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Single Idea 15546

[filed under theme 3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths ]

Full Idea

Predications seem, for the most part, to be true not because of whether things are, but because of how things are.

Gist of Idea

Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists

Source

David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'The demand')

Book Ref

Lewis,David: 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' [CUP 1999], p.204

A Reaction

This simple point shows that you get into a tangle if you insist that truthmakers just consist of what exists. Lewis says Armstrong offers states of affairs as truthmakers for predications.

Related Idea

Idea 10915 The truth or falsity of a belief will be in terms of something that is always this way not that [Aristotle]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about what determines truths]:

10915 The truth or falsity of a belief will be in terms of something that is always this way not that [Aristotle]
6090 Facts make propositions true or false, and are expressed by whole sentences [Russell]
18901 Truthmakers are facts 'of' a domain, not something 'in' the domain [Sommers]
10365 We might use 'facta' to refer to the truth-makers for facts [Mellor, by Schaffer,J]
15546 Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists [Lewis]
10906 Moments (objects which cannot exist alone) may serve as truth-makers [Mulligan/Simons/Smith]
10907 The truth-maker for a sentence may not be unique, or may be a combination, or several separate items [Mulligan/Simons/Smith]
10909 Truth-makers cannot be the designata of the sentences they make true [Mulligan/Simons/Smith]
10912 Despite negative propositions, truthmakers are not logical complexes, but ordinary experiences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith]
15063 Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
18358 Two different propositions can have the same fact as truth-maker [David]
14408 Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks]
18483 The main idea of truth-making is that what a proposition is about is what matters [MacBride]
18879 What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron]
18880 Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron]
18874 Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron]
18932 The facts about the existence of truthmakers can't have a further explanation [Cameron]
18340 It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami]
18860 A truthmaker is the minimal portion of reality that will do the job [Tallant]
18915 If facts are the truthmakers, they are not in the world [Engelbretsen]
18919 There are no 'falsifying' facts, only an absence of truthmakers [Engelbretsen]