Bill has a
piece out opposing truthmaker maximalism:
7) Consider now the analytic proposition *Every cygnet is a swan.* As analytic, it is true solely in virtue of the meanings of 'cygnet' and 'swan.' It is true ex vi terminorum. Its truth is not contingent on the existence of any cygnets. Why does it need a truthmaker? It certainly does not need anything external to it to make it true. The concept cygnet includes the concept swan, so that, by sheer analysis of the subject concept, one can arrive at the truth in question. That's why we call it, following Kant, 'analytic.' Clearly, nothing external to an analytic proposition is required to make it true. It follows that it cannot have a truthmaker. Or rather it follows if a truthmaker of a first-order truthbearer is an entity that is external to the truthbearer and resident in the realm of reality beyond the sphere of representations broadly construed.
Bill says that the concept
cygnet includes the concept
swan. It would seem this inclusion relation between the concepts
cygnet and
swan is what makes true the proposition *Every cygnet is a swan*. Is this relation internal to the truthbearer? Perhaps one could argue for this if we think of truthbearers as meanings transcendent of sentences. But surely not if we take
sentences to be the truthbearers. So Bill's example of an analytic truth
can be thought of as having a truthmaker external to itself. Is it beyond the sphere of representations too? Maybe not. But then Bill goes on to say,
The Platonic proposition expressed by '7 is prime,' for example, makes-true the general Platonic proposition that there are Platonic propositions.
So he does appear to allow some truthmakers to lie in said sphere.
No comments:
Post a Comment