that fully respects the metaphysical ambitions of truthmaker theory, and that is consistent with both the view that truth is a deflated, explanatorily impotent concept and the view that truth is an explanatorily powerful concept. (shrink)

This paper attempts to locate, within an actualist ontology, truthmakers for modal truths: truths of the form or . In Sect. 1 I motivate the demand for substantial truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 21 criticise Armstrong's account of truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 31 examine essentialism and defend an account of what makes essentialist attributions true, but I argue that this does not solve the problem of modal truth in general. In Sect. 41 discuss, and dismiss, a theistic (...) account of the source of modal truth proposed by Alexander Pruss. In Sect. 5 I offer a means of (dis)solving the problem. (shrink)

I propose an account truthmaking that provides truthmakers for negative truths. The account replaces Truthmaker Necessitarianism with a "Duplication Principle", according to which a suitable entity T is a truthmaker for a proposition P just in case the existence of an appropriate counterpart of T entails the truth of P, where the counterpart relation is cashed out in terms of qualitative duplication. My account captures an intuitive notion of truthmakers as "things the way they are", validates two appealing principles about (...) entailment and containment proposed by David Armstrong, and invalidates the controversial Disjunction Thesis. (shrink)

In this article I address the Problem of Universals by answering questions about what facts a solution to the Problem of Universals should explain and how the explanation should go. I argue that a solution to the Problem of Universals explains the facts the Problem of Universals is about by giving the truthmakers (as opposed to the conceptual content and the ontological commitments) of the sentences stating those facts. I argue that the sentences stating the relevant facts are those like (...) 'a has the property F', that is, sentences stating that a particular has a certain property. Finally I show how answering these questions in this way transforms the Problem of Universals, traditionally conceived as the One over Many, that is, the problem of explaining how different particulars can have the same properties, into the Many over One, that is, the problem of explaining how the same particular can have different properties. The Problem of Universals is the problem of the Many over One. (shrink)

Nominalizations are expressions that are particularly challenging philosophically in that they help form singular terms that seem to refer to abstract or derived objects often considered controversial. The three standard views about the semantics of nominalizations are [1] that they map mere meanings onto objects, [2] that they refer to implicit arguments, and [3] that they introduce new objects, in virtue of their compositional semantics. In the second case, nominalizations do not add anything new but pick up objects that would (...) be present anyway in the semantic structure of a corresponding sentence without a nominalization. In the first and third case, nominalizations in a sense ‘create’ new objects’, enriching the ontology on the basis of the meaning of expressions. I will argue that there is a fourth kind of nominalization which requires a quite different treatment. These are nominalizations that introduce ‘new’ objects, but only partially characterize them. Such nominalizations generally refer to events or tropes. I will explore an account according on which such nominalizations refer to truth makers. (shrink)

First paragraph: Truthmaker theory maintains that for every truth there is something, some thing, some entity, that makes it true. Balking at the prospect that logical truths are made true by any particular thing, a consequence that may in fact be hard to avoid (see Restall 1996, Read 2000), this principle of truthmaking is sometimes restricted to (logically) contingent truths. I aim to show that even in its restricted form, the principle is provably false.

This paper is a response to replies by Dan López de Sa and Mark Jago to my ‘Truthmaking, Entailment, and the Conjuction Thesis’. In that paper, my main aim was to argue against the Entailment Principle by arguing against the Conjunction Thesis, which is entailed by the Entailment Principle. In the course of so doing, although not essential for my project in that paper, I defended the Disjunction Thesis. López de Sa has objected both to my defence of the Disjunction (...) Thesis and my case against the Conjunction Thesis. I shall show that his objections are unfounded and based on serious misunderstandings of my position, what the relevant debate is, and some fundamental notions of Truthmaker Theory. Jago argues that accepting the Disjunction Thesis and rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is hard to maintain. But I show that Jago has not shown that accepting the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is impossible or even hard to maintain. Jago believes that, to accept the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis, one needs to reject his axiom (T3), which says that all the truthmakers for <P&P> are truthmakers for <P>. I argue that there are reasons to reject such a principle, and the version of it that says that what makes <P&P> true makes <P> true. (shrink)

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.

