Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Vol. LXVI, No. 3, May 2003
What the Deflationist May Say About
Truthmaking
MATTHEW MCGRATH
University of Missouri, Columbia
The correspondence theory of truth is often thought to be supported by the intuition that
if a proposition (sentence, belief) is true, then something makes it true. I argue that this
appearance is illusory and is sustained only by a conflation of two distinct notions of
truthmaking, existential and non-existential. Once the conflation is exposed, I maintain,
deflationism is seen to be adequate for accommodating truthmaking intuitions.
“Anyone who is attracted to the Correspondence theory of
truth should be drawn to the truthmaker. Correspondence
demands a correspondent, and a correspondent for a truth is a
truthmaker.” (D.M. Armstrong (1997), p. 14)
A basic intuition about truth is that if a proposition is true, then something
makes it true. Because the correspondence theory defines truth in terms of
“correspondents,” i.e., truthmakers, it appears to receive support from this
intuition. I argue that this appearance is illusory and is sustained only by a
conflation of two distinct notions of truthmaking. Once we distinguish these
notions, moreover, we see that intuitions about truthmaking are better
accommodated under deflationism. So if I am right, the converse of Armstrong’s claim fails: it’s not the case that anyone drawn to the truthmaker
should be drawn to the correspondence theory of truth.
In arguing for this conclusion, I exploit metaphysical resources that many
self-described deflationists deny themselves; in particular I exploit the notion
of a proposition. If my argument succeeds, I will have shown that the correspondence theorist’s “facts” are not needed to accommodate truthmaking
intuitions; an ontology of propositions is enough.1
1
666
Philosophers who maintain that deflationism, even given propositions, cannot accommodate truthmaking intuitions include the following: Alston (1996), David (1994), Fine
(1982), Fumerton (1995), Kirkham (1992), and Richard (1997). Schmitt (1995) also
appears to accept propositions while arguing in favor of the correspondence theory over
deflationism (see ch. 6). Bigelow (1988, pp. 123, 126-7) and Armstrong (1997, p. 131),
though skeptical about propositions, imply that a correspondence theory would be needed
even if we believed in them.
MATTHEW MCGRATH
I. Deflationism
Many forms of deflationism have been defended in the literature, some entailing that ‘true’ has no factual meaning, some that it is a mere device for
abbreviating infinite conjunctions and disjunctions, some that it is not even a
genuine predicate. I will focus on what I will call property deflationism about
truth, according to which there is a property of truth, i.e., something we
attribute when we call things true, but it is not a substantial property. In other
words, property deflationism acknowledges but “deflates” the property of
truth.2 Talk of “deflating a property,” or of a property’s insubstantiality, is
best illuminated in terms of the notions of analysis and explanation. Truth, for
the deflationist, resists analysis, both conceptual and empirical, and yet
admits of a simple explanation. So truth is unlike knowledge, say, which can
be conceptually analyzed (let us suppose), and unlike water or gold, which
can be empirically analyzed, but it is also unlike simple unexplainable properties (candidates for this status include colors, goodness (for G.E. Moore),
existence, and fundamental magnitudes such as mass and charge). According
to property deflationism about truth, which I will just call ‘deflationism’
henceforth, truth can be explained, but only by reference to principles that are
not, and cannot be transformed into, analyses. The principles cannot be so
transformed because they involve grammatical denominalization. They are of
the form, ‘<p> is true iff p’, where the angle brackets operate to form a singular term.3 Contrast this with, ‘For all x, x is true iff x would be accepted under
ideal epistemic conditions’, or in general, ‘For all x, x is true iff x meets
condition C’. What is it to explain truth if not to analyze it? The deflationist
may follow Horwich here: it is to provide a theory on the basis of which all
the facts about truth can be explained.4
There are several ways of elaborating the core idea of deflationism. Paul
Horwich’s “minimalist” theory consists of the totality of propositions of the
form <<p> is true iff p>.5 Minimalism is therefore, ironically,6 infinite and
unformulatable, although it can be uniquely and simply described, as we have
just done. Ernest Sosa’s “finite minimalist theory” formulates deflationism,
2
3
4
5
6
Property deflationism is thus not a thesis about properties generally. Rather, it is best to
speak of “accepting a property deflationist theory of a predicate.” A property deflationist
theory of ‘means’ treats that predicate as expressing a relation, but denies the relation
expressed is substantial.
Since we will examine only propositional truth, we will use angle brackets to form from
‘p’ a singular term ‘<p>’, which is meant to abbreviate ‘that p’.
Horwich thinks of the relevant notion of explanation of facts about truth as requiring
deducibility. Thus, an adequate condition for a theory of truth, under his view, is that from
it, together with facts about and theories of phenomena other than truth, all the facts about
truth may be deduced. Cf. Horwich (1999), p. 24.
Horwich (1990) notes the need to qualify this description of his theory in order to avoid
liar-like paradoxes. I hereby make the same note regarding the discussion of theories to
follow. I will have nothing to say about the liar in this paper.
Marian David notes this irony.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
667
using a notion of Russellian propositions, i.e., propositions directly about an
entity by containing the entity itself, rather than a sense that determines it:
every proposition is necessarily equivalent to (entails and is entailed by) the
proposition that it is true.7 Sosa’s approach has certain advantages over Horwich’s,8 but my concern is rather with what the approaches have in common:
property deflationism about truth.
II. Deflationism and Truthmaking: The Problem
What may the deflationist say about truthmaking? We may begin by considering the truth equivalences, which the deflationist cites as fundamental to our
concept of truth: the proposition that p is true iff p. Thus, we have the familiar example: the proposition that snow is white is true iff snow is white. 9 Paul
Horwich argues that given our explanatory practices, we can use these
equivalences to fully accommodate truthmaking intuitions. He writes, concerning (1) and (2):
(1)
<snow is white> is true because snow is white
(2)
<snow is white>’s being true is explained by snow’s being white
In mapping out the relations of explanatory dependence between phenomena, we
naturally and properly grant ultimate explanatory priority to such things as the basic
laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. From these facts we attempt
to deduce and thereby explain, why, for example
(3)
Snow is white
And only then, invoking the minimal theory, do we deduce, and thereby explain, why
(4)
7
<snow is white> is true
See Sosa (1993), p. 188. Issues of formulatability are complex. It matters what propositions turn out to be. For example, if propositions are sets of concrete worlds, as David
Lewis (1986) would have it, then truth for propositions at a world admits of a simple
analysis, and there is no need to bother with deflationism. The analysis is:
For all propositions P and for all worlds W, P is true in W iff W is a member of P.
8
9
668
This gives necessary and sufficient conditions for truth at a world, and so qualifies as an
analysis. One might say it is a “minimal” analysis, in that it doesn’t involve substantive
correspondence relations. But what is crucial is that it gives necessary and sufficient
conditions, which deflationist theories do not.
