Dennis wrote:

John West wrote:

Truthmaker necessitarianism says entity T is a truthmaker of <p> if and only if T makes <p> true in every possible world T exists. What exists in every possible world those modal truths are true?

Could you clarify what you mean by that?

Now, I know you know what each term in that nice, precise sentence means, and how it goes with the others. 

"Grace and Rust's house is gray" is possible if and only if there is a possible world in which this proposition obtains. This would also be contingent, if there was a possible world in which your house would exist and not be not-gray. So the color of your house is both possible and contingent.

"Dennis exists," is made true by my act of existing, in every possible world in which I exist. I exist in this world, this is a possible world, and thus demonstrates that Dennis is possible. The truthmaker suffices to demonstrate the possibility of Dennis. However, does the truthmaker also suffice to make the proposition "Dennis could've failed to exist," true?  I don't think so. I think I'd need a truthmaker for the contingency of the proposition "Dennis exists," in order to be able to ground it.

I'm not interested in a contrastive explanan of why either your house is gray or why I exist, rather, I'm looking for truthmakers which ground propositions of mere possibility. Mere possibilities are things that could've obtained, but don't. Your house could've been blue, but isn't, it seems to be true that your house could've been blue, even if it never does, does it not?

Can truths for mere possibility be grounded in an analytic relation between things, and still be legitimately called 'truthmaking'? I don't think so, for one, these states of affairs don't obtain. Let me be clear, while exploring modal territory, I think I'm stepping on modal landmines! It seems to me that an argument against the necessity of Dennis's existence would be enough to demonstrate the contingency of the proposition, and thus demonstrate that the existence of Dennis is contingent. So, I'm looking for an argument to show the contingency of things, both present and the ones used in the past by the Scholastics if possible. If I'm unclear anywhere, tell me.

Last edited by Dennis (2/25/2017 7:23 am)

You are saying something like, "things come into existence and go out of existence, whatever is metaphysically necessary does not come into or go out of existence, thus we know that certain things are contingent because they don't exist necessarily." Is this right? 

The truthmaker, T, is what makes both <p> and ◇p true. My contention is that sure, T is sufficient for that, but it is insufficient to establish its contingency alone (or if it does, then I'm missing something for sure).

Grace and Rust wrote:

Clearly my ignorance is showing, since I suggested that an explanation for a state of affairs constitutes a truth-maker.

It doesn't help when your interlocutor uses (technical) terms without defining them for the general forum readership. 

John's right, much of this is due to my lack of clarification of terms. Consider the proposition, "Grace and Rust's house is blue." This is a proposition, these are known as truthbearers.  Basically, we're going to ask "In virtue of what is the proposition true?" A truthmaker is an entity, which is independent of the proposition, which makes the proposition/truthbearer true. It is important to note that the truthmakers don't make something true by some sort of a causal sense.

Grace and Rust wrote:

My idea, p is true when its explanation brings it about, and that explanation does not always bring about p, and is itself contingent, might not even pan out; I'm getting the suspicion that it simply pushes things back a step.

Explanations do not bring about things, the explanation of why the suns rays takes about 5-8 minutes does not bring the state of affairs about, but it's the sun and its properties, tied with other things in physical minutiae that bring that truth to be. Explanations would not be classified as entities that are in the world which could serve as truthmakers for truthbearers, and thus I need something in the actual world which would do the job.

I'm also denying that conceivability is enough for metaphysical possibility. I don't know why the mere ability to be able to think about something in a clear and coherent manner should give us the lease to think that it is metaphysically possible. I know I'm making enemies out of rationalists here, but so be it.

Last edited by Dennis (3/12/2017 5:56 am)