In §2-4, I survey three extant ways of making sense of indeterminate truth and find each of them wanting. All the later sections of the paper are concerned with showing that the most promising way of making sense of indeterminate truth is via either a theory of truthmaker gaps or via a theory of truthmaking gaps. The first intimations of a truthmaker–truthmaking gap theory of indeterminacy are to be found in Quine (1981). In §5, we see how Quine proposes to (...) solve Unger’s problem of the many via positing the possibility of groundless truth. In §6, I elaborate the truthmaker gap model of indeterminacy first sketched by Sorensen (2001, ch.11) and use it to give a reductive analysis of indeterminate truth. In §7, I briefly assess what kind of formal framework can best express the possibility of truthmaker gaps. In §8, I contrast what I dub ‘the ordinary conception of worldly indeterminacy’ with Williamson’s conception of worldly indeterminacy. In §9, I show how one can distinguish linguistic from worldly indeterminacy on a truthmaker gap conception. In §10, I briefly sketch the relationship between truthmaker gaps and ignorance. In §11, I assess whether a truthmaker gap conception of vagueness is really just a form of epistemicism. In §12, I propose that truthmaker gaps can yield a plausible model of (semantic) presupposition failure. In §13, in response to the worry that a truthmaker gap conception of indeterminacy is both parochial and controversial—since it commits us to an implausibly strong theory of truthmaking—I set forth a truthmaking gap conception of indeterminacy. In §14, I answer the worry that groundless truths, of whatever species, are just unacceptably queer. A key part of this answer is that a truthmaker–truthmaking gap model of indeterminacy turns out to be considerably less queer than any model of indeterminacy which gives up on Tarski’s T-schema for truth (and cognate schemas). (shrink)

This paper introduces a new approach to the theory of truthmaking. According to this approach, there are multiple forms of truthmaking. Here, I characterize and motivate a specific version of this approach, which I call a ‘Pluralist Theory of Truthmaking.’ It is suggested that truthmaking is a plural, variegated phenomenon wherein different kinds of truths, e.g., positive truths, negative truths, counterfactual truths, etc., are made true in different ways. While the paper only aims to lay the groundwork for a Pluralist (...) Theory of Truthmaking, I show how the theory can be applied to positive and negative truths. The upshot of this application is that truthmaking pluralism allows us to provide negative truths with ‘non-suspicious’ truthmakers. Finally, it is argued that Truthmaker Maximalists would do well to endorse truthmaking pluralism, as it offers a new strategy for upholding Maximalism while diminishing controversial ontological commitments. (shrink)

A central tenet of truthmaker theory is that necessitation is necessary for truthmaking (NEC). This paper defends NEC in a novel, piecemeal way, namely by responding to a potential counterexample involving a changing past. If Carter won a race at t1 but is later disqualified at t2, then Carter no longer won at t1. A wholly past event seems to have changed in the future. The event makes ‘Carter won the race at t1’ (RACE) true between t1‐2 but fails to (...) make it true at t2. So, we have a potential counterexample to necessitation: a truthmaker of RACE fails in another context to make the same truthbearer RACE true. I argue that the best solution to this challenge is not that there are different truthbearers at t1‐2 and t2 (the semantic response), or that RACE was never true because of the future disqualification or will always be true despite the future disqualification. The best solution is to accept that the past can change: past events can change based on what happens in the future (e.g., via their effects). This paper's novel defence of necessitation will illustrate the importance of utilising explicitly ontological and commonsensical tools in accounting for truth. (shrink)

The correspondence theory of truth is often thought to be supported by the intuition that if a proposition (sentence, belief) is true, then something makes it true. I argue that this appearance is illusory and is sustained only by a conflation of two distinct notions of truthmaking, existential and non-existential. Once the conflation is exposed, I maintain, deflationism is seen to be adequate for accommodating truthmaking intuitions.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and defend an absolute principle of truthmaking, a maximalist one according to which every truth is made true by something in the world beyond itself. I maintain that an absolute principle must be true, that any weakened version is straightforwardly contradictory or incoherent. I criticize one principle of truthmaking (in terms of bald necessity) and articulate one in terms of the relation in virtue of. I then criticize other principles of truthmaking in (...) light of the latter, for I contend that in virtue of has a role in the theory of truthmaking that is essential and ineluctable. That all true representations have a truthmaker as defined by the principle I articulate is the absolute principle of truthmaking I defend. The crux of the paper is the arguments I present in defense of this absolute principle. In defending it against familiar objections to maximalism, an account of the truthmakers that seem to ground all true representations emerges. I maintain that such truthmakers are simple facts. With the absolute principle and its corollary account of truthmakers, this paper contains the core of a comprehensive theory of truthmaking. (shrink)

