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3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths

[truths supervene on how things actually are]

7 ideas
Truth supervenes on being [Jackson]
     Full Idea: Truth supervenes on being.
     From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: A nice slogan for those of us who find the word 'truth' to be meaningful.
Say 'truth is supervenient on being', but construe 'being' broadly [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I want to say that 'truth is supervenient on being', but as an Ostrich about universals I want to construe 'being' broadly.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'Truth')
     A reaction: [His slogan is borrowed from Bigelow 1988:132-,158-9] This seems much more promising that the more precise and restricted notion of truthmakers, as resting on the existence of particular things. Presentism is the big test case.
The weaker version of Truthmaker: 'truth supervenes on being' [Crisp,TM]
     Full Idea: The weaker version of Truthmaker is that 'truth supervenes on being'.
     From: Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4)
     A reaction: [He cites Lewis 2001 and Bigelow 1988] This still leaves the difficulty of truths about non-existent things, and truths about possibilities (esp. those that are possible, but are never actualised). What being do mathematical truths supervene on?
If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks]
     Full Idea: 'Truth supervenes on being' says that any two possible worlds alike with respect to what entities exist and which properties (and relations) each of those entities exemplifies are thereby alike with respect to what is true.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4)
     A reaction: Merricks says this view is found in early Wittgenstein, as well as in David Lewis. He suggests that this is a weaker and more plausible thesis than the full commitment to truthmakers. It still allows some truths to lack truthmakers. Sounds plausible.
If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks]
     Full Idea: If 'truth supervenes on being' aims to articulate the idea that truth depends on being, it must say more than that truth supervenes on being.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.VI)
     A reaction: This is a perennial problem with supervenience accounts, such as the supervenience of beauty on the object, or of mind on brain.
'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami]
     Full Idea: The important advantage of 'truth supervenes on being' is that it can be applied to positive and negative contingent truths, without postulating any entities that are responsible for the truth of negative truths.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09)
     A reaction: [For this reason, Lewis favours a possible worlds version of the theory] I fear that it solves that problem by making the truth-maker theory so broad-brush that it not longer says very much, apart from committing it to naturalism.
'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami]
     Full Idea: The thesis that 'truth supervenes on being' (with or without possible worlds) offers only a necessary condition for the truth of contingent propositions, whereas the standard truth-maker theory offers necessary and sufficient conditions.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 09)
     A reaction: The point, I suppose, is that the change in being might be irrelevant to the proposition in question, so any old change in being will not ensure a change in the truth of the proposition. Again we ask - but what is this truth about?