Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The Truthmaker Theory of Predication and Divine Simplicity

In this post I first try to get clear about the truthmaker theory of predication proposed by Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower in their A Theistic Argument Against Platonism.  I then try to understand how it solves a certain problem in the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). Finally, I raise a question about the authors' solution.

The truthmaker theory of predication is a rival to the following theory of predication which, with a little inaccuracy, we can label 'Platonistic' so as to have a handy label:


P: The truth of all true predications, or at least of all true predications of the form "a is F", is to be explained in terms of a subject and an exemplifiable (however exemplifiables are themselves to be conceived). (p. 7)

This post will not address the authors' impressive theistic argument  against P.  For present purposes we can assume that it is sound the better to evaluate the alternative which  Bergmann and Brower put  as follows:



P*: The truth of all 

true predications, or at least of all true predications of the form "a is F", is to be explained in terms of truthmakers. (p. 25)

To appreciate how the two theories differ, consider the proposition expressed by the true essential predication, 'God is divine.'  The Platonistic theory explains the truth of this proposition in terms of the subject God and the exemplifiable, the property of being divine.  The proposition is true because the subject exemplifies the property.  By contrast, the truthmaker theory of predication explains the proposition's truth in terms of its truthmaker.  Three questions:  What is a truthmaker?  What is the truthmaker of the proposition *God is divine*?  What exactly is the difference between P and P*? The authors offer the following as a "partial analysis" of the notion of a truthmaker:

TM: If an entity E is a truthmaker for a predication P, then 'E exists' entails the truth expressed by P. (p. 22)

From TM and the fact that 'God is divine' is an essential predication it can be inferred that the truthmaker of this truth is God himself.  For 'God exists' entails the truth expressed by 'God is divine.'  This is because there is no possible world in which God exists and the proposition in question is not true.  Thus God himself suffices as truthmaker for 'God is divine,' and there is no need for an exemplifiable entity or a concrete state of affairs (the subject's exemplifying of the exemplifiable entity.) This allows us to appreciate the difference between the Platonistic and the truthmaker theories of predication.  The first, but not the second, requires that the explanation of a truth's being true invoke a subject and an exemplifiable.  On the truthmaker theory it is not the case that every predication is such that its explanation requires the positing of a subject and an exemplifiable.  The subjects of all essential predications of the form a is F suffice as truthmakers of the propositions expressed by these predications.

In the case of such accidental predications as 'Tom is tired,' the truthmaker cannot be Tom by himself, as the authors appreciate. (p. 26)  Neither Tom nor Tom's existence nor *Tom exists* necessitates the truth of 'Tom is tired.'  On one approach, the truthmaker of true accidental predications is a concrete state of affairs.  On another, the truthmaker is a trope.  I think it follows that P is a special case of P*.  I don't find the authors stating this but it seems to be a clear implication of what they do say.  According to the truthmaker theory of predication, the truth of every true affirmative monadic predication, whether essential or accidental, is explained by a truthmaker, an entity which can belong to any ontological category.  The Platonistic theory is the special case in which the truthmaker either is or involves an exemplifiable.  (A special case of this is the case in which the truthmaker is a concrete state of affairs.)  The truthmaker theory is more general because it allows for truthmakers that neither are nor involve exemplifiables.

Application to Divine Simplicity

One of the entailments of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is that there is no distinction between God and his attributes.  Thus God is (identical to) his goodness, his power, etc.  We have discussed the motivation for this doctrine in earlier posts.  But how could an individual be identical to its attributes or properties? If God is identical to one of his properties, such as the property of being divine, then it follows that he is a property or exemplifiable — which is absurd.  It is absurd because God is a person and persons are not exemplifiable entities.  But if the truthmaker theory of predication is correct, then there is a way to make coherent sense of the notion that God is identical to his nature, goodness, power, wisdom, and other such attributes.

Consider 'God is his omnipotence.'  If the abstract singular term 'God's omnipotence' is taken to refer to a property, then we get the unacceptable consequence that God is identical to a property.  Proponents of the truthmaker theory of predication, however, can maintain that the referents of abstract singular terms are truthmakers.  Accordingly, 'God's omnipotence'  and 'God's divinity' refer respectively to the truthmakers of 'God is omnipotent' and 'God is divine' respectively.  Because both of these predications are essential, the truthmaker of both is God himself.  To say that God is identical to his omnipotence is to say that the referent of 'God' is identical to the referent of 'God's omnipotence.'  And that amounts to the unproblematic claim that God is identical to God.

