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Full Idea
The claim 'that Fido is brown' seems to demand only a brown Fido, but Truthmaker demands more. It demands both that a state of affairs along the lines of 'Fido's being brown' exists, and also that this state has its constituents essentially.
Gist of Idea
Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients
Source
Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I)
Book Ref
Merricks,Trenton: 'Truth and Ontology' [OUP 2007], p.69
A Reaction
One would need to reread Merricks to get this clear, but my instinct is that the two scenarios are not very different. 'A brown Fido' would require Fido to be necessarily brown to do the job.
13881 | We need to grasp not number-objects, but the states of affairs which make number statements true [Frege, by Wright,C] |
23462 | He says the world is the facts because it is the facts which fix all the truths [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
15394 | Truthmaker requires a commitment to tropes or states of affairs, for contingent truths [Cameron] |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |