Truthmakers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross P. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Truthmaker Theory ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Truthmaker Maximalism

Truthmaker theory says that what is true depends on what exists. This chapter spells out this thesis, its implications, and why we should believe it. It looks at the connection between truth-making and the in virtue of relation. It looks at reasons to accept or reject truthmaker maximalism—the claim that absolutely every truth has a truthmaker—and truthmaker necessitarianism—the claim that if A makes p true then it is impossible for A to exist without p being true. It asks what views on essentialism are compatible with truthmaker theory. Three reasons for accepting the view are discussed. The views that truthmaker theory is required by the correct theory of truth, and that it is a commitment of realism, is rejected. It is argued that the best reason to accept truthmaker theory is that it yields a parsimonious account of what truths are brute.

The cost of truthmaker maximalism

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 460-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jago
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Truthmaker Theory ◽  
The Cost ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Negative Facts ◽  
Truthmaker Maximalism ◽  
Negative Truths

According to truthmaker theory, particular truths are true in virtue of the existence of particular entities. Truthmaker maximalism holds that this is so for all truths. Negative existential and other ‘negative’ truths threaten the position. Despite this, maximalism is an appealing thesis for truthmaker theorists. This motivates interest in parsimonious maximalist theories, which do not posit extra entities for truthmaker duty. Such theories have been offered by David Lewis and Gideon Rosen, Ross Cameron, and Jonathan Schaffer. However, it will be argued here that these theories cannot be sustained, and hence maximalism comes with a serious ontological cost. Neither Armstrong's invocation of totality facts nor the Martin-Kukso line on absences can meet this cost satisfactorily. I'll claim that negative facts are the best (and perhaps only) way out of the problem for the truthmaker maximalist.

scholarly journals A short argument for truthmaker maximalism

Analysis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jago
Keyword(s):  
Significant Cost ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Truthmaker Maximalism

Abstract Each truth has a truthmaker: an entity in virtue of whose existence that truth is true. So say truthmaker maximalists. Arguments for maximalism are hard to find, whereas those against are legion. Most accept that maximalism comes at a significant cost, which many judge to be too high. The scales would seem to be balanced against maximalism. Yet, as I show here, maximalism can be derived from an acceptable premise which many will pre-theoretically accept.

scholarly journals Traditional Christian Theism and Truthmaker Maximalism

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Pawl
Keyword(s):  
Original Formulation ◽  
Truthmaker Theory ◽  
Truthmaker Maximalism

I argue that Traditional Christian Theism is inconsistent with the conjunction of Truthmaker Necessitation and Truthmaker Maximalism, the thesis that all truths have truthmakers. Though this original formulation requires extensive revision, the gist of the argument is as follows. Suppose for reductio Traditional Christian Theism and the sort of Truthmaker Theory that embraces Truthmaker Maximalism are both true. By Traditional Christian Theism, there is a world in which God, and only God, exists. There are no animals in such a world. Thus, it is true in such a world that there are no zebras. That there are no zebras must have a truthmaker, given Truthmaker Maximalism. God is the only existing object in such a world, and so God must be the truthmaker for this truth, given that it has a truthmaker. But truthmakers necessitate the truths they make true. So, for any world, at any time at which God exists, God makes that there are no zebras true. According to Traditional Christian Theism, God exists in our world. In our world, then, it is true: there are no zebras. But there are zebras. Contradiction! Thus, the conjunction of Traditional Christian Theism with Truthmaker Necessitation and Truthmaker Maximalism is inconsistent.