There are good objections, some familiar, some less familiar, to the view that propositions are sets of worlds. See McGrath (1998).
See Gupta (1993) for a criticism of Horwich’s deflationism. See also McGrath (1997).
Anyone who treats that-clauses as picking out propositions in contexts such as ‘The
proposition that snow is white is true’ and ‘S believes that snow is white’, must regard the
awkwardness of sentences such as ‘That snow is white is true’ or ‘That snow is white is
true iff snow is white’ as a grammatical accident. That-clauses refer to propositions no less
than singular terms of the form ‘the proposition that p’.
MATTHEW MCGRATH
Therefore, from the minimalist point of view, (3) is indeed explanatorily prior to (4),
and so (1) and (2) are fine. Thus we can be perfectly comfortable with the idea that
truths are made true by elements of reality. Since this follows from the minimal
theory (given certain further facts), it need not be an explicitly stated part of it.
(Horwich (1999a), p. 105)
I note two problems with this strategy. First, there are cases in which the laws
of nature fail to provide the needed explanatory basis, as in the case of
explaining, e.g., the truth of <2+2=4>, the truth of <it’s necessary that if
something is red, it’s colored>, or truths that are accidental in the Aristotelian
sense, e.g., <Houston is hot in the summer and most dogs bark>. 10 Generally,
there will be some facts that do not admit of explanation, by appeal to laws of
nature or anything else. Still, even a brute fact that p can be invoked to
explain the truth of <p>.11 Thus, there appears to be an explanatory
asymmetry between <p> and <<p> is true>, which cannot be accounted for
by appeal to laws of nature and initial conditions.
Second, to accommodate truthmaking intuitions, we need entities to serve
as truthmakers. The truth-equivalences, by themselves, do not single out
truthmakers. Horwich does provide some hints with (2) and his talk of truths
being made true by “elements of reality”. But more needs to be said. We
know how to fill in the blank in “What makes the proposition that snow is
white true is ______________.” We say
(TMK) What makes the proposition that snow is white true is that snow
is white.
But this is just the beginning of an explanation. We must ask what the second
occurrence of the that-clause in (TMK) designates. The truthmaker is
designated, of course, but what sort of “element of reality” is it? Is it snow? Is
it the fact—as opposed to the proposition—that snow is white?
I suspect that at this point, some philosophers would simply say: “What
makes the proposition that snow is white true is that snow is white. Period.
End of story. Don’t ask what kind of thing this is.” On its face, this is an
unstable position for a propositionalist: if that-clauses in some contexts are
taken to function as genuine singular terms, and so as designating entities,
and if the ground proffered for such an assertion is their accessibility to quantification, then if the same ground exists in connection with the occurrence of
that-clauses in another kind of context, surely there, too, the clauses ought to
be taken as genuine singular terms. Plainly, the second occurrence of the thatclause in (TMK) is no less accessible to quantification than the first. For in
10
11
The concern is that there isn’t any way to explain this fact. It is pure coincidence. But
there is an explanation of the truth of the proposition. The proposition is true because
Houston is hot in the summer and most dogs bark.
Crispin Wright raises a related objection in Wright (1992), p. 27.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
669
(TMK), the identity predicate connects the second occurrence with a variable
of quantification.
A second reason not to rest content with the forgoing response is that it
doesn’t do justice to the relational nature of truthmaking. Relations require
relata. If x makes y true, x and y must be entities of some sort or another.
So what does the second occurrence of ‘that snow is white’ pick out in
(TMK), according to the deflationist? One might fear a trap here: if the deflationist says the second occurrence picks out what the first does, namely a
proposition, she seems to run in a small circle, saying that the proposition
makes itself true; but if she says the second occurrence picks out something
other than a proposition, she will presumably have to admit that it picks out
an entity of a kind that only a correspondence theorist can appeal to in
explaining truthmaking, i.e., a worldly fact (event, state).
I will argue that the deflationist may plausibly claim ‘that snow is white’
in both its occurrences picks out a proposition, one and the same proposition.
III. Propositions as Their Own Truthmakers
Propositions make themselves true! Isn't this coherentism, anti-realism or
some other heresy? I don’t think so. But defending the view will take some
work. One obvious objection is easily dispensed with: to say true propositions
make themselves true is not to say all propositions do so. Our deflationist
does insist of every proposition that it would make itself true, if it were true.
But like all sensible realists, she denies that <snow is green> makes itself
true.
Our deflationist has an extremely simple strategy for explaining the truth
of propositions, whether the proposition is an accidental truth in the Aristotelian sense, a necessary truth, etc. If <p> is true, one can explain its truth by
saying that “what makes <p> true is <p>.” No detour through the laws is
needed. Of course, if there is a further explanation of <p> through the laws,
or through some other means, we can form a deeper explanation of the truth
of <p>. We needn’t say that the deeper explanans isn’t a truthmaker for <p>.
In saying “What makes <p> true is <p>,” we do not imply that <p> is the
ultimate let alone the only truthmaker for <p>. Similarly, by saying, “What
caused the fire was a cigarette’s igniting gasoline,” we’re not implying that
the smoker’s tossing the cigarette near the gasoline wasn’t a cause of the fire.
We may distinguish direct from indirect truthmaking, and then define a broad
notion of truthmaking to include both.12 This paper focuses chiefly on direct
truthmaking. Thus, I will regularly speak of “the truthmaker for <p>,” but this
12
670
As follows: E makes P true in the broad sense iff either E directly or indirectly makes P
true. E indirectly makes P true iff E doesn’t directly make P true but is an ancestor of P
under the appropriate explanatory relation. This leaves us with the question of what the
appropriate explanatory relation is. I do not attempt to answer this question in the present
paper. But see Section V for more discussion.
MATTHEW MCGRATH
should be taken to mean “the direct truthmaker for <p>”. We will discuss
indirect truthmaking further in Section V.
Our deflationist may in fact formulate deflationism itself in terms of
truthmaking. Rather than stating the view using the truth equivalences, as
Horwich does, or using entailment relations between propositions, as Sosa
does, she may state it as follows:
(Truthmaker Deflationism) Necessarily, for all propositions P, if P is
true, then what makes P true is P, and if P is
false, then what makes P false is the
negation of P.
Truthmaker Deflationism (TD), as a theory of truth, is similar to the identity
theory, the theory that a truth-bearer is true iff its content is identical to a
fact.13 The former can incorporate what is right and correct what is wrong in
the latter. The identity theory is plausible only if it is restricted to truth-bearers other than propositions. It is equivalent to the view that an item S is true
iff S’s content is true. (We replace ‘is identical with a fact’ here by ‘is true’.)
