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Full Idea
I think truthmaker theory is contingently true. [n24] If there could have been nothing, what makes that true? But if truthmaker maximalism is a necessary truth, there's necessarily something.
Gist of Idea
If maximalism is necessary, then that nothing exists has a truthmaker, which it can't have
Source
Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4 n24)
Book Ref
'Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Vol.6', ed/tr. Zimmerman,D/Bennett,K [OUP 2011], p.75
A Reaction
Truthmaking is beginning to feel like Gödel's Theorems. You can 'make' lots and lots of truths ('prove' in Gödel), but there will be truths that elude the making. Truthmaker theory itself will be one example. So is Maximalism another one?
Related Idea
Idea 18931 Determinate truths don't need extra truthmakers, just truthmakers that are themselves determinate [Cameron]
| 17282 | Truths need not always have their source in what exists [Fine,K] |
| 18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
| 18473 | 'Maximalism' says every truth has an actual truthmaker [MacBride] |
| 18481 | Maximalism follows Russell, and optimalism (no negative or universal truthmakers) follows Wittgenstein [MacBride] |
| 18868 | Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron] |
| 18928 | If maximalism is necessary, then that nothing exists has a truthmaker, which it can't have [Cameron] |
| 17962 | The truth-maker principle is that every truth has a sufficient truth-maker [Forrest] |
| 18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
| 18866 | Maybe only 'positive' truths need truth-makers [Tallant] |