A Question

The authors have shown us a way to demonstrate the coherence of 'God is identical to his divinity'  assuming we are prepared to accept P* and TM.   But I wonder whether their demonstration 'proves too much.'  Consider the parallel but presumably incoherent  'Socrates is identical to his humanity.'  We now must ask whether the strategy that works in the case of God also works in the case of Socrates.  If it does, then the radical difference between God and creature, which is part of the motivation for DDS, will not have been  properly accommodated.

The authors will grant that Socrates is truthmaker enough for (the propositions expressed by) all essential predications about him.  Thus Socrates himself makes true 'Socrates is human' by TM.  Because they hold P* they will grant that no exemplifiable need  be invoked to explain 'Socrates is human.'  We needn't say that this is true because Socrates exemplifies the property of being human; we can say that it is true because 'Socrates' and 'Socrates humanity' have the same referent, namely Socrates. But then does it not follow that Socrates is ontologically simple, at least in respect of such essential predicates as 'human,' 'rational,' and the like?  Does it not follow that Socrates is identical to his humanity, his rationality, animality, etc.?  Rhetorical questions aside, I am arguing as follows:

a. Socrates  is the truthmaker of 'Socrates is human' and like essential predications.  (From TM)

b. Socrates is the referent of both 'Socrates' and 'Socrates' humanity.' (From P*)  Therefore:

c. Socrates is identical to Socrates' humanity. (From b) 

But we surely do not want to say that Socrates is identical to his humanity, rationality, etc.  which would imply that his humanity, rationality,etc. are identical to one another.  Socrates, unlike God, is a metaphysically composite being.  So something appears to have gone wrong.  The Bergmann-Brower approach appears to 'prove too much.'  Their approach seems to imply what is false, namely, that both God and Socrates are ontologically simple  in respect of their essential attributes.

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Bill Vallicella

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9 responses to “The Truthmaker Theory of Predication and Divine Simplicity”

  1. Jeff Brower Avatar
    Jeff Brower

    Hi Bill,
    Thanks for your email and invitation to respond to this new post. Unfortunately, I’m extremely pressed for time, and so can only offer a couple of quick reactions.
    First, it’s not obvious to me that the conclusion of your argument is absurd. I don’t see why, in principle, Socrates couldn’t be ontologically simple, in which case each he *would* be the truthmaker for each of the predications you mention.
    Second, I don’t think anyone (such as yourself) who regards the conclusion of your argument as absurd should feel any pressure to accept its first premise:
    a. Socrates is the truthmaker of ‘Socrates is human’ and like essential predications. (From TM)
    You say this premise follows from TM, but it doesn’t. As you note in your post, TM is intended to provide only a *partial* analysis of truthmaking. And hence as we say in the paper, “the fact that an entity E necessitates the truth expressed by a predication P does not *guarantee* that E is P’s truthmaker” but only makes it a “a candidate—perhaps even a *prima facie* good candidate—for playing this role”. (For what it’s worth, I talk about my own preferred account of truthmaking in another paper, “Simplicity and Aseity,” where I also add some further qualifications on what’s required for entity to be a plausible truthmaker for a predication whose truth it necessitates.)
    Best,
    Jeff

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  2. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Thanks for responding, Jeff. It’s a bad time of the year, I know.
    >>First, it’s not obvious to me that the conclusion of your argument is absurd. I don’t see why, in principle, Socrates couldn’t be ontologically simple, in which case each he *would* be the truthmaker for each of the predications you mention.<< Well, on your approach, he is the truthmaker of each essential predication about him. The point, however, is that on your approach, he, like God, is ontologically simple at least in respect of his essential properties. And that I take to be a serious problem with your and Bergmann's view. If a defense of the divine simplicity issues in the conclusion that God and creatures are all of them simple, then that shows that there is something wrong with the defense. A successful defense must show how claims like 'God is his omniscience' are coherent but without letting in such claims as 'Socates is his humanity.'

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  3. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    As for your second point, you’re right, (a) does not follow from TM. Nevertheless, you accept (a). I don’t but you do. What I am doing in the post is putting myself on your ground and teasing out a consequence that is unacceptable, namely, (c). I thought you would resist the inference to (c), but is seems you acquiesce in it.

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  4. Jeff Brower Avatar
    Jeff Brower

    Hi Bill,
    I’m just now getting a chance to return to this. I don’t understand why you say that I accept (a). I don’t accept it. Nor do Bergmann and I commit ourselves to accepting it in the article you’re referring to. On the contrary, we’re careful to commit ourselves only to the weaker principle that I mentioned in my first comment above: if an entity E necessitates the truth of a predication P, then E is a candidate—perhaps even a *prime facie* good candidate—for being P’s truthmaker. But, of course, that principle is consistent with Socrates’s necessitating the truth of ‘Socrates is human’ and not being its truthmaker.
    Jeff

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  5. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Hi Jeff,
    Thanks for your response.
    But then, by parity or reasoning, God could necessitate the truth of ‘God is divine’ without being its truthmaker. But only if such sentences as ‘God is divine’ have God himself as their truthmaker will your truthmaker defense of divine simplicity work.