Propositions don’t have contents: they are contents. So it would be implausible to explain propositional truth in terms of having contents that are identical to facts. But restricted to contentful truth-bearers, the identity theory is
consistent with (TD), and in fact can be combined with it to form a theory of
truth for truth-bearers of all kinds, propositions, sentences, beliefs, utterances,
etc.
Julian Dodd proposes what seems to be a more promising identity theory
of propositional truth: a proposition is true iff it is identical to a fact. 14 This
theory, however, seems better regarded as a theory of facts than a theory of
truth. It helps us understand what facts are in terms of the notions of truth and
proposition. Treating it as a theory of truth, we would have to presuppose an
antecedent notion of fact. If asked to explain this notion of fact, we could not,
for example, explain facts as certain kinds of Fregean thoughts or Russellian
propositions. For, which kind would they be? They would be the true ones.
One might, of course, claim that the notions of fact and truth are intimately
connected, neither being reducible to the other. The identity theory would
then not be so much an explanation of either notion but an articulation of an
interesting connection between them. Still, we would then naturally hope for
an explanation of both notions at once. (TD), I believe, fulfills this hope.
(TD) improves upon the identity theory by finding a different place for the
notion of identity. The relevant identity is not between true propositions and
facts, but between true propositions and their truthmakers. (TD) is not,
strictly speaking, an analysis of truth, i.e., a statement of non-circular neces13
14
See Baldwin (1991) for more on identity theories.
See Dodd (2000).
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
671
sary and sufficient conditions. However, it may well constitute an adequate
theory of truth, i.e., a theory adequate to explain all the facts about truth that
need explaining.15
The question, then, is whether (TD) can account for our intuitions about
truthmaking. Consider an objection. If some propositions don’t make themselves true but only would do so, won’t we have to say that something must
be added to them in order to make them true? The proposition <snow is red>,
existing by itself, isn’t enough to make itself true. What would be enough? It
seems we must add some element that, together with the proposition itself,
suffices for the proposition’s truth. The deflationist must say what the extra
element is, and it’s hard to see how she could do this without surrendering
deflationism. For, surely, what must be added is a worldly fact (event, state,
etc.), the sort of entity that only a correspondence theorist can consistently
appeal to explaining truthmaking.
Let’s call this the “extra element” objection. To answer it, let us examine
more closely our talk of “making true”. What are we asking when we ask
questions of the form ‘What makes the proposition that p true?’ A good way
to approach this question is to step back and ask generally about our use of
interrogatives of the form ‘What makes x F?’ for a predicate F. One kind of
use is to ask about causes. Thus, we can ask: What makes plants grow in the
direction of sunlight? What makes the paint on your house peel so quickly?
Another kind of use is to issue a challenge: What makes your plan (so) efficient? (Tell me!) What makes the death penalty wrong? (Defend your claim!)
However, the interrogative can be used in a third way, one that is neither
causal nor justificatory, though an answer to an interrogative used in this third
way would also count as an answer to a challenge. If someone tells a joke, we
might agree that it is funny but wonder what about it makes it funny. (Did it
15
(TD), conjoined with an independently plausible principle or inference rule concerning
“making F”, yields instances of the equivalence schema ‘<p> is true iff p’ as consequences. The principle is this:
If: if x is F, what makes x F is that p, then: if x is F, then p.
The principle is plausible. Suppose that if an act is wrong, what makes it wrong is that it
caused pain. Then it would follow, for any act A, that if A is wrong, then A caused pain.
The derivation of ‘<snow is white> is true iff snow is white’ then proceeds as follows. First, consider the left-to-right conditional. Assume <snow is white> is true. From
(TD) we may conclude that what makes it true is <snow is white>. Using our above principle, then, we arrive at the conclusion: snow is white. Now the right-to-left conditional.
Suppose snow is white but <snow is white> is not true. Then it is false. Using (TD), we
may infer that what makes <snow is white> false is the negation of <snow is white>, viz.
<snow is not white>. Next, given the above principle, we may conclude that if <snow is
white> is false, then snow is not white. But by hypothesis snow is white. Thus, it follows
that <snow is white> is not false, but true. (This derivation clearly depends on the equation
of untruth with falsity. Separating these notions complicates matters considerably. I will
not discuss the possibility of truth-value gaps here.)
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MATTHEW MCGRATH
present a trivial answer to a serious problem?) Likewise, we might grant the
prima facie reasonableness of trusting strangers’ driving directions, but feel
puzzled about what makes that trust reasonable. (Is it because we have a
substantial track record of success?) In these cases, our inquiry is not an
inquiry into causes.
What, then, are we inquiring about in such cases? The element common to
these cases is supervenience. Facts about what is funny and what is
reasonable do not stand alone, but are grounded in or accounted for by other
kinds of facts.16 Talk of “accounted for” nicely brings out the asymmetric
explanatory connotation of the word ‘supervenience’, a connotation lost when
supervenience is defined in standard ways using modal notions.17 A remark
may be funny because it depicts a difficult and important question as having a
trivial answer. Two poems might be similar because they employ the same
metaphor, etc. To ask “What makes x F?” in this use is to ask about the
subvenient basis for x’s being F, or as I shall put it, it is to ask what accounts
for x’s being F.
We see, then, that the intuitive principle of truthmaking is one of a large
number of supervenience principles:
(Truth) If a proposition is true, something makes it true.
(Justification) If a belief is justified, something makes it justified.
(Beauty) If an object is beautiful, something makes it beautiful.
And given our interpretation of “making x F” in terms of “accounts for x’s
being F,” these become:
(Truth) If a proposition is true, something accounts for its truth.
(Justification) If a belief is justified, something accounts for its
justification.
(Beauty) If an object is beautiful, something accounts for its beauty.
What does this talk of “accounting for” amount to? I have no developed
theory to propose. But let me say something about what the relation is and
what it isn’t. First, what it isn’t. The relation is not the same as obvious
deducibility, nor does it imply it (although the two are consistent). Nor does
the relation require a conceptual connection between its relata. For example,
16
17
Horwich (1999b) uses the word ‘constitution’ in place of ‘accounting for’, but to much the
same end. For his discussion of constitution, see pp. 25-6.
Kim (1993), pp. 166-7 stresses the importance of distinguishing the modal notions in
terms of which supervenience is standardly described from the metaphysical notion of
asymmetric dependence.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
673
although it is a conceptual truth that something makes a particular beautiful
painting beautiful, it need not be a conceptual truth what makes it so. Nor, it
seems, is it a relation between sentences. What makes something beautiful
may not be fully describable in language, and if it is, it is describable in different languages.
What can we say, positively, about this relation of accounting for? We
have already noted that it is asymmetric. A further fact that will figure
prominently in this paper is that it is a relation between propositions. Recall
that we are employing the apparatus of propositions in an effort to determine
whether deflationists can accommodate truthmaking intuitions. In light of
this, then, consider the semantics of the following sentences.
