Truthmakers and the converse Barcan formula

Dialectica 53 (3-4):253–270 (1999)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The paper criticizes the truthmaker principle that every truth is made true by something. If we interpret ‘something’ as quantifying into sentence position, we can interpret the principle as a harmless logical truth, but that is not what advocates of the principle intend. They interpret ‘something’ as quantifying into name position, and the principle as requiring the existence of truthmaking individuals. The paper argues that we have no reason to believe the principle on this interpretation. Moreover, the converse Barcan formula is inconsistent with the existence of truthmaking individuals for contingent truths. Considerations about our ability to count possible truthmaking individuals are used to argue that we should prefer the converse Barcan formula

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Prior's criticism of the Barcan formula.Tobias Chapman - 1975 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 16 (1):116-118.
A unified completeness theorem for quantified modal logics.Giovanna Corsi - 2002 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 67 (4):1483-1510.
Contingent objects and the Barcan formula.Reina Hayaki - 2006 - Erkenntnis 64 (1):75 - 83.
Eliminating “converse” from converse PDL.Giuseppe Giacomo - 1996 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 5 (2):193-208.
Incompleteness and the Barcan formula.M. J. Cresswell - 1995 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 24 (4):379 - 403.
Completeness without the Barcan formula.M. J. Cresswell - 1968 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 9 (1):75-80.
Truthmakers.Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra - 2006 - Philosophy Compass 1 (2):186–200.
Prior and the Barcan formula.Dale E. Lichtblau - 1976 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 17 (4):622-624.
Barcan Both Ways.Melvin Fitting - 1999 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 9 (2):329-344.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
214 (#86,221)

6 months
15 (#111,863)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Timothy Williamson
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

Grounding and dependence.Benjamin Schnieder - 2020 - Synthese 197 (1):95-124.
Can Hardcore Actualism Validate S5?Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):342-358.
Truthmakers.Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra - 2006 - Philosophy Compass 1 (2):186–200.

View all 42 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references