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 (Philos Q 60(239):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.
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Notes
I do not have space to properly discuss the metaphysics of ground. See (Fine 2001, 2012; Rosen 2010; Schaffer 2009) and the papers in (Correia and Schnieder 2012). The grounding relation is typically regarded as irreflexive, asymmetric (or anti-symmetric) and transitive. So, if x grounds y, y does not ground x; if x grounds y, and y grounds z, then x grounds z; x cannot ground x. It is also useful to distinguish between partial and full grounds. Such principles and subtleties may be disputed; however I do not take sides on these issues.
I refer to propositions, following Schaffer, using italics and sometimes using angle brackets, e.g., the proposition that p is written as <p>.
In what follows I assume, along with Schaffer, truthmaker maximalism, the view that every truth needs a truthmaker. This assumption does not affect the discussion.
See (Schaffer 2010a, p. 344; Schaffer 2010c, p. 42). My discussion of priority monism is restricted to its use as part of a theory of truthmaking. I work with the following definitions of prior part and posterior part: x is a prior part of y iff x is a proper part of y and x (partially) grounds y; x is a posterior part of y iff x is a proper part of y and y grounds x.
There is the view that nothing is fundamental. Due to space, I bracket this thesis. As a result, when I speak of theories about what is fundamental I assume there is at least one thing that is fundamental. For an argument in favour of the view that there is nothing fundamental, see (Anderson 1962, pp. 48–49).
Elsewhere, Schaffer accepts the intuition behind this objection: ‘the existence of a contingently sitting me seems to be positing reality enough to ground the truth of <I am sitting>’ (Schaffer 2008b, p. 12).
(A5*) is not to be confused with the claim that truthmaking is relative priority or relative fundamentality where the truthmaking relation is understood in terms of some entity being more fundamental than some truth. Relative priority or relative fundamentality is too coarse-grained for our purposes since if x is more fundamental than y, it does not follow that x grounds y. The entity y could be grounded in some z while x is more fundamental than y. In addition, the grounding relation is primitive and not to be analysed in terms of relative priority or relative fundamentality (cf. Schaffer 2009, p. 364).
To ensure that we adhere to (A5*) ‘for any entity x’ is to be concerned with every kind of entity except truths. (A5*) entails that the truthmaking relation relates truth to entity and not truth to truth (mutatis mutandis for (A5)). Dependence relations between truths are irrelevant here.
Compare (Schaffer 2008a, p. 310) where Schaffer provides a ‘two-stage’ process of truth depending on reality such that <there are no hobbits> is true because there are no hobbits and there are no hobbits because the wave-function of the universe is such-and-so. We discuss negative truths in Sect. 5.
For the argument that quantum entanglement leads to Don being the only minimal truthmaker, see (Forrest 2000).
For instance, you might object that my account of truthmaking is not theory-neutral because I am committed to the existence of this carpet and so taking a stand about the composition of material objects. My theory appears incompatible with eliminativism about material objects. (Reply: the carpet underneath my feet was really used for illustrative purposes only.).
An argumentative analogy might help. Suppose a resemblance nominalist is battling it out with a realist about universals in the ontology room. Further suppose that the resemblance nominalism on offer is committed to modal realism, whereas the realism about universals on offer is neutral on what theory of modality we should adopt. Clearly, the latter forces upon us less metaphysical commitments (about modality) because we can plug in, what we think, is the best theory of modality. The latter is theory-neutral with respect of modality.
More precisely, if there is a denumerable infinity of electrons, then the totality of electrons makes true <there are denumerably many electrons>, but so does the sub-totality of every third electron and every fifth ad infinitum. So we never find a minimal truthmaker (Armstrong 2004, pp. 21–22).
Bunyips are mythical creatures that allegedly lurk in the billabongs and creeks of Australia.
When I say ‘solve this problem appropriately’ I mean ‘solve the problem without positing spooky entities like negative facts, primitive totality states of affairs, etc’. I assume these solutions are off the table.
Schaffer rightly points out that the pluralist’s mistake (e.g., Armstrong and Russell’s) was to assume that the number of fundamental entities is open-ended. My point is that Schaffer provides the resources for the pluralist to learn from their mistake. There is no reason for the pluralist to not say each world has a unique fundament.
The fact that we admit partial truthmakers entails that there are truthmakers which are either fundamental or nonfundamental. We can call the truthmakers that are fundamental absolute truthmakers, and the truthmakers that are nonfundamental relative truthmakers.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Javier Cumpa, Peter Forrest, André Gallois, Hugh Mellor and Jonathan Schaffer for comments. I also thank the participants of my ‘Truth and Reality’ seminar at Dalhousie University, Winter 2013.
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Fisher, A.R.J. Priority monism, partiality, and minimal truthmakers. Philos Stud 172, 477–491 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0314-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0314-z