1. You believe that Mr. X’s papers are profound, and surely that would be
enough to make them good papers. However, Mr. X’s papers are not profound.
2. Your writing, though clear, isn’t elegant. But I’ll tell you what would make
it more elegant, and that is your sparingly using gerundial nominalizations.
3. Bob believes Clinton wasn’t impeached. Of course, he was. So, Bob’s
belief isn’t knowledge. What would make it knowledge? Its being a case of
undefeated justified true belief.
The italicized expressions seem to function as singular terms accessible to
quantification. Thus, if (1)-(3) are true, these terms must designate. Let us
suppose they are true. The italicized expressions then designate despite the
fact that the sentences of which they are nominalizations are false. So, for
example, if (1) is true, then ‘that Mr. X’s papers are profound’ designates,
even though ‘Mr. X’s papers are profound’ is false. It thus appears that this
clause designates an entity admitting of positive and negative polarities akin
to the polarities of truth and falsity. While the entity designated by the clause
does not make Mr. X’s papers good papers, if that entity had had a positive
polarity, it would have made Mr. X’s papers good papers.
In (1)-(3), the italicized expressions designate entities that would have
accounted for something if they had had a positive polarity. Thus, for the
entities designated by these expressions, existence is not the same thing as
having a positive polarity, and non-existence not the same thing as having a
negative polarity. These entities admit of bipolarity.
Philosophers, traditionally, have distinguished several kinds of entities
admitting of such bipolarities: propositions, states of affairs, and possible
facts. Such entities, respectively, can exist while not being true, not obtaining, or not being actual. In spite of the multiplicity of ontological categories
here, a broad-minded propositionalist can treat them all as propositions. Rus-
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MATTHEW MCGRATH
sellian propositions, i.e., propositions containing concrete objects together
with properties or relations, can serve as states of affairs. Whether with or
without the resources of possibilia or haecceities, but certainly with such
resources, the propositionalist may also bring possible facts into the fold: if
not as general propositions, then as either Russellian propositions involving
possibilia or as Fregean propositions involving haecceities. Thus, the broadminded propositionalist ought to regard the italicized expressions of (1)-(3)
as designating propositions and saying about them that they would have
accounted for other propositions, had they been true. She ought, therefore, to
regard the relevant relation of accounting for—the relation expressed by talk
of ‘makes’—as a relation between propositions.18 This nicely yields the
explanatory asymmetry between <p> and <<p> is true>, which Horwich
attempted unsuccessfully to respect by appealing to laws of nature.
Finally, this accounting for relation entails a corresponding modal relation. If an act A’s causing pain is what accounts for its being wrong, then A’s
causing pain necessitates its being wrong. The strength of the modality varies
from case to case. An act’s wrongness-maker, arguably, metaphysically
necessitates its being wrong, whereas a surface’s redness-maker, a reflectance
property, again arguably, only physically necessitates its being red. In general, we can say only this: if what makes x F is that p, then <p> necessitates
<x is F>. Something similar holds for general principles of supervenience.
The principles given earlier, (Truth), (Justification), (Beauty), hold with con-
18
No doubt it is bad English to say
(a) The proposition that p accounts for the proposition that q
(b) The proposition that p would account for the proposition that q.
Here again, the propositionalist should regard the grammar as accidental. (See note 10.)
The gerundial nominalization ‘S’s justifiably and truly believing that p’ in
(c) S’s justifiably and truly believing that p accounts for S’s knowing that p
(d) S’s justifiably and truly believing that p would account for S’s knowing that p
must be taken to pick out a proposition, for as we have seen in (1)-(3), such nominalizations may designate something even if the corresponding proposition is false. But this
means that what is designated by the nominalizations in (c) and (d) admits of two polarities, and so is a proposition, in the broad sense of the word.
This treatment of the nominalizations in (c) and (d) is further confirmed by the
observation that the content of (c) and (d) is preserved by substituting talk of “truths” in
place of the nomalizations. Thus, (e) and (f) are acceptable:
(e) A truth about S, that he justifiably and truly believes that p, accounts for another
truth about S, that he knows that p.
(f) If it were a truth about S, that he justifiably and truly believed that p, then such a
truth would account for a further truth about S, that he knew that p.
Thanks to Marian David for discussion of these issues.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
675
ceptual (and so metaphysical) necessity, whereas a similar principle for redness presumably holds only with physical necessity.19
Returning, then, to the “extra element” objection. <snow is red> does not
make itself true. But, then, mustn’t something be added to it to make it true?
After all, what makes it true must necessitate its truth, and we could have the
proposition <snow is white> without its being true. But recall Bob of (3)
above. Bob’s having an undefeated justified true belief that Clinton wasn’t
impeached would have accounted for his knowing that Clinton wasn’t
impeached, if Clinton hadn’t been impeached. So consider the closest world
W in which Clinton wasn’t impeached and in which Bob has an undefeated
justified true belief to this effect. In W, Bob knows that Clinton wasn’t
impeached. And in W what accounts for Bob’s knowing this is that he has an
undefeated justified true belief that it is so. Using angle brackets, then, we
can describe the situation as follows: in W, what accounts for <Bob knows
that Clinton wasn’t impeached> is just <Bob has an undefeated justified true
belief that Clinton wasn’t impeached>, rather than that proposition plus
something else. The deflationist may then draw the corresponding conclusion
for making true. In any world W in which <p> is true, what accounts for the
truth of <p> is that p, i.e., is <p> itself, not <p> plus something else. So, in
particular, since snow is white, what accounts for the truth of <snow is white>
is <snow is white>.
The “extra element” objection, however, is not the only objection the
deflationist faces in her treatment of truthmaking. Another is the “worldly
fact” objection, which proceeds as follows. Truthmaking intuitions require
truthmakers to be worldly, to be elements of reality. Yet far from being
worldly, propositions are abstract, Russellian propositions included. Thus, we
must look to facts to find truthmakers, not propositions.
The deflationist may reply by saying that, under her view, when she says
that <snow is white> makes itself true, she is indeed talking about the world:
she is explaining the truth of a proposition by reference to a truth about snow.
She may also ask what difference it makes to use ‘fact’. What does it matter if
we say, “Facts about worldly objects account for facts about the truth of
propositions,” or we instead say, “Truths about worldly objects account for
truths about the truth of propositions”? Truths about the world appear to be
worldly just as much as facts about the world are—both are about the world,
i.e., the concrete world, and in many cases solely about the world.
What’s in a word? A great deal, according to some correspondence theorists. What we need, these theorists suggest, is a notion of fact that lacks the
bipolarity implicit in the notion of a proposition. Unlike a proposition, a
19
676
If one is suspicious of a relation of accounting for that goes beyond entailment, still, one
must regard instances of the ordinary language schema ‘Something makes <p> true’ as
asserting a relation between propositions, since entailment can only hold between propositions.