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  6. Jeff Brower Avatar
    Jeff Brower

    I appreciate your first sentence, accept your second, but reject your third. Our truthmaker defense is not a defense of the *truth* of divine simplicity (as you seem to be assuming), but only a defense of its *coherence* in the face of the dominant contemporary objection (as we make explicit in n. 8). But for the latter sort of defense to work, we don’t need anything more than the weaker principle to which we commit ourselves.

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  7. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Jeff,
    I appreciate that your aim is limited in two ways: it is a defense of coherence not truth, and indeed a defense of coherence against one particular objection. You say you need only the following weaker principle for your limited purposes: >> if an entity E necessitates the truth of a predication P, then E is a candidate—perhaps even a *prime facie* good candidate—for being P’s truthmaker.<< So in the case of 'Socrates is human' you are not committed to saying that Socrates is the truthmaker, and in the case of 'God is divine' you are not committed to saying that God is the truthmaker. I suppose you will also tell me that you are not even committed to saying that the category of entity that serves as truthmaker for essential predications in the creaturely cases is the same category of entity that serves as truthmaker in the divine case. You will presumably tell me that in the case of Socrates the truthmaker could be a concrete state of affairs whereas in the divine case the truthmaker is an individual. But then I object that the coherence of your theory is affected by its being unacceptably ad hoc. Either individuals in both cases or non-individuals in both cases. After all, we are dealing with essential predications in both cases. So I don't think you can evade my criticism by saying that your defense is a defense of coherence only. For if your theory is ad hoc then that affects its coherence.

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  8. Jeff Brower Avatar
    Jeff Brower

    Hi Bill,
    Sorry for the delay in my response. I’m moving to Europe tomorrow (for the summer), and so things are pretty hectic. For the same reason, this will have to be my last post for a while, but I did want to clarify a few things before I have to drop it.
    In your last comment, you suggest that I’ve been trying (but failing) to “evade” your criticism. That seems unfair for a couple of reasons. First, because it suggests that there is a single criticism that you’ve been pressing the whole time; second, because it suggests that I’m concerned to avoid the main conclusion you’ve been trying to saddle me with throughout. But neither of these things is true. As I see it, our discussion has gone through the following three stages, each with a point-counterpoint structure:
    Stage 1: You presented an argument designed to reduce the Bergman-Brower position to absurdity. In response, I made the following points. First, I noted that I don’t myself regard the conclusion of your argument as absurd (which is to say that I don’t feel any need to “evade” it). Second, I pointed out that you’ve given us no reason to accept the first premise of your argument (contrary to what you said, it does *not* follow from TM). Finally, I cited evidence from our paper to show that Bergmann and I are careful not to commit ourselves to your first premise.
    Stage 2: You re-asserted that the conclusion of your argument is absurd. You also admitted that your first premise doesn’t follow from TM, but you nonetheless insisted (to my surprise) that I accept it! In response, I assured you that I don’t accept it and again reminded you of the evidence I had cited from the paper in Stage 1.
    Stage 3: You claimed that even if I don’t accept the first premise of your argument, I should have, since it’s required for the success of the Bergmann-Brower defense of divine simplicity. In response, I pointed out that this claim of yours seems rest on a misunderstanding of the nature of our defense.
    This bring us to your final comment, which as far as I can tell is designed to present me with a dilemma: Either the category of entity that serves as truthmaker for essential predications in the creaturely cases is the same category of entity that serves as truthmaker in the divine case, or not. If so, then I’m stuck with the conclusion of your original argument; if not, then the Brower-Bergmann defense of simplicity is ad hoc. But either way, trouble!
    In response, I have to say I don’t feel the bite of either of these horns. As for the first horn, I’ve already said that I don’t regard the conclusion of your original argument as absurd, so don’t have any problem accepting the consequence you say follows from grasping this horn. As for the second horn, I deny it has the consequence you say it has, and so don’t have any problem with grasping this horn either. The whole point of truthmaker theory is to allow the ontological category of truthmakers to be decided by metaphysical considerations. And presumably, if there are both simple and complex objects in our ontology, the former will be truthmakers for some essential predications, whereas the latter will be the truthmakers for others.

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  9. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    I think we have clarified our difference. I say the following is a dilemma: Either both God and Socrates are ontologically simple in respect of their intrinsic essential attributes or essential predications can have truthmakers that belong to different ontological categories. You seem to think it is not.
    Thanks for your comments, and enjoy your European sojourn.

    Reply

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