Priority monism, partiality, and minimal truthmakers

Philosophical Studies 172 (2):477-491 (2015)
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Abstract

Truthmaker monism is the view that the one and only truthmaker is the world. Despite its unpopularity, this view has recently received an admirable defence by Schaffer :307–324, 2010b). Its main defect, I argue, is that it omits partial truthmakers. If we omit partial truthmakers, we lose the intimate connection between a truth and its truthmaker. I further argue that the notion of a minimal truthmaker should be the key notion that plays the role of constraining ontology and that truthmaker monism is not necessary for an appropriate solution to the problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. I conclude that we should reject truthmaker monism once and for all.

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Author's Profile

A. R. J. Fisher
Gonzaga University

Citations of this work

Fundamentality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Minimal Truthmakers.Donnchadh O'Conaill & Tuomas E. Tahko - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (2):228-244.
Priority monism.Kelly Trogdon - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (11):1-10.
Truthmaking.Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - In Michael J. Raven (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. Routledge. pp. 396-407.
Truthmaking and Fundamentality.A. R. J. Fisher - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (4):448-473.

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References found in this work

A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1997 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding. Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.

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