Truthmaking

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Subjunctive Conditional ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Truthmaker Theory ◽  
To Come ◽  
Property Instances ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
In Virtue Of

The notions of “truthmaking” and “truthmakers” are central to many attempts in contemporary metaphysics to come to grips with the connection between truth and reality. The intuitive motivation for theories of truthmaking is the idea that truth depends on reality: that truth is not primitive or fundamental, but rather derivative and dependent. The idea, more precisely stated, is that true propositions (or whatever are the primary truth-bearers, e.g., statements, sentences, or beliefs) are not true in and of themselves but must be made true by reality. Truthmaker theorists think that for a proposition to be made true is for it to be true in virtue of the existence of some entity, which is called its “truthmaker.” While many find the thought that truths are “true in virtue of,” or “grounded in,” or “determined by” reality compelling, not everyone finds the truthmaker theorist’s way of articulating this idea adequate. This article focuses on recent truthmaker theories, their challenges, and alternative approaches to truthmaking. One major point of contention surveyed here is the scope of truthmaking: i.e., whether every truth has a truthmaker, or only some. Another important issue is the nature of truthmakers. Some contend that states of affairs are truthmakers, while others hold that particular property instances (“tropes”) are better qualified to ground truths. Truthmaker theorists also disagree about how to characterize the “truthmaking relation” that holds between truths and their truthmakers. The various principles of truthmaking (principles setting out necessary and sufficient conditions under which an entity is a truthmaker for some proposition) offered in the literature are also surveyed in this entry. Perhaps the most contentious matter in truthmaker theory is how to deal with “problem cases”: i.e., truths for which there are no obvious truthmakers, such as negative existential truths, necessary truths, and subjunctive conditional truths. Some deny that these truths have truthmakers, but others have come up with ingenious and therefore controversial accounts of the truthmakers for these truths. Works on the relation between theories of truth and theories of truthmaking are also surveyed. Because it brings together foundational issues in ontology and truth, the nature of truthmaking and truthmakers has and will continue to be a source of interest and excitement for philosophers.

What Is an Institution?

2007 ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Physical Structure ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Collective Intentionality ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Institutional Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Typical Point

The author claims that an institution is any collectively accepted system of rules (procedures, practices) that enable us to create institutional facts. These rules typically have the form of X counts as Y in C, where an object, person, or state of affairs X is assigned a special status, the Y status, such that the new status enables the person or object to perform functions that it could not perform solely in virtue of its physical structure, but requires as a necessary condition the assignment of the status. The creation of an institutional fact is, thus, the collective assignment of a status function. The typical point of the creation of institutional facts by assigning status functions is to create deontic powers. So typically when we assign a status function Y to some object or person X we have created a situation in which we accept that a person S who stands in the appropriate relation to X is such that (S has power (S does A)). The whole analysis then gives us a systematic set of relationships between collective intentionality, the assignment of function, the assignment of status functions, constitutive rules, institutional facts, and deontic powers.

Acerca del supuesto fundamentalismo de Wittgenstein en Sobre la certez

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Ariso Salgado
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Basic Beliefs

RESUMENAl analizar si Ludwig Wittgenstein mantiene una posición fundamentalista en Sobre la certeza, suele discutirse si la citada obra se adapta al modelo de fundamentalismo propuesto por Avrum Stroll. Tras exponer las líneas básicas de dicho modelo, en esta nota se mantiene que Sobre la certeza no se adapta al modelo de Stroll debido al importante papel que Wittgenstein concede al contextualismo. Además, se añade que Wittgenstein no puede ser calificado de fundamentalista porque no reconoce ninguna propiedad que, sin tener en cuenta la diversidad de casos particulares, permita justificar de forma conjunta todas nuestras creencias básicas.PALABRAS CLAVEWITTGENSTEIN, FUNDAMENTALISMO, CONTEXTUALISMO, CERTEZAABSTRACTDid Wittgenstein hold a foundationalist position in On Certainty? When this question is tackled, it is often discussed, whether On Certainty fits in the foundationalist model devised by Avrum Stroll. After expounding the main lines of this model, I hold that On Certainty does not fit in Stroll’s model, because of the important role Wittgenstein attaches to contextualism. Furthermore, I add that Wittgenstein cannot be seen as a foundationalist –or a coherentist–, because he does not admit any feature in virtue of which the whole of our basic beliefs are justified without considering circumstances at all.KEYWORDSWITTGENSTEIN, CERTAINTY, FOUNDATIONALISM, CONTEXTUALISM

