If you believe in positive facts, you should believe in negative facts

Hommage À Wlodek. Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz (2007)
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Abstract

Substantial metaphysical theory has long struggled with the question of negative facts, facts capable of making it true that Valerie isn’t vigorous. This paper argues that there is an elegant solution to these problems available to anyone who thinks that there are positive facts. Bradley’s regress and considerations of ontological parsimony show that an object’s having a property is an affair internal to the object and the property, just as numerical identity and distinctness are internal to the entities that are numerically identical or distinct. For the same reasons, an object’s lacking a property must be an affair internal to the object and the property. Negative facts will thus be part of any ontology of positive facts.

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Gunnar Björnsson
Stockholm University

Citations of this work

How negative truths are made true.Aaron M. Griffith - 2015 - Synthese 192 (1):317-335.
Introspective knowledge of negative facts.Daniel Stoljar - 2012 - Philosophical Perspectives 26 (1):389-410.
The Negativity of Negative Propositions.Carl Erik Kühl - 2012 - Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 47 (1):87-110.

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References found in this work

Truthmakers for negative truths.George Molnar - 2000 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (1):72 – 86.
A counterfactual theory of prevention and 'causation' by omission.Phil Dowe - 2001 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2):216 – 226.
Instantiation as partial identity.Donald L. M. Baxter - 2001 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4):449 – 464.

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