MATTHEW MCGRATH
worldly fact—an event, state or property-instance20—lacks this bipolarity: it
simply wouldn’t exist if the corresponding proposition were false. Worldly
facts, in this way, are like the humdrum objects of the world, such as my
chair, the Atlantic Ocean, and the APA. They have only one mode of being. 21
The trouble with this argument is that it runs afoul of the requirement that
accounting for is a relation between propositions. What makes a proposition
true in the ordinary sense of ‘making true’ that we have investigated must be
a proposition, since to make a proposition true is to account for its truth.
Thus, although facts conceived as truths can make propositions true, worldly
facts cannot.
That is the short answer to the “worldly fact” objection. The longer
answer requires more discussion. By way of stage setting, I want to examine
an argument offered by Richard Fumerton for the claim that only worldly
facts can serve as truthmakers.22 My examination of this argument will show
that there are two notions of truthmaking that are not often distinguished in
the discussions of truthmaking.
IV. Fumerton’s Argument and Two Notions of Truthmaking
Fumerton’s immediate target is the coherence theory of truth, but his critique,
if successful, extends to deflationist theories. Nor is his argument peculiar to
him. I believe it reflects a deep concern shared by many philosophers that
truth must be grounded in worldly entities, and not ultimately in propositions,
for otherwise a vicious infinite regress would ensue. Fumerton first tells us
that the notion of facts as truths will do no good in answering questions about
truthmaking:
[For the coherentist] what makes P true is that it coheres with a set of other propositions that are
believed. But a coherence theorist of truth does not have facts about beliefs in any but the trivial
sense in which there are truths about beliefs.... To say that it is a fact that water has a molecular
structure H2O is just another way of saying that it is true that water has molecular structure
H2O. The expression "the fact that P" has precisely the same meaning as "P’s being true," and it
is an almost comical error, therefore, to suppose that one can think of a fact as a truth-maker….
(Fumerton (1995), p. 138)
He then describes a regress of truthmaking:
…The regress that faces the coherence theorist of truth is a conceptual regress. We are not
getting an account of truth because every time we try to understand what makes one proposition
true we are necessarily led to a question about what makes yet another proposition true. There is
20
21
22
Depending on one’s conception of tropes, they too would count as worldly facts. If my
apple’s particular redness, necessarily, exists only if my apple is red, and if whenever my
apple is red, there is some trope of its particular redness, then tropes are worldly facts. The
moments of Mulligan, Simons and Smith (1984), too, would seem to count as worldly
facts.
Thus, such facts do not admit of two polarities.
See Fumerton (1995), pp. 132-144.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
677
no fact of the matter for a coherence theorist—there are only truths about [what would be
believed at the end of an indefinitely long process of inquiry]. When a coherence theorist tells us
that what makes P true is that it coheres with the set of propositions Q that would be believed at
the end of an inquiry, we must ask what would make it true that Q would be believed at the end
of this process of inquiry. And when we are told (as we must be told for the theory to be
consistent) that what makes it true that Q would be believed at the end of this inquiry is that this
proposition coheres with propositions R that would be believed at the end of this idealized
inquiry, we must ask again what makes it true that R would be believed at the end of this
inquiry, and so on ad infinitum. (Fumerton (1995), p. 140).
One is reminded of Frege’s famous argument against the definability of truth.
A key difference between Fumerton and Frege, though, is that Fumerton
believes the regress can be stopped, stopped by a correspondence theory that
invokes worldly facts. Initially, though, one is puzzled why Fumerton is
entitled to exempt the correspondence theory. What makes a proposition <p>
true, for the correspondence theorist? That <p> corresponds to a fact. But
now what makes this true? That <<p> corresponds to a fact> corresponds to
a fact. And so on. This seems precisely parallel to the regress used against the
coherentist. Frege, of course, meant his regress to apply to the correspondence theory no less than any other theory that attempted a definition of truth.
Let us think of Fumerton’s argument in a perfectly general vein, and
attempt to determine how the correspondence theorist avoids the regress. So
suppose one’s theory is that for all propositions P, P is true just in case P
meets condition C. And suppose a proposition <p> is true. What makes it
true? To answer the question, one applies one’s theory: what makes <p> true
is that it meets condition C. But that proposition is also true. So what makes it
true, i.e., what makes the proposition that <p> meets condition C true? Well,
that it meets condition C. But now we have a further truth, which must be
made true. Surely the truthmaking chain cannot proceed infinitely. Nor can it
contain a loop. Yet how can it terminate? Are we to say that there are true
propositions that aren’t made true? But then how can they be true? Are we to
say that there are propositions that make themselves true? That would be
circularity in the extreme. Fumerton’s suggestion, as best as I can make out,
is that the only remaining possibility is that the truthmaking chain terminates
with a truthmaker that is not the kind of thing to admit of truth or falsity. It
simply exists. And if its existence is to ground or account for the truth of the
proposition, it must be a worldly fact, an event or state. This is the
correspondence theorist’s escape.
Figuring prominently in Fumerton’s argument is the claim that the notion
of facts as truths is no substitute for the correspondence theorist’s notion of
fact. According to Fumerton, if one claims that facts are truths, one must treat
talk of “the fact that p” as shorthand for talking about “the truth of the
proposition that p”. This latter talk, he thinks, introduces a further proposition
distinct from <p>, namely, <<p> is true>. So appealing to facts as truths does
678
MATTHEW MCGRATH
not halt the regress of truthmaking. What makes <p> true? The fact that p,
i.e., <<p> is true>. What makes that proposition true? The fact that <p> is
true, i.e., <<<p> is true> is true>. And so on.
Thus, Fumerton’s argument carries over to deflationism. What makes
proposition <p> true for the deflationist? She can only answer: the fact that p.
But since the deflationist has only in her resources the notion of facts as
truths, she must say that what makes <p> true is a further proposition, namely
<<p> is true>. The question then comes: “And tell me, what makes <<p> is
true> true?” And so on.
Fumerton’s regress bears a striking similarity to the familiar regress of
justification in epistemology: a belief can be justified only if something justifies it; but any belief that justifies it must be justified; yet nothing can justify
itself, either directly or indirectly through a loop, nor can the justification
chain be infinite. The correspondence theorist’s escape closely resembles that
of the traditional experientialist foundationalist’s. The latter claims that the
only way to halt the regress is to admit that there are states of mind—
experiences, states of direct acquaintance—that can justify but for which the
question of justification cannot arise. The former claims that the only way to
halt the regress of truthmaking is to admit that there are entities—worldly
facts—that can make propositions true but for which the question of truth
cannot arise.