The Uniqueness of God in Anselm’s Monologion

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Tapp
Keyword(s):  
Successful Attempt ◽  
Central Case ◽  
In Virtue Of

In this paper, Anselm’s argument for the uniqueness of God or, more precisely, something through which everything that exists has its being (Monologion 3) is reconstructed. A first reading of the argument leads to a preliminary reconstruens with one major weakness, namely the incompleteness of a central case distinction. In the successful attempt to construct a more tenable reconstruens some additional premises which are deeply rooted in an Anselmian metaphysics are identified. Anselm’s argument seems to depend on premises such as that if two things have the same nature, then there is one common thing from which they have this nature and in virtue of which they exist. Furthermore it appears that infinite regresses are excluded by the premise that if everything that exists is through something, then there is something through which it is “most truly”.

The Green New Deal

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Hockett
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Good News ◽  
Carbon Neutrality ◽  
The One ◽  
In Virtue Of

This white paper lays out the guiding vision behind the Green New Deal Resolution proposed to the U.S. Congress by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bill Markey in February of 2019. It explains the senses in which the Green New Deal is 'green' on the one hand, and a new 'New Deal' on the other hand. It also 'makes the case' for a shamelessly ambitious, not a low-ball or slow-walked, Green New Deal agenda. At the core of the paper's argument lies the observation that only a true national mobilization on the scale of those associated with the original New Deal and the Second World War will be up to the task of comprehensively revitalizing the nation's economy, justly growing our middle class, and expeditiously achieving carbon-neutrality within the twelve-year time-frame that climate science tells us we have before reaching an environmental 'tipping point.' But this is actually good news, the paper argues. For, paradoxically, an ambitious Green New Deal also will be the most 'affordable' Green New Deal, in virtue of the enormous productivity, widespread prosperity, and attendant public revenue benefits that large-scale public investment will bring. In effect, the Green New Deal will amount to that very transformative stimulus which the nation has awaited since the crash of 2008 and its debt-deflationary sequel.

Aesthetic and Historical Values - Their Difference and Why It Matters

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 519-535
Author(s):  
Levi Tenen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environments ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Environmental Preservation ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
In Virtue Of

Aesthetic and historical values are commonly distinguished from each other. Yet there has not been sustained discussion of what, precisely, differs between them. In fact, recent scholarship has focused on various ways in which the two are related. I argue, though, that historical value can differ in an interesting way from aesthetic value and that this difference may have significant implications for environmental preservation. In valuing something for its historical significance, it need not always be the case that there is a reason to want people to experience the entity. Valuing something for its aesthetic merit, by contrast, does imply a reason to want people to experience the entity. I suggest that in virtue of this difference, some historical values may offer better justification for preserving natural environments than do aesthetic considerations.

La otredad: ¿real o inventada? El caso de las brujas

1999 ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Elia Nathan Bravo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Empirical Content ◽  
Extreme Situation ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The One ◽  
In Virtue Of

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. On the one hand, it offers a general analysis of stigmas (a person has one when, in virtue of its belonging to a certain group, such as that of women, homosexuals, etc., he or she is subjugated or persecuted). On the other hand, I argue that stigmas are “invented”. More precisely, I claim that they are not descriptive of real inequalities. Rather, they are socially created, or invented in a lax sense, in so far as the real differences to which they refer are socially valued or construed as negative, and used to justify social inequalities (that is, the placing of a person in the lower positions within an economic, cultural, etc., hierarchy), or persecutions. Finally, I argue that in some cases, such as that of the witch persecution of the early modern times, we find the extreme situation in which a stigma was invented in the strict sense of the word, that is, it does not have any empirical content.

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