Priority monism, partiality, and minimal truthmakers

Philosophical Studies 172 (2):477-491 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Truthmaker monism is the view that the one and only truthmaker is the world. Despite its unpopularity, this view has recently received an admirable defence by Schaffer :307–324, 2010b). Its main defect, I argue, is that it omits partial truthmakers. If we omit partial truthmakers, we lose the intimate connection between a truth and its truthmaker. I further argue that the notion of a minimal truthmaker should be the key notion that plays the role of constraining ontology and that truthmaker monism is not necessary for an appropriate solution to the problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. I conclude that we should reject truthmaker monism once and for all.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

The World and Truth About What Is Not.Noël B. Saenz - 2014 - Philosophical Quarterly 64 (254):82-98.
Minimal Truthmakers.Donnchadh O'Conaill & Tuomas E. Tahko - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (2):228-244.
Unstable Truthmaking.Jamin Asay & Sam Baron - 2012 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (3):230-238.
Truthmaker Explanations.Barry Smith & Jonathan Simon - 2007 - In Jean-Maurice Monnoyer (ed.), Metaphysics and Truthmakers. Pisctaway, NJ: Ontos Verlag. pp. 79-98.
How to Be a Truthmaker Maximalist.Ross P. Cameron - 2008 - Noûs 42 (3):410 - 421.
Truthmaker Monism.Taishi Yukimoto & Tora Koyama - 2020 - Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 29:61-73.
The Groundedness of Negative Truths.Naoaki Kitamura - 2016 - Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 24:1-19.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-03-27

Downloads
774 (#31,157)

6 months
134 (#37,734)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

A. R. J. Fisher
Gonzaga University

Citations of this work

Fundamentality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Minimal Truthmakers.Donnchadh O'Conaill & Tuomas E. Tahko - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (2):228-244.
Priority monism.Kelly Trogdon - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (11):1-10.
Truthmaking.Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. New York: Routledge. pp. 396-407.
Truthmaking and Fundamentality.A. R. J. Fisher - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (4):448-473.

View all 8 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. qnew York: Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.

View all 29 references / Add more references