By ‘Ockhamist semantics’ (‘Ockhamism’ for short) I mean the thesis that what’s true at a time about other times depends entirely on what occurs at those other times. Thus, if a coin is flipped at T and lands heads at T*, then Ockhamism implies that “The coin will land heads at T*” was true at… Read More: Cahn on Ockhamist Semantics »
Many discussions of logical fatalism and of the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and future contingency turn on the question of whether propositions about future contingents are true in advance. More exactly, they raise questions about whether any ‘will’ or ‘does’ propositions about events which have an intermediate chance of occurring (i.e., a current single-case objective… Read More: On a Misguided Application of Excluded Middle »
Trenton Merricks claims that truthmakers must be what truths are “about” in some unarticulated sense of “about”. He then argues against truthmaker-type principles by claiming that there are truths of various sorts for which his undefined aboutness criterion cannot be met. In two of my last three posts I have criticized Merricks for leaving this… Read More: Theism and Truthmaking »
I’ve now finishing my re-reading of Trenton Merricks’ book Truth and Ontology and I’m still quite unconvinced by his contention that what’s true does not depend on what exists in any substantive way. A couple posts ago I noted my main reasons for dissatisfaction with Merricks’ arguments: He loads down truthmaker principles, which affirm a… Read More: More on Merricks on Truthmaking »
I’m really happy right now because a paper of mine (“Gratuitous Evil and Divine Providence”) was just accepted at Religious Studies. In my experience, at least, the turnaround at that journal is phenomenally fast. This is the second paper I’ve submitted there. On both I received an acceptance notice within a week or less. I’ll… Read More: Gratuitous Evil and Divine Providence »
I’ve recently been rereading Trenton Merrick’s book Truth and Ontology (Oxford, 2007) in which he argues against the substantive dependence of truth on being. Thus, he rejects theses like TM – Every truth has a truthmaker, a parcel of reality the existence of which necessitates, and thereby grounds, that truth. TSB – Truth supervenes on… Read More: Merricks on Truthmaking »
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In my two previous posts, I have explained the notion of ‘truth at a time’ and argued that for a (contingent) proposition to be true at T it must supervene upon what exists at T. In short, truth at T requires a truthmaker at T. A question that remains concerns accessibility relations among times. If… Read More: Truth Accessibility Relations among Times »
As a follow-up to my previous post, I’d like to say a bit about how truth at a time and truth at a world relate to truth simpliciter. Unlike ‘truth at a world’ and ‘truth at a time’, truth simpliciter is not evaluated from the perspective of any given time or world, but absolutely. In… Read More: Truth at a Time and Truth Simpliciter »
In my previous post I made the following claim without argument: “for a proposition to be true now, what it represents as being the case must correspond to … what is the case now.” I’m now going to give that argument. Every argument for any categorical conclusion requires some categorical assumptions which are not defended… Read More: Truth-at-T Depends on What Exists-at-T »