Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2013 - 2015

Code: FFI2012-35026

Principal Investigator

Dan López de Sa (dlopezdesa@gmail.com)

All researchers

Fabrice Correia

Aurélien Darbellay

John Horden

Joan Pagès

Bryan Pickel

Benjamin Schnieder

Stephan Torre

Robbie Williams

Richard Woodward

Elia Zardini

Summary

A truthmaker for a truth is something in virtue of which the truth is true. In the last decades, there has been a considerable debate in contemporary analytic metaphysics in connection with the notion of truthmaker as attempting to capture a basic insight into the way truths depend on reality. A considerable part of this discussion has concerned the relata of truthmaking: which is the nature of the fundamental truth-bearers (thoughts, propositions, sentences in contexts…) and which entities are capable of playing a truthmaking role (particulars, state of affairs, tropes…). The present project focuses on the relation of truthmaking itself, from three main perspectives: what is the nature of the relation, what is its extent, and its philosophical significant applications. The initial hypotheses are (i) that exploring the nature of truthmaking vis-à-vis the metaphysical relation of grounding, which is becoming one main focus of attention in recent years, can illuminate the aspects concerning necessitation and explanation in connection with truthmaking; (ii) that there is a fruitful interface between discussions concerning the nature and the extent of truthmaking, and (iii) that truthmaking has indeed so far underexplored philosophically significant applications regarding contemporary debates in metaphysics, but also in the philosophy of language and in so-called “applied” philosophy. The corresponding objectives are (A) to explore the nature of truthmaking vis-à-vis grounding, necessitation, and explanation; (B) to formulate the core of the insight regarding truthmaking and explore whether it would be vindicated by weakenings of the maximalist contention that all truths require truthmakers, with special attention to three notably discussed kinds of cases: modal truths, negative and general truths, and truths about the past and the future; (C) to explore philosophically significant applications of truthmaking, with special attention to three kinds of cases, which have generated considerable debates in recent years: indeterminacy, meta-metaphysics, and contextualism/relativism, particularly in connection with practically significant issues regarding gender, race, and sexuality.

Workshops

MoT1—Truthmaking as Grounding: For and Against (9-10 June 2014)

MoT2—TBA

Besides, MoT also co-sponsored the following:

Substructural Approaches to Paradox (25-26 November 2013)

GRSelona2--Gender Race, and Sexuality: Issues in Metaphysics. (29-30 May 2014)