Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Uncontroversial examples of truthmaking?

I used to think that the following would be an uncontroversial example of truthmaking:

  1. Any elephant is a truthmaker for the proposition that there are elephants.

But that’s only true if every elephant is essentially an elephant, i.e., couldn’t exist without being an elephant. For if x is a truthmaker for p, then x’s existence has to entail p. If Jumbo were accidentally an elephant, then Jumbo’s existence wouldn’t entail that there are elephants.

Given that essentialism is controversial, it seems that if we are to give uncontroversial examples of truthmaking, they have to be something like;

  1. Jumbo is a truthmaker for the proposition that Jumbo exists.

  2. Alice is a truthmaker for the proposition that at least one of Alice, Bob and Carl exists.

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