Let us evaluate Fumerton’s argument. We first address two subtle mistakes. In his development of the regress, Fumerton assumes that when asked
concerning a proposition <p>, what makes it true, one’s answer must consist
in applying one’s theory of truth to <p>, that is, in stating that <p> meets
condition C (if one’s account is an analysis). This is incorrect. Consider the
correspondence theory. If <p> is true, then its truthmaker, according to the
correspondence theory, is not that it is made true by some fact. This only
“programs” for a truthmaker.23 Rather, the truthmaker is whatever fact does
make it true.24 In the same way, what makes two things similar is not that they
have the property of sharing appropriate natural properties—this merely
“programs” for what makes them similar; what makes them similar is that
they both are ripe tomatoes, both Calico cats, etc.
A second problem in Fumerton’s argument, and this time a more serious
one, lies in his discussion of facts as truths. What is it to talk of the fact that
p, for deflationists, or for coherentists for that matter? Fumerton says it is to
talk of the truth of the proposition that p, to talk of that proposition’s being
true. But this is not so. For the deflationist, facts are truths, and so she ought
23
24
For more on programming explanations, see Jackson and Pettit (1990).
Fumerton needs to say this in order to block the regress for the correspondence theory. For,
once he says that what makes <p> true is the fact to which it corresponds, he wishes to
answer the question, “What makes that fact true?” by saying that facts aren’t the sorts of
things to be true or false.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
679
to say that talking of the fact that p is talking of the truth that p, not of the
proposition <p>’s being true. So, for the deflationist, what makes <p> true is
the truth that p, i.e., the true proposition <p> itself, rather than a further
proposition that attributes truth to <p>, e.g., <<p> is true>. The assimilation
of talk of the truth that p to talk of <p>’s being true is of a piece with the
following illegitimate assimilations: equating talk of the theory that p with
talk of <p>’s being a theory; equating talk of “my neighbor Bruce” with talk
of “Bruce’s being my neighbor.” In general talk of the “the F, X” is not talk
of “X’s being an F.” A simple substitution of the latter form of expression for
the former need not even preserve intelligibility: “My neighbor Bruce is 6’
tall” and “Bruce’s being my neighbor is 6’ tall.”
Even given these problems with Fumerton’s regress, the thought may
persist: isn’t Fumerton right to say that we must turn to something ineligible
for truth in order to provide a ground for truth? And the comparison with the
justification regress seems to work against the deflationist: if it’s implausible
to say that some beliefs justify themselves, why isn’t it also implausible to say
that some truths make themselves true?
What is needed here is a distinction, missed in Fumerton’s discussion and,
to my knowledge, in the literature generally. There are two notions of truthmakers, which we must keep separate. One notion, the one I have already
introduced by analogy with “making similar” and “making reasonable,” etc.,
is the notion of a truthmaker as something that accounts for the truth of a
proposition. Truthmakers in this sense can only be propositions, for as we
have seen, accounting for is a relation between propositions. In this sense, the
claim that something is its own truthmaker is unproblematic. It is fine to say
that what accounts for the truth of the proposition that snow is white is that
very truth itself, namely, that snow is white. Nor is this circularity. We are not
saying that a truth explains itself, but rather that a truth about snow—that it is
white—accounts for a truth about the proposition that snow is white—that it
is true. That is, we’re saying that <snow is white> accounts for <<snow is
white> is true>. I call this the non-existential notion of a truthmaker. The
existential notion, by contrast, is the notion of an entity whose existence
accounts for the truth of a proposition.25 26 Saying, with the deflationist, that
25
26
680
For similar accounts, see Fox (1987), p. 189, Bigelow (1988), p. 123, and Armstrong
(1997), p. 129.
I characterize the existential notion of truthmaking in terms of the non-existential. I say:
for all entities X and propositions P, X is a truthmaker in the existential sense for P just in
case the (Russellian) proposition that X exists is a truthmaker for P in the non-existential
sense. So a worldly fact can be said to make a proposition true just in case the proposition
that the worldly fact exists accounts for the truth of the proposition. We see the need for
this characterization of existential truthmaking by considering a Fumerton-style regress.
Suppose a proposition <p> is true. We ask: what makes it true? Suppose, following
Fumerton, we turn to a distinct proposition <q> and ask: what makes <q> true? Eventually, the question ‘What makes proposition __ true?’ receives the answer ‘Such and such
MATTHEW MCGRATH
true propositions are their own non-existential truthmakers, we now see, halts
Fumerton’s regress painlessly. There is no need to turn to existential
truthmakers.
Conflation of these two notions of truthmaking helps to explain why the
“extra element” and “the worldly fact” objections, while appealing, are
flawed. The “extra element” objection would be well taken if, when in asking,
“What makes <snow is white> true?” we were asking for an existential
truthmaker. A proposition’s existence certainly doesn’t account for its truth,
since it could exist (except in special cases) whether or not it was true.
However, the deflationist is asking about non-existential truthmakers. She is
asking what accounts for the truth of <snow is white>. And to this question,
her answer is quite plausible: it’s merely that snow is white, i.e., <snow is
white> itself.
The “worldly fact” objection is of a piece with the “extra element” objection. One would be right to worry about the claim that propositions are
truthmakers, if ‘truthmaker’ was being used in the existential sense. For, if we
then asked what makes <snow is white> true, we should not be satisfied with
an answer adverting to abstract entities, but only to snow and its characteristics. (How could the existence of an abstract entity matter to the truth of
<snow is white>?) However, the objection is misplaced when directed at the
deflationist, since she employs the non-existential notion. Using that notion,
her view does precisely what is demanded of it: it entails that the circumstance explanatory of the truth of <snow is white> is about worldly stuff, not
about any abstract objects such as propositions. This truthmaking circumstance is not about a proposition; it is a proposition.
worldly fact’. It might appear that in giving this answer, we’ve changed the subject, since
apparently we’ve departed from a conception of truthmakers as entities that account for
the truth of propositions and are now employing a conception of truthmakers as entities
that aren’t even the right kind of things to account for anything. But then the necessary
clarification comes: when we talk of a worldly fact as a truthmaker what we really mean is
that its existence accounts for the truth of the proposition. (See Bigelow (1988), p. 126 for
a similar explanation.)
