Truth, Basis and Dependence

By Robin Stenwall

Although not easily argued for, I agree with many Australian-minded philosophers

that this is the optimal position in ontology. Like Martin and Armstrong I am a factualist

in that I believe in the existence of facts or states of affairs where these are understood

as things having properties and/or standing in relations. I also agree with

Martin that we should strive towards an ontology that is only committed to facts of

the first-order. Simply put, we should only commit ourselves to states of affairs that

do not have states of affairs as constituents. Armstrong, however, begs to differ. He

thinks that higher-order states of affairs are required in two rather different sorts of

cases. First of all, he says, they are needed in order to provide truthmakers for negative

and general truths. For what make such truths true, according to Armstrong, are totality

states of affairs: for example, the state of affairs that a certain mereological fusion

of first-order states of affairs are all the first-order states of affairs. Secondly, he thinks

that higher-order states of affairs are also needed to ground laws of nature, understood

as states of affairs contingently linking states-of-affairs-types (i.e. universals). An aim

of the present thesis is to argue that there is no need to appeal to higher-order states of

affairs. Three of my papers address this issue. In paper IV called "Against Truthmaker

Necessitarianism" (forthcoming in Logique et Analyse), I provide reasons for thinking

that we can make do without totality facts in accounting for general truths if we give

up the requirement that truthmakers necessitate the truth of the propositions they

make true. Paper III called "Causal Truthmaking" (2010) addresses the problem of

finding plausible truthmakers for negative truths. Here I develop a theory according

to which negative truths are grounded in causal facts of the first order. Once we allow

for such truthmakers, we can do without higher-order totality facts in providing

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1835205771
• ISBN13: 9781835205778
• Release Date: September 2023
• Publisher: Hbnisha
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"