This paper aims to introduce Meinongian Abstractionism (MA), i.e. a view on the metaphysics of truthmaking and modality. This approach is based on the notion of objectives—one of the key elements of Alexius Meinong’s Theory of Objects. In the light of it, worlds are interpreted in terms of sets of subsistent and non-subsistent objectives. This—along with Meinong’s characterization of objectives—provides a ground for possible as well as impossible worlds. One of the consequences of Meinongain Abstractionism is a reformulation of the (...) relation of truthmaking in modal terms. Importantly, this reformulation avoids the problem of too-coarse grained analysis of truthmakers. This makes MA a metaphysically–oriented supporter of the so-called ‘hyperintensional revolution.’. (shrink)

In the present paper we propose a system of propositional logic for reasoning about justification, truthmaking, and the connection between justifiers and truthmakers. The logic of justification and truthmaking is developed according to the fundamental ideas introduced by Artemov. Justifiers and truthmakers are treated in a similar way, exploiting the intuition that justifiers provide epistemic grounds for propositions to be considered true, while truthmakers provide ontological grounds for propositions to be true. This system of logic is then applied both for (...) interpreting the notorious definition of knowledge as justified true belief and for advancing a new solution to Gettier counterexamples to this standard definition. (shrink)

There are two dimensions to Fine’s truthmaker semantics. One involves a claim about the nature of propositions: propositions are not structural and nothing but sets of their possible truthmakers, and the other talks about the relation between truthmaking and Boolean operations. In this paper, I show that a claim by Fine in the latter dimension—that truthmaking is distributed over “or”—faces a counterexample. I will then go on to argue that one possible way to do away with the counterexample is to (...) restrict truthmakers to fundamentals, namely entities that are not grounded in anything else. This would, nevertheless, pose a problem for the first dimension of truthmaker semantics: certain distinct propositions would fail to be distinct. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2006) argues against attempts to preserve the entailment principle (or a restriction of it) while avoiding the explosion of truthmakers for necessities and truthmaker triviality. In doing so, he both defends the disjunction thesis--if something makes true a disjunctive truth, then it makes true one of its disjuncts--, and rejects the conjunction thesis--if something makes tue a conjunctive truth, then it makes true each of its conjuncts. In my discussion, I provide plausible counterexamples to the disjunction thesis, and (...) contend that Rodriguez-Pereyra's general defence of it fails. Then I defend the conjunction thesis from Rodriguez-Pereyra's case against it. (shrink)

Charles Hermes argues that the Direct Argument for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility fails because one of the inference rules on which it relies, Rule A, is invalid. Rule A states that if a proposition p is broadly logically necessary, then p is true and no one is, or ever has been, even partly morally responsible for the fact that p. Hermes purports to offer a counterexample to Rule A which focuses on agents’ moral responsibility for disjunctions. Hermes’s (...) objection is motivated by the idea that the logic of moral responsibility ought to be based on the logic of truthmakers rather than the logic of propositions. I show that the logic of moral responsibility does not track the logic of truthmakers and defend the validity of Rule A against Hermes’s objection. (shrink)

The common view has it that there are two families of approaches towards the logical structure of impossible worlds – Australasian and North American. According to the first, impossible worlds are closed under the relation of logical consequence of one of the non-classical logics. The North American approach is more liberal, allowing for impossible worlds where no logic holds. After pointing out the questionable consequences of each view, I propose a third one. While this new perspective allows for worlds where (...) no logical consequence holds, it also imposes some constraints on what worlds are built upon. This renders the proposed view not as restrictive as the Australasian approach and not as liberal as the North American approach. Due to its intermediary nature, I have named this perspective ‘the Pacific’ approach. (shrink)

