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Single Idea 18484

[filed under theme 3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 1. For Truthmakers ]

Full Idea

For Martin the fatal error of phenomenalists was their inability to supply credible truth-makers for truths about unobserved objects; the same error afflicted Ryle's behaviourism, ...and Prior's Presentism (for past-tensed and future-tensed truths).

Gist of Idea

Phenomenalists, behaviourists and presentists can't supply credible truth-makers

Source

Fraser MacBride (Truthmakers [2013], 3.1)

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.22

A Reaction

This seems to be the original motivation for the modern rise of the truthmaker idea. Personally I find 'Napoleon won at Austerlitz' is a perfectly good past-tensed truthmaker which is compatible with presentism. Truth-making is an excellent challenge.

The 20 ideas from 'Truthmakers'

18466 If truthmaking is classical entailment, then anything whatsoever makes a necessary truth [MacBride]
18471 Different types of 'grounding' seem to have no more than a family resemblance relation [MacBride]
18472 Which has priority - 'grounding' or 'truth-making'? [MacBride]
18473 'Maximalism' says every truth has an actual truthmaker [MacBride]
18474 Does 'this sentence has no truth-maker' have a truth-maker? Reductio suggests it can't have [MacBride]
18475 Russell allows some complex facts, but Wittgenstein only allows atomic facts [MacBride]
18476 'A is F' may not be positive ('is dead'), and 'A is not-F' may not be negative ('is not blind') [MacBride]
18478 Wittgenstein's plan to show there is only logical necessity failed, because of colours [MacBride]
18479 There are different types of truthmakers for different types of negative truth [MacBride]
18477 There aren't enough positive states out there to support all the negative truths [MacBride]
18480 Maybe it only exists if it is a truthmaker (rather than the value of a variable)? [MacBride]
18482 Optimalists say that negative and universal are true 'by default' from the positive truths [MacBride]
18481 Maximalism follows Russell, and optimalism (no negative or universal truthmakers) follows Wittgenstein [MacBride]
18483 The main idea of truth-making is that what a proposition is about is what matters [MacBride]
18484 Phenomenalists, behaviourists and presentists can't supply credible truth-makers [MacBride]
18485 Even idealists could accept truthmakers, as mind-dependent [MacBride]
18486 We might define truth as arising from the truth-maker relation [MacBride]
18490 Maybe 'makes true' is not an active verb, but just a formal connective like 'because'? [MacBride]
18489 Connectives link sentences without linking their meanings [MacBride]
18493 Truthmaker talk of 'something' making sentences true, which presupposes objectual quantification [MacBride]