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Single Idea 19044
[filed under theme 3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
]
Full Idea
The notion of fitting the totality of experience ...adds nothing intelligible to the simple concept of being true. ....Nothing, ...no thing, makes sentences and theories true: not experience, not surface irritations, not the world.
Gist of Idea
Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true
Source
Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.11), quoted by Willard Quine - On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma p.39
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Theories and Things' [Harvard 1981], p.39
A Reaction
If you don't have a concept of what normally makes a sentence true, I don't see how you go about distinguishing what is true from what is false. You can't just examine the sentence to see if it has the 'primitive' property of truth. Holism is involved....
The
15 ideas
with the same theme
[opposing the claim that all truths have truthmakers]:
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19044
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Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true
[Davidson]
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10750
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Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker
[Oliver]
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9140
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Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'?
[Sorensen]
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14024
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Truthmaker has problems with generalisation, non-existence claims, and property instantiations
[Crisp,TM]
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14412
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Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false
[Merricks]
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14414
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I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me?
[Merricks]
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12442
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'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker
[Azzouni]
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18474
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Does 'this sentence has no truth-maker' have a truth-maker? Reductio suggests it can't have
[MacBride]
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18485
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Even idealists could accept truthmakers, as mind-dependent
[MacBride]
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18490
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Maybe 'makes true' is not an active verb, but just a formal connective like 'because'?
[MacBride]
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18493
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Truthmaker talk of 'something' making sentences true, which presupposes objectual quantification
[MacBride]
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17318
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Truthmakers for existence is fine; otherwise maybe restrict it to synthetic truths?
[Liggins]
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14480
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Maybe analytic truths do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world
[Thomasson]
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18863
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What is the truthmaker for a possible new power?
[Tallant]
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19079
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For idealists reality is like a collection of beliefs, so truths and truthmakers are not distinct
[Young,JO]
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