Among truthmaker theorists it is generally thought that we are not able to use the entailment principle to ground negative truths. But these theorists usually only discuss truthmakers for truth-functional complexes, thereby overlooking the fact that there are non-truth-functional complexes whose truth values are not solely determined by the truth or falsity of their atomic propositions. And once we expand the class of truths that require their own bespoke truthmakers to also include these, there is no reason to exempt negative (...) truths from grounding. For given that truthmaking is closed under entailment and every negative truths is entailed by some non-truth-functional complex or other, any resources rich enough to ground the truth of the latter will do the same job for the former. (shrink)

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 (...) the ability of using them that we have as competent speakers. I argue that the analytic perspective is responsible for five recurring difficulties in truthmaker theory: (1) the lack of attention to the difference of explanatory role between the distinct notions proposed as primary truthbearer; (2) the adscription of purely extra-linguistic truthmakers to ‘synthetic truths’, ignoring the contribution of the linguistic factor; (3) the adscription of purely linguistic truthmakers to ‘logical’ and ‘analytic truths’, ignoring the contribution of the worldly factor; (4) the difficulties in the search for minimal truthmakers; (5) the problems in the treatment of ‘negative facts’ and of other ‘logically complex facts’. I do not provide an account of how to solve these difficulties, but I do show how the ‘process model’ helps to clear up confusion regarding them. (shrink)

There is no single problem of universals but a family of difficulties that treat of a variety of interwoven metaphysical, epistemological, logical and semantic themes. This makes the problem of universals resistant to canonical reduction (to a ‘once-and-for-all’ concern). In particular, the problem of universals cannot be reduced to the problem of supplying truth-makers for sentences that express sameness of type. This is (in part) because the conceptual distinction between numerical and qualitative identity must first be drawn before a sentence (...) is eligible to be supplied with truth-makers. The case is made through a consideration of a recent argument by Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra. (shrink)

It is often taken for granted that truth is mind-independent, i.e. that, necessarily, if the world is objectively speaking in a certain way, then it is true that it is that way, independently of anyone thinking that it is that way. I argue that proponents of correspondence-truth, in particular immanent realists, should not take the mind-independence of truth for granted. The assumption that the mind-independent features of the world, i.e. ‘facts’, determine the truth of propositions, does not entail that truth (...) is independent of minds. This follows only on the further assumption that there exist propositions about every feature of reality independent of minds, which is something the immanent realist can and should deny. (shrink)

A common objection against deflationist theories of truth is that they cannot do justice to the correspondence intuition, i.e. the intuition that there is an explanatory relationship between, for instance, the truth of ‘Snow is white’ and snow's being white. We scrutinize two attempts to meet this objection and argue that both fail. We then propose a new response to the objection which, first, sheds doubt on the correctness of the correspondence intuition and, second, seeks to explain how we may (...) nonetheless have come to have that intuition. (shrink)

The grounding objection to presentism rests on two premises: (i) every true proposition P has a truthmaker T, and (ii) some claims about the future and past are obviously true. However, if the future and past do not exist, there can be no truthmakers for future and past tensed expressions. Presentists tend not to challenge the premises of the objection. Instead they argue that the present contains all the truthmakers we need. Presentists should challenge the premises instead. First, finding truthmakers (...) in the present only results in the postulation of implausible and/or ethereal entities that ultimately fail to solve the grounding objection. Second, no manifestly absurd consequences follow from accepting the lack of truth-values for tensed expressions. Third, the grounding objection does not just require the assumption that for every truth there is a truthmaker, but also that for every truthmaker there is a truth. I show how one can deny the latter without denying the former. (shrink)

The subject matter of this thesis is analytic ontology. Chapters II and III deal with two versions of trope theory, or moderate nominalism; these are defined as ontologies which recognise properties and relations but no (real) universals. The key notion of both theories, trope, is characterised as an abstract particular. What the abstractness amounts to differs between the two. Yet another difference is that simplicity is an essential trait of a trope according to one theory, but not according to the (...) other. Though exact similarity is said to play an important role in both theories, as it turns out, this does not seem to be the case. The ontology dealt with in chapter IV is a mixture of moderate nominalism concerning qualities and realism concerning relations. In it, quality instances (moments) and universal relations are the ultimate constituents of the universe. While relations and moments are considered to be constituents of states of affairs, which are characterised as objects of higher orders, complexes that are objects of the first order are made up of moments on their own. Among these complexes one finds the ordinary objects. Paradoxically, although relations are necessary for the existence of complex first order objects, relations are not thought to be among the contents of these objects. The main subject of chapter V is a particular version of moderate realism; it is an ontology which is realistic in its recognition of universals and moderate in its recognition of instances of these universals. Instances combine to form complex networks. A theoretically motivated claim is that although each instance has a predicational aspect as well as a universal one, it is simple in the sense of lacking internal predicative structure; though, this claim can be called into question. Keywords: analytic ontology, moderate nominalism, moderate realism, particular, universal, abstract, concrete, abstract particular, abstract universal, concrete particular, concrete universal, trope, moment, complex unity, collection, instance, unit attribute, intensional aspect, predicational aspect, continuous composite, articulated composite. (shrink)

