Truth-Makers
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44 (3):287-321 (1984)
Abstract
A realist theory of truth for a class of sentences holds that there are entities in virtue of which these sentences are true or false. We call such entities ‘truthmakers’ and contend that those for a wide range of sentences about the real world are moments (dependent particulars). Since moments are unfamiliar, we provide a definition and a brief philosophical history, anchoring them in our ontology by showing that they are objects of perception. The core of our theory is the account of truthmaking for atomic sentences, in which we expose a pervasive ‘dogma of logical form’, which says that atomic sentences cannot have more than one truthmaker. In contrast to this, we uphold the mutual independence of logical and ontological complexity, and the authors outline formal principles of truthmaking taking account of both kinds of complexity.Author Profiles
DOI
10.2307/2107686
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Citations of this work
Logical pluralism.Jc Beall & Greg Restall - 2000 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (4):475 – 493.
References found in this work
Essays on Actions and Events: Philosophical Essays Volume 1.Donald Davidson - 1970 - Clarendon Press.
Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology.Barry Smith (ed.) - 1982 - Philosophia Verlag.