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Full Idea
The converse Barcan formula does not allow any contingent truths at all to have a truthmaker. Once cannot combine the converse Barcan formula with any truthmaker principle worth having.
Clarification
See in Formal Logic|Modal logic for the Barcan formula
Gist of Idea
The converse Barcan formula will not allow contingent truths to have truthmakers
Source
Timothy Williamson (Truthmakers and Converse Barcan Formula [1999], §3)
Book Ref
-: 'Dialectica' [-], p.265
A Reaction
One might reply, so much the worse for the converse Barcan formula, but Williamson doesn't think that.
| 18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
| 18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
| 18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
| 18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
| 17283 | If the truth-making relation is modal, then modal truths will be grounded in anything [Fine,K] |
| 10749 | Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
| 15140 | The converse Barcan formula will not allow contingent truths to have truthmakers [Williamson] |
| 15141 | Truthmaker is incompatible with modal semantics of varying domains [Williamson] |
| 18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
| 18826 | 'True at a possibility' means necessarily true if what is said had obtained [Rumfitt] |