This paper is an investigation in the use of truthmaker theory for exploring the relation of logic to world, and as a tool for metaphysics. A variant of truthmaker theory, which we call the simple theory, is defined and defended against objections. It is characterized formally, and its central features are derived. As part of this project, we give a formal metaphysics based on nondeterministic necessitation relations among possible entities. In what is called the fundamental theorem of truthmaking, it is (...) shown that, as long as a logic is sound and complete, its inferential structure will be isomorphic to the necessitation structure of our metaphysics. We thus arrive at a purely structural logic–world relationship which can be used for metaphysical investigations. Other products of our investigation are a sound and complete semantics for first-order logic with identity and a solution to a result of Restall which has threatened to make truthmaker theory trivial. (shrink)

Although a number of truth theorists have claimed that a deflationary theory of ‘is true’ needs nothing more than the uniform implication of instances of the theorem ‘the proposition that p is true if and only if p ’, reflection shows that this is inadequate. If deflationists can’t support the instances when replacing the biconditional with ‘because’, then their view is in peril. Deflationists sometimes acknowledge this by addressing, occasionally attempting to deflate, ‘because’ and ‘in virtue of’ formulas and their (...) close relatives. I examine what I take to be the most promising deflationist moves in this direction and argue that they fail. (shrink)

The notion of that information is relative to a context is important in many different ways. The idea that the context is small — that is, not necessarily a consistent and complete possible world — plays a role not only in situation theory, but it is also an enlightening perspective from which to view other areas, such as modal logics, relevant logics, categorial grammar and much more. In this article we will consider these areas, and focus then on one further (...) question: How can we account for information about one thing giving us information about something else? This is a question addressed by channel theory. We will look at channel theory and then see how the issues of information flow and conditionality play a role in each of the different domains we have examined. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of how truthmaker theorists ought to think about their subject in relation to logic. Regarding logic and truthmaking, I defend the view that considerations drawn from advances in modal logic have little bearing on the legitimacy of truthmaker theory. To do so, I respond to objections Timothy Williamson has lodged against truthmaker theory. As for the logic of truthmaking, I show how the project of understanding the logical features of the (...) truthmaking relation has led to an apparent impasse. I offer a new perspective on the logic of truthmaking that both explains the problem and offers a way out. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Armstrong’s recent truthmaking account of possibility. I show that the truthmaking account presupposes modality in a number of different ways, and consequently that it is incapable of underwriting a genuine reduction of modality. I also argue that Armstrong’s account faces serious difficulties irrespective of the question of reduction; in particular, I argue that his Entailment and Possibility Principles are both false.

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 (...) order to highlight the contrast between a genuinely empirical perspective, such as that of physics, and the logical-analytical perspective, under which Kripkenstein’s paradox has attracted so much attention. (shrink)

A truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is based on the idea that knowledge can be defined as justified true belief provided that the source of one’s justification is suitably connected with what makes the believed proposition true. Different developments of this basic intuition have been recently criticized on the basis of a series of arguments aiming at showing that no truthmaker theory can allow us to solve Gettier problems, since the very idea underlying such solution is ineffective. In this (...) paper, I discuss the criticism to the truthmaker solution I consider most promising and show how it can be successfully addressed. (shrink)

