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Single Idea 9140

[filed under theme 3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers ]

Full Idea

If I buy two toothbrushes on a 'buy one, get one free' offer, which one did I buy and which one did I get free? Those who believe that each contingent truth has a truthmaker are forced to believe that 'buy one, get one free' is false.

Gist of Idea

Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'?

Source

Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 11.6)

Book Ref

Sorensen,Roy: 'Vagueness and Contradiction' [OUP 2004], p.183

A Reaction

Nice. There really is no fact of which toothbrush is the free one. The underlying proposition must presumably be 'two for the price of one'. But you could hardly fault the first slogan under the Trades Descriptions Act.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [opposing the claim that all truths have truthmakers]:

19044 Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true [Davidson]
10750 Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
9140 Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen]
14024 Truthmaker has problems with generalisation, non-existence claims, and property instantiations [Crisp,TM]
14412 Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks]
14414 I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks]
12442 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker [Azzouni]
18474 Does 'this sentence has no truth-maker' have a truth-maker? Reductio suggests it can't have [MacBride]
18485 Even idealists could accept truthmakers, as mind-dependent [MacBride]
18490 Maybe 'makes true' is not an active verb, but just a formal connective like 'because'? [MacBride]
18493 Truthmaker talk of 'something' making sentences true, which presupposes objectual quantification [MacBride]
17318 Truthmakers for existence is fine; otherwise maybe restrict it to synthetic truths? [Liggins]
14480 Maybe analytic truths do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world [Thomasson]
18863 What is the truthmaker for a possible new power? [Tallant]
19079 For idealists reality is like a collection of beliefs, so truths and truthmakers are not distinct [Young,JO]