If this is the needed characterization of existential truthmaking, the correspondence
theorist has a further kind of proposition to worry about, true propositions of the form
<worldly fact F exists>. Fumerton demands existential truthmakers for every truth. So if
<worldly fact F exists> is true, it must have an existential truthmaker. What is it? The
correspondence theorist might advert to the fact F itself. But now, given the foregoing
explanation of the existential notion of truthmaking, the correspondence theorist finds
himself in the same boat as the deflationist in respect of the non-existential notion: he is
saying that a proposition can account for its own truth. Of course, the correspondence
theorist might advert to the existence of a distinct fact F’, but in that case we are off on a
regress. (What, then, is the existential truthmaker for <worldly fact F’ exists>?) So if
Fumerton’s argument succeeds against deflationism, it succeeds against the correspondence theory as well. Like Frege’s argument, Fumerton’s appears to generalize to all
theories of truth, or in other words, to over-generalize.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
681
Our distinction between two notions of truthmaking also helps us explain
why the correspondence theory strikes some philosophers as trivial and others
as substantive, and still others as Janus-faced. Prose transitions from the trivial to the substantive readings of the theory can be subtle. As a case in point, I
will consider Bigelow (1988). Bigelow asks
...what is it for something to ‘make’ something true? Consider a potter who makes a pot: Is he or
she the truthmaker for the truth that there is a pot? No, not in the relevant sense. A truthmaker
should ‘make’ something true, not in a causal sense, but rather, in what is presumably a logical
sense. A truthmaker is that in virtue of which something is true. (125)
So far, so good. The last sentence in effect states that a truthmaker is what
accounts for a proposition’s truth. This is non-existential truthmaking. If this
is the correspondence theory, which Bigelow claims it is, then it does seem
obviously right. Bigelow then continues in his very next few sentences:
And yet we should not rest content with an explanation which turns on the notion of virtue! I
urge that what the Truthmaker axiom [which for Bigelow is the correspondence theory27] is
really saying is this: Whenever something is true, there must be something whose existence
entails that it is true. (125).
Here the correspondence theory is described quite differently, as holding that
every truth has an existential truthmaker. In terms of entailment, Bigelow
begins with truthmakers as entities entailing a proposition’s truth and ends
with entities the existence of which entails a proposition’s truth. In terms of
the notion of virtue: Bigelow begins with truthmakers as entities in virtue of
which propositions are true, and ends with truthmakers as entities in virtue of
the existence of which propositions are true.
Why does the correspondence theory seem now trivial, now substantive?
The theory will seem trivial if one understands correspondence to a fact to
consist in having a non-existential truthmaker. For then the “theory” is really
not a theory of truth at all, but merely a statement of the supervenience of
truth, and supervenience is a datum for theories of truth. However, if one
understands correspondence to consist in having an existential truthmaker,
the theory will seem far from trivial, in fact implausible. Think how odd it
would be to assert that if something is wrong, it must have an existential
wrongness-maker. There is nothing the mere existence of which accounts for
the wrongness of an act. (If I hit you, your pain doesn’t make my act wrong.
What makes it wrong is rather that it caused you pain, or something of the
sort.) But insofar as wrongness supervenes, there clearly will be non-existential wrongness-makers. Similarly, it is odd to think that if a particle e is in a
location L, then there must be some entity whose mere existence accounts for
27
682
See Bigelow (1988), p. 122. The Truthmaker Axiom states that if something is true, then
something in the world makes it true. I will discuss the implications of the prepositional
phrase “in the world” at the end of this section.
MATTHEW MCGRATH
the truth of <e is in L>. To think this is to think that the truth of non-existential propositions must be grounded in existential propositions. Such a
controversial doctrine is a far cry from the intuitive truthmaking principle
that, if a proposition is true, something must make it true, and gains no support from it.28
How could philosophers have missed the distinction between existential
and non-existential truthmaking? Let me illustrate. Suppose one wished to
reformulate the intuitive truthmaking principle in order to explicitly introduce
the notion of “the world”, to bring out the realism inherent in our intuitions
about truthmaking. Consider the following two similar-seeming reformulations:
ABOUT If a proposition is true, then something about the world makes
it true.
IN
If a proposition is true, then something in the world makes it
true.
The two reformulations harbor significant differences. ABOUT is uncontroversial, at least for non-idealists. IN, though not implausible on its face, leads
naturally to an Armstrong-style metaphysical project investigating the nature
of “worldly” truthmakers and their constituents.29 The reasoning might
proceed as follows:
“Truthmakers must be in the world; they must be worldly. Therefore they
cannot be propositions. For essential predications to an object, we may perhaps regard the truthmaker as the object itself. Thus, Bob is the truthmaker
for ‘Bob is human’. But for accidental predications, we can no longer do this.
We must appeal to worldly facts. But what are these facts like? The existence
of the fact that a is F, if a is only contingently F, cannot consist merely in the
existence of a. But merely adding a universal F-ness isn’t enough either.
What, then, is the fact, over and above a and F-ness?”
28
29
Many philosophers currently working on truthmaking do not use a notion of accounting
for in their treatment of truthmaking. See, e.g., Armstrong (1997), Fox (1987), Mulligan,
Simons, and Smith (1984), Read (2000), and Restall (1996). Fox requires only that X’s
mere existence necessitates P. This neglects the asymmetric element in truthmaking, but
even putting that issue aside, one still wonders why every truth must be necessitated by
some existential proposition. Why must there be some entity whose mere existence
necessitates <particle e is in location L>? Suppose that in one world e is in L and in
another e is not in L but in L’, and suppose that there are no other particles or other material objects in either world. Why must there exist something in one of the worlds but not in
the other? Why can’t we merely say: e is in L in one world but not in L in the other? I am
thus doubtful of the notion that truth supervenes on being.
Bigelow (1988) highlights the transition from IN to Armstrong-style metaphysics. See p.
122, and chapter 20. Armstrong himself formulates the truthmaker principle using IN. See
his (1998), p. 2.
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
683
ABOUT motivates no such metaphysical project. However, at first sight, the
two reformulations scarcely look different at all.30
Let me be clear about what I am arguing. I don’t claim to have shown that
propositions lack existential truthmakers. I have argued only that that we
don’t embroil ourselves in existential truthmaking and its attendant puzzles
merely by affirming the intuitive truthmaking principle that if a proposition is
true, then something must make it true. That principle commits us only to the
claim that true propositions have non-existential truthmakers.31
V. Two Further Objections to What the Deflationist Says about
Truthmaking
The first objection is as follows. Metaphysicians standardly ask such questions as “What makes it true that 2+2=4? “What makes it true that Gore might
have been elected president?” “Where X causes Y, what makes it true that X
causes Y.” No such philosopher would be happy with answers of the form:
<p> makes it true that p. So it appears that the deflationist cannot accommodate much of any metaphysics.
30
31
Horwich’s (1999a) talk of truths being made true by “elements of reality” is ambiguous
between the two reformulations. See p. 105. Armstrong (1997) states his principle of
truthmaking using both ABOUT (p. 115) and IN (p. 2).
Taking a lead from Fox (1987), one might characterize existential truthmaking without
using the notion of truth:
Entity X is a truthmaker for proposition P iff X’s mere existence accounts for P.
Because this modified existential notion can be explained without invoking the notion of
truth, the correspondence theorist may wish to use it in the analysis of truth:
(CORR): Proposition P is true iff there is some X such that X’s existence
accounts for P.