According to alethic pluralism, sentences belonging to different domains of discourse can be true by having different alethic (i.e., truth-constituting) properties. Against this pluralistic view, Jamin Asay has recently argued that pluralists' appeal to multiple alethic properties is ill-motivated because the main advantages of pluralism can already be obtained within the framework of standard truthmaker theory. In response to this objection, this paper argues that Asay's claim does not hold with respect to one of the central advantages of pluralism, namely, (...) the ability to offer a proper understanding of the realism/anti-realism debate. This is because, first, when simply construed, truthmaker theory can only provide an inadequate understanding of the debate, and second, when construed in certain ways that allow it to avoid inadequacy, it becomes committed to multiple alethic properties. (shrink)

In this paper I deal with the relation between the disjunction thesis—that the truthmaking relation is distributed over a disjunction—and the necessary connection thesis—that the existence of some entities requires the existence of other distinct entities. I will first show that because of this very relation, the arguments for and against the disjunction thesis that overlook its metaphysical considerations will fail. Finally, I will show that the commitment produced by truthmaker maximalism to totality states of affairs, or some relevantly similar (...) things, requires one to accept a necessary connection that disaffirms the disjunction thesis. (shrink)

Revenant sur la question des vérifacteurs, D. Armstrong demande ici d'abord comment concilier le maximalisme et la relation de nécessitation. L'A. examine quel sens métaphysique donner à la notion d'implication, et s'il y a un sens à admettre une contingence de re. Il traite à ce niveau des possibilités pures, examine le cas des aliens chez David Lewis, puis pose la question de savoir s'il est contingent de dire qu'il y a de l'être plutôt que rien. L'exposé le conduit à (...) traiter du cas des vérifacteurs pour les vérités nécessaires, mais adopte une thèse possibiliste pour les sujets de la science démonstrative. Il se clôt par un examen du genre de nécessité transcatégorielle qui est implicite à la généralisation des vérifacteurs. The A. wants to reconcile maximalisme about truthmakers and the relation of necessitation. He investigates the metaphysical sense of the implication and whether one can admit de re contingency. He examines the pure possibilities and the case of alien properties according with David Lewis and studies whether it is contingent that there is something rather than nothing. He analyses the truthmakers of necessary truths and adopts a possibilist thesis for matters of demonstrative science. He concludes with the transcategorial necessity which is implicit in the generalization of truthmakers. (shrink)

Revenant sur la question des vérifacteurs, D. Armstrong demande ici d’abord comment concilier le maximalisme (toute vérité a un vérifacteur) et la relation de nécessitation (toute vérité contingente peut servir de vérifacteur pour une vérité nécessaire quelconque). L’A. examine quel sens métaphysique donner à la notion d’implication, et s’il y a un sens à admettre une contingence de re. Il traite à ce niveau des possibilités pures, examine le cas des aliens chez David Lewis, puis pose la question de savoir (...) s’il est contingent de dire qu’il y a de l’être plutôt que rien. L’exposé le conduit à traiter du cas des vérifacteurs pour les vérités nécessaires, mais adopte une thèse possibiliste pour les sujets de la science démonstrative. Il se clôt par un examen du genre de nécessité transcatégorielle (et métaphysique) qui est implicite à la généralisation des vérifacteurs. (shrink)

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. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Correspondence Theory of Truth is not well- served by Truthmaker Theory and is better developed in a different direction. For there are reasons to believe that the main axiom of that theory (TA) which states that for every truth there is a truthmaker is either unjustified or false. Some of these reasons are already well-known. Negative existentials and universal generalizations present initial difficulties for TM theory as do necessary truths. There is a more serious problem, (...) though which has not hitherto been noticed. (TA) even when restricted to contingent sentences seems to tolerate clear counterexamples. There seem to be, and I argue that there in fact are, true contingent sentences which lack truthmakers. The examples adduced are all truthmaker analogues of semantically pathological sentences. The positive proposal shares with Truthmaker Theory the view that our judgments and sentences are rendered true by the worldly facts but argues for an alternative conception of Ôrendering trueÕ and a novel conception of 'facts'. (shrink)

This book argues for the importance and commonness of reasonings concerning impossibilities. Its aim is twofold – descriptive and constructive. Since hypothetical reasoning about impossibilities calls for explanation, the book provides a comprehensive guide through popular semantic theories of conditionals. Each is examined from the perspective of the question of impossibilities and the logic and metaphysics surrounding them. This provides the ground for a further aim. In the final chapter, I endeavor to combine the best features of the existing theories (...) and explore the possibility of a novel hybrid account. (shrink)