Fundamental truthmakers and non-fundamental truths

Abstract

Recently, philosophers have tried to develop a version of truthmaker theory which ties the truthmaking relation (t-rel) closely to the notion of fundamentality. In fact, some of these truthmaker-fundamentalists (tf-ists), as I call them, assume that the notion of fundamentality is intelligible in part by citing, as central examples of fundamentals, truthmakers, which they understand necessarily as constituents of fundamental reality. The aim of this paper is first to bring some order and clarity to this discussion, sketching how far tf is compatible with orthodox truthmaking, and then critically to evaluate the limits of tf. It will be argued that truthmaker theory cannot directly help with articulating the nature of fundamental reality and that t-rel does not necessarily relate truths with anything more fundamental, unless what is fundamental is what the truthbearers in question are about. I shall argue that tf faces a rather thorny dilemma and some general problems. I shall present two exhaustive types of fundamentalism on which a version of tf can be based: deflationary and inflationary. It will be argued that each version of tf runs into significant troubles accounting for all truth, specifically ordinary truths and metaphysical truths about the relations between ordinary facts and fundamental facts. I shall not attempt to solve these problems, but rather, at the end, diagnose the issues with tf as lying in the difficulties with reconciling the manifest image with the scientific and metaphysical images of reality.

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.…”