Truths, then, share the property of being an x such that there is some y whose existence
accounts for x. Thus, we would have a second-order analysis of truth with all the accoutrements thereof, including a means of explaining what all true propositions have in
common.
One would have such benefits. However, there are reasons for skepticism about
CORR. First, the existence of existential truthmakers, as stressed earlier, is not by any
means supported by ordinary intuitions about truthmaking, and brings with it the controversies of Armstrong-style metaphysics. Second, in order to derive the truth-equivalences,
we need to supplement CORR with principles linking ‘p’ and ‘there exists a worldly fact
whose existence entails <p>’. Some of these principles will be controversial. Thus, there is
no easy derivation of the equivalences from CORR. Third, even if one is attracted to
existential truthmaking in certain cases, one may not want to commit oneself to CORR in
its full generality. Do necessary truths need existential truthmakers? Do negative truths?
Thus, many philosophers will wish to restrict CORR to certain kinds of truth. These
philosophers do better, I think, to retain the deflationist account of truth and claim that
only certain kinds of truths can be explained by the existence of worldly facts. That way,
they may achieve a number of important goals, consistently with the admission of some
cases of (indirect) existential truthmaking, including preserving the univocality of truth,
insuring the easy derivability of the truth equivalences, and avoiding commitment to
existential truthmakers for all truths. See McGrath (1997), section 3.2, pp. 87-89 for
further discussion.
684
MATTHEW MCGRATH
This objection fails. As suggested earlier, the deflationist needn’t say that
a proposition’s only truthmakers are direct truthmakers. She may maintain
that, while any true proposition has only one direct truthmaker, viz. itself,
propositions may have a number of indirect truthmakers (ancestors of the
direct truthmaker under an appropriate explanatory relation). If <X caused
Y> is true, then it directly makes itself true. What explains <X caused Y>?
Suppose it is this: <X is an F and Y is a G and Fs are constantly conjoined
with Gs>. Then the latter indirectly makes <X caused Y> true. Philosophers
asking questions such as ‘What makes it the case that X caused Y?” are after
indirect non-existential truthmakers. This is all perfectly fine by deflationism.
The failure of this first objection shows that a deflationist might even
accept the correspondence theorist’s world of existential truthmakers. She
might reason as follows. What directly makes <Fa> true is <Fa> itself, but
since <Fa> can be further explained by <the worldly fact of a’s being F
exists>, it follows that <Fa> is indirectly made true by the latter. Thus, a
deflationist can accept existential truthmakers, if persuaded that certain nonexistential truths must be “ontologically explained” by existential ones.
However, she will regard these truthmakers as indirect.
The second objection is that deflationists must dismiss recent work in the
logic of truthmaking, since this work presupposes the perspective of existential truthmaking.32 This is not correct. Much of that work finds a new home
under deflationism. Questions such as the below arise for non-existential just
as they did for existential truthmaking:
If A entails B, is a truthmaker for A thereby also a truthmaker for B?
Is a truthmaker for A v B thereby also a truthmaker either for A or for B?
Some problems, of course, are transformed in being transplanted from the
framework of existential truthmaking. The puzzle of truthmakers for negative
existentials such as <there are no more than 10 billion swans>, for example,
ceases to be the problem of finding something the existence of which insures
the truth of this proposition, and becomes the problem of whether the proposition has an indirect non-existential truthmaker: is <there are no more than
10 billion swans> a basic truth or can it be explained by appeal to the totality
of all “positive” truths about the existence of swans in conjunction with a
“that’s all” truth?
32
For such work, see Fox (1984), Mulligan, Simons, and Smith (1984), Restall (1996), and
Read (2000).
WHAT THE DEFLATIONIST MAY SAY ABOUT TRUTHMAKING
685
Of course, if our deflationist accepts indirect existential truthmakers, then
she can apply the work in the logic of truthmaking without essential alteration
to indirect truthmaking.33
VI. Concluding Remarks
Intuitively, the truth of a proposition is accounted for by how things stand in
the world. Once we appreciate that accounting for is a relation between
propositions, and that non-existential truthmaking does not imply existential
truthmaking, we may capture such intuitions about truthmaking the way the
deflationist does, by claiming that true propositions make themselves true (in
the non-existential sense). To say this is to say that true propositions account
for their own truth, not that their existence does.
We may even formulate deflationism itself in terms of truthmaking, by
saying that for any proposition P, if P is true, then what makes P true is P
itself. This theory, which I have called “Truthmaker Deflationism,” supplies
the asymmetry missing in standard formulations of deflationist theories of
truth, such as those of Horwich and Sosa.
The deflationist treatment of truthmaking, finally, is preferable to that of
the correspondence theorist. The correspondence theorist faces a dilemma.
Either she claims that worldly facts make propositions true in the existential
or the non-existential sense. To say the latter is nonsense. To say the former,
though it is not nonsense, is not plausible. It is by no means clear that there
has to be an entity whose mere existence accounts for the truth of <snow is
white> or of <e is in location L>. The commonsense dictum “If a proposition
is true, something makes it true,” I have argued, must be read as
If a proposition is true, something accounts for its truth.
33
A further possible refinement to our account deserves mention. Earlier I remarked that
entities traditionally called “states of affairs” may be regarded as propositions, and in
particular as Russellian proposition, since they admit of polarities akin to truth and falsity.
One might think, then, that one and the same Russellian propositions could make true,
perhaps even directly make true, any number of their Fregean counterparts. This allows for
some desirable substitutions within truthmaking contexts. Thus, given the identity of
Hesperus and Phosphorus, from
What directly makes the (Fregean) proposition <Hesperus is F> true is that Hesperus
is F.
we could infer
What directly makes the (Fregean) proposition <Hesperus is F> true is that
Phosphorus is F.
On this alternative, direct truthmaking is reflexive only for Russellian propositions
and for universal and indefinite Fregean propositions. True Fregean propositions attributing properties to individuals under individual concepts would be directly made true by
the corresponding Russellian proposition.
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MATTHEW MCGRATH
But this principle of non-existential truthmaking lends no plausibility whatsoever to the corresponding principle about existential truthmaking:
If a proposition is true, there is some entity whose existence accounts for
its truth.
Moreover, even if we were convinced of the need for existential truthmakers,
we would do best to see them as indirect. We would then say: the worldly fact
of a’s being F is an existential truthmaker of <Fa> insofar as the existence of
that worldly fact accounts for <Fa>, which, in turn, accounts for the truth of
<Fa>. Thus, the direct truthmaker for <Fa> would be <Fa> itself.
In the absence of a good reason for believing that true propositions must
have existential truthmakers at all, let alone direct ones, we should be
satisfied with what the deflationist says about truthmaking.34
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34
I extend a warm thanks to Marian David, Ben Escoto, Anthony Everett, and Christopher
Menzel.
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