Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T10:01:39.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

True by Default

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2021

AARON M. GRIFFITH
AARON M. GRIFFITH*
Affiliation:
THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY amgriffith@wm.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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 and that positive existential falsehoods need no falsemakers.

Keywords

truthmakingtruthfalsitydefault truth-valuepropositions
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 92 - 109
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

For comments on and discussion about this paper, I am indebted to Noël Saenz, Rohan Sud, Kevin Richardson, Kian Mintz-Woo, Liz Jackson, Andrew Moon, Jonah Goldwater, Chad Vance, Philip Swenson, Elanor Taylor, Jim Hutchinson, Daniel Rubio, Alex Skiles, and the audience at the 2019 Eastern APA meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

References

Armstrong, David. (2004) Truth and Truthmakers. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Asay, Jamin. (2016) ‘The Facts About Truthmaking: An Argument for Truthmaker Necessitarianism’. Ergo, 3, 493–500.Google Scholar
Asay, Jamin, and Baron, Sam. (2012) ‘Unstable Truthmaking’. Thought, 1, 230–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, Stephen, and Jago, Mark. (2012) ‘Being Positive About Negative Facts’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 78, 117–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beall, J. C. (2000) ‘On Truthmakers for Negative Truths’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78, 264–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, John. (1988) The Reality of Numbers: A Physicalist's Philosophy of Mathematics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Ross. (2008) ‘How to be a Truthmaker Maximalist’. Noûs, 42, 410–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Ross. (2010) ‘Necessity and Triviality’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 88, 401–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Ross. (2011) ‘Truthmaking for Presentism’. In Bennett, Karen and Zimmerman, Dean (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 55–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodd, Julian. (2007) ‘Negative Truths and Truthmaker Principles’. Synthese, 156, 383–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiocco, M. (2013) ‘An Absolute Principle of Truthmaking’. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 88, 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldschmidt, Tyron. (2013) Puzzles of Existence: Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Griffith, Aaron M. (2013) ‘On Some Alleged Truthmakers for Negatives’. Thought, 1, 301–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffith, Aaron M. (2015a) ‘How Negative Truths are Made True’. Synthese, 192, 317–35.Google Scholar
Griffith, Aaron M. (2015b) ‘Towards a Pluralist Theory of Truthmaking’. Erkenntnis, 80, 1157–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heil, John. (2000) ‘Truthmaking and Entailment’. Logique et Analyse, 169–70, 231–42.Google Scholar
Jago, Mark. (2012) ‘The Truthmaker Non-Maximalist's Dilemma’. Mind 121, 484, 903–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jago, Mark. (2018) What Truth Is. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kukso, Boris. (2006) ‘The Reality of Absences’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84, 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. (1992) ‘Armstrong, D. M. A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 70, 211–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. (2001) ‘Truthmaking and Difference-Making’. Noûs, 35, 602–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, C. B. (1996) ‘How it is: Entities, Absences and Voids’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74,57–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melia, Joseph. (2005) ‘Truthmaking Without Truthmakers’. In Beebee, H. and Dodd, J. (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 67–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, David Hugh. (2003) ‘Real Metaphysics: Replies’. In Lillehammer, H. and Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. (eds.), Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor (London: Routledge), 213–38.Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton. (2007) Truth and Ontology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molnar, George. (2000) ‘Truthmakers for Negative Truths’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78,72–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, Daniel. (2020) ‘Grounding Nonexistence’. Inquiry, 63, 209–29.Google Scholar
Parsons, Josh. (2005) ‘Truthmakers, the Past, and the Future’. In Beebee, H. and Dodd, J. (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 161–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Josh. (2006) ‘Negative Truths from Positive Facts?’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84, 591–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pigden, C., and Cheney, C.. (2006) ‘Negative Truths from Positive Facts’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84, 249–65.Google Scholar
Rayo, Augustin. (2007) ‘Ontological Commitment’. Philosophy Compass, 2, 428–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rayo, Augustin. (2009) ‘Towards a Trivialist Account of Mathematics’. In Bueno, Otávio and Linnebo, Øystein (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Mathematics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 239–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. (2005) ‘Why Truthmakers’. In Beebee, H. and Dodd, J. (eds.), Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 17–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. (2006) ‘Truthmaking, Entailment, and the Conjunction Thesis’. Mind, 115, 957–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1918–19) ‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’. The Monist, 28, 495–527; 29, 190–222, 345–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saenz, Noël. (2014) ‘The World and Truth About What is Not’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 82–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saenz, Noël. (2020) ‘An Account of Truthmaking’. Synthese, 197, 3413–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. (2010) ‘The Least Discerning and Most Promiscuous Truthmaker’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 60, 307–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schipper, Author. (2018) ‘Aboutness and Negative Truths: A Modest Strategy for Truthmaker Theorists’. Synthese, 195, 3685–3722.Google Scholar
Simons, Peter. (2000) ‘Truth-Maker Optimalism’. Logique et Analyse, 169–179, 17–41.Google Scholar
Simons, Peter. (2005) ‘Negatives, Numbers, and Necessity Some Worries About Armstrong's Version of Truthmaking’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83, 253–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simons, Peter. (2008) ‘Why the Negations of False Atomic Sentences are True’. Acta Philosophica Fennica, 84, 14–36.Google Scholar
Skiles, Alexander. (2014) ‘Is there a Dilemma for the Truthmaker Non-Maximalist?’ Synthese, 191, 3649–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Barry. (1999) ‘Truthmaker Realism’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 77, 274–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar