A Truthmaker Indispensability Argument

Synthese 190 (12):2413-2427 (2013)
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Abstract

Recently, nominalists have made a case against the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument for mathematical Platonism by taking issue with Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. In this paper I propose and defend an indispensability argument founded on an alternative criterion of ontological commitment: that advocated by David Armstrong. By defending such an argument I place the burden back onto the nominalist to defend her favourite criterion of ontological commitment and, furthermore, show that criterion cannot be used to formulate a plausible form of the indispensability argument.

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Sam Baron
University of Melbourne

Citations of this work

We don’t need no explanation.Jamin Asay - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (4):903-921.
Much ado about aboutness.Sam Baron, Reginald Mary Chua, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (3).
Truth and Dependence.Jonathan Tallant & David Ingram - 2017 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4:955-980.
A Quinean Reformulation of Fregean Arguments.Nathaniel Gan - 2023 - Acta Analytica 38 (3):481-494.

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References found in this work

Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
From an ontological point of view.John Heil - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Truth and truthmakers.D. M. Armstrong - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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