Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2012 - 2013

Code: RYC-2011-09466

Principal Investigator

Dan López de Sa (dlopezdesa@gmail.com)

All researchers

Summary

[DLdS: This was the research project for my RyC, on themes related to those of the research project MoT—The Makings of Truth and PERSP WP Issues in Metaphysics. Originally awarded for 2012-10-01/2017-09-30.]

A truthmaker for a truth is something in virtue of which the truth is true. In the last decades there has been a considerable amount of critical literature in contemporary analytic metaphysics about truthmaking. On the one hand, there is a longstanding debate as to whether the traditional insight into the notion of truth to the effect that truth is somehow dependent on reality, that truths are anchored in things, requires maximalism—all (contingent) truths need a truthmaker—or whether some weaker requirement would suffice, in light of special classes of truths, notably negative (existential) truths. On the other hand, the principle that truths require truthmakers has played a prominent polemical role in many contemporary debates in metaphysics, including debates about the nature of properties, the reality of the past, or the possibility of there being truths about the future, if the future is open.

My working hypothesis is that truthmaking can also play a significant illuminating role vis-à-vis many other contemporary debates, not only in metaphysics, but also the philosophy of language, metaethics, and metametaphysics. In particular, I aim to explore the contribution of discussions about the extent and nature of truthmaking to issues of indeterminacy and vagueness, debates in contextualism/relativism, and meta-metaphysical and in general meta-philosophical reflection, in which I have been actively participating over the last years. These are my more specific research questions:

Indeterminacy: Can truthmaking provide a model for a metaphysical sort of indeterminacy which does not have its source in semantic indecision?

Relativism: Can truthmaking provide a model for how truths in a certain domain can fail to be fully objective which avoids radical relativism about truth?

Meta-metaphysics: Can truthmaking provide a model for metaphysical equivalence between theories which could vindicate the view that certain apparent disputes in metaphysics are to be dismissed?