Aboutness and negative truths: a modest strategy for truthmaker theorists

Abstract

A central problem for any truthmaker theory is the problem of negative truths (P-NEG). In this paper, I develop a novel, piecemeal strategy for solving this problem. The strategy puts central focus on a truth-relevant notion of aboutness within a metaphysically modest version of truthmaker theory and uses key conceptual tools gained by taking a deeper look at the best attempts to solve the problem of intentionality. I begin this task by critically discussing past proposed solutions to P-NEG in light of Russell's debate with Demos. This reveals a central difficulty with addressing the problem, specifically that one cannot be committed to incompatibility facts in one's account of negation and of the truth of negative truths. I then present an aboutnessbased version of truthmaker theory. Utilising what I call the strict and full account of aboutness, I extract aboutness-based theories of truth and falsity. I use this machinery to present a promising new strategy for solving P-NEG which does not have the problems of alternative approaches. Finally, I present and respond to some potential objections.

Ontological accounting and aboutness: on Asay’s A Theory of Truthmaking

“…"Pegasus doesn't exist"), then nothing needs to exist for them to be true. Asay's trivialism about mathematics and fictional entities is compatible with Schipper's (2016Schipper's ( , 2018Schipper's ( , 2020Schipper's ( , 2021 aboutness-focused picture. He could say that the number 2 is the direct truthmaker and what the truthbearer is directly about, but he doesn't rule out that everything else is necessary as the truthmaking's background conditions, what < 2 exists > is indirectly about and the truth's indirect truth-necessitators.…”

“…Thus, I am puzzled as to why, given how he argues, Asay does not accept truthmaking's connection to aboutness. Schipper (2018) doesn't think that truthmaking is aboutness. They are merely complementary.…”

Topics of Thought

“…A way better alternative understands truthmaking in terms of (fundamental) metaphysical explanation: Jago (2018), ch. 6; see also Schipper (2018Schipper ( , 2020 for cognate ideas. And connects it to a certain notion of exactness.…”

“…This is their subject matter or, as I will also say, their topic. Research on aboutness and subject matter has been burgeoning in the last decades, thanks to the works of philosophers and logicians like David Lewis (1988a,b), Ken Gemes (1994, 1997, Lloyd Humberstone (2008), Stephen Yablo, Kit Fine (2016a, Peter Hawke (2018), Friederike Moltmann (2018), Arthur Schipper (2018Schipper ( , 2020, and more.…”

True by Default

“…Objection 1 : Many metaphysicians deny that negative existentials need truthmakers, for example, Bigelow (1988), Lewis (2001), Melia (2005), Mellor (2003), Muñoz (2020), Simons (2000, 2005, 2008), Schipper (2018), Saenz (2014). How is TVM different from those other forms of non-maximalism?…”