Category: Truth

Feser on Vallicella on Feser on the Truth-Maker Objection to Presentism

I argued in my first critical installment that Edward Feser in his stimulating new book, Aristotle's Revenge, does not appreciate the force of the truth-maker objection to presentism in the philosophy of time. Ed's response to me is here. I thank Ed for his response. Herewith, my counter-response.

So, as I say, I don’t think the “truthmaker objection” is very impressive or interesting.  Bill disagrees.  He asks us to consider the following propositions:

(1) There are contingent past-tensed truths.

(2) Past-tensed truths are true at present.

(3) Truth-Maker Principle: contingent truths need truth-makers.

(4) Presentism: Only (temporally) present items exist.

The problem, Bill says, is that “the limbs of this aporetic tetrad, although individually plausible, appear to be collectively inconsistent.”

But I would deny that there is any inconsistency.  There is a presently existing fact that serves as the truthmaker for past-tensed truths such as the truth that Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March – namely, the fact that Caesar really was assassinated on the Ides of March.  To be sure, Caesar no longer exists and his assassination is no longer taking place.  But the fact that he was assassinated on the Ides of March still exists.  

I take it that Ed accepts all four of the above propositions as stated. So far, agreement. We also agree that 'Julius Caesar was assassinated' is past-tensed, true, presently true, contingently true, needs a truth-maker, and has a truth-maker. But whereas I take the fearsome foursome to be collectively logically inconsistent, in that any three of the propositions, taken together, entails the negation of the remaining proposition,  Ed finds no logical inconsistency whatsoever. Hence he finds the truth-maker objection to presentism to be neither impressive nor interesting.

The nub of the disagreement is precisely this: Ed thinks that the fact that Caesar was assassinated suffices as truth-maker for 'Caesar was assassinated' even if presentism is true. That is precisely what I deny. If by 'fact that,' Ed means 'true proposition that,' then I say that Ed is confusing a truth-bearer with a truth-maker.  But I hesitate to tax him with such an elementary blunder. So I will take him to be saying that the truth-maker of 'Caesar was assassinated' is the fact of Caesar's having been assassinated.  This is a concrete state of affairs, the subject constituent of which is Caesar himself. This state of affairs cannot exist unless Caesar himself exists.  Now Feser grants the obvious point that Caesar no longer exists.  That is is a datum that no reasonable person can deny. It follows that the truth-making state of affairs no longer exists either. 

On presentism, however, what no longer exists does not exist at all.  Presentism is not the tautological thesis that only the present exists at present.  Everybody agrees about that. So-called 'eternalists' in the philosophy of time will cheerfully admit that only present items exist at present. But they will go on to say that wholly past and wholly future items exist as well, and just as robustly as present items. It is just that they exist elsewhen, analogously as Los Angeles, although elsewhere relative to Phoenix, exists just as robustly (or as anemically) as Phoenix.

It is important to be clear about this. Presentism is a hard-core, substantive,  metaphysical thesis, in the same metaphysical boat with the various anti-presentisms, e.g, the misnamed 'eternalism.'   Presentism is not logically true or trivially true; it is not common sense, nor is it 'fallout' from ordinary language.  Speaking with the vulgar I say things like, 'The Berlin Wall no longer exists.' I am using ordinary English to record a well-known historical fact. Saying this, however, I do not thereby commit myself to the controversial metaphysical claim that wholly past items are nothing at all and that present items alone exist, are real, or have being. The Berlin sentence and its innumerable colleagues are neutral with respect to the issues that divide presentists and eternalists.

Presentism is the controversial metaphysical claim that only the (temporally) present exists, period. Or at least that is the gist of it, pending various definitional refinements. On presentism, then, Caesar does not exist at all. If so, there is nothing to ground the truth that Caesar was assassinated. We don't even need to bring in truth-making facts or states of affairs.  It suffices to observe that, on presentism, wholly past individuals such as Caesar do not exist.  One should now be able to see that the grounding problem represented by (1)-(4) is up and running.  

It is a datum that 'Caesar was assassinated' (or the proposition expressed by an assertive utterance of the sentence) is a contingent, past-tensed truth. It is also a datum that this truth is true now.  Now my datum might be your theory. But since Feser will grant both of these datanic points, I need say nothing more here in their defense. Given the datanic points, and given that the problem is soluble, one must either accept the truth-maker principle and reject presentism, or accept presentism and reject the truth-maker principle. And this is what most philosophers of time do. Trenton Merricks, for example, does the latter. (Truth and Ontology, Oxford, 2007)  Back to Feser:

To get an inconsistency, Bill would have to add to the list some further claim like:

(5) Only facts about what does exist (as opposed to facts about what used to exist) can serve as truthmakers.

But that would simply beg the question against the presentist.  And of course the presentist would say: “There will be no inconsistency if you get rid of (5).  ‘Problem’ solved!”

Not at all. There is no need to add a proposition to the tetrad to generate inconsistency. It is of course understood by almost all truth-maker theorists that only existing truth-makers can do the truth-making job.  There are few if any Meinongian truth-maker theorists.  Few if any will maintain, for example, that 'There are golden mountains' is made true by Meinong's nonexistent golden mountain. That being well-understood, it must also be understood that truth-maker theorists do not hold that only presently existing items can serve as truth-makers.  They don't build presentism into truth-maker theory. What they hold is that some, if not all, truths need (existing) truth makers.  Truth-maker theory is neutral on the question that divides presentists from eternalists. Now the past-tensed  'Caesar existed' is true.  It cannot just be true: there must be something 'in the world,' something external to the sentential representation, that grounds its truth. But what might that be on presentism?  If only present items exist, then Caesar does not exist. And if Caesar does not exist, then there is nothing that could serve as the truth-maker of 'Caesar existed.'

One ought to conclude that the quartet of propositions supra is collectively inconsistent. If the tetrad is not a full-on aporia, an insolubilium, then either one must reject presentism or one must reject the truth-maker principle.

The Temporal Neutrality of Truth-Maker Theory and Whether I Beg the Question

I do not assume that only presently existing items can serve as truth-makers.  What I assume is that only existing items can serve as truth-makers.  To appreciate this, consider timeless entities.  God, classically conceived, is an example: he is not omnitemporal, but eternal. He doesn't exist in time at every time, but 'outside of' time.  Now consider the proposition that God, so conceived, exists.  What makes it true, if true? Well, God. It follows that a truth-maker needn't be temporally present, or in time at all, to do its job.  Or consider so-called 'abstract' objects such as the number 7. It is true that 7 exists.  What makes this truth true? The number 7! So again a truth-maker needn't be temporally present, or in time at all, to serve as a truth-maker. But it must exist. 

Truth-maker theory, as such, takes no stand on either of the following two questions: Does everything that exists exist in time? Does everything that exists in time exist at the present time?

I therefore plead innocent to Ed's charge that I beg the question. Consider 'Caesar existed.' I don't assume that this past-tensed truth needs a presently existing truth-maker to be true.  I assume merely that it needs an existing truth-maker to be true. It is not that I beg the question; it is rather that Feser fails to appreciate the consequences of his own theory. He fails to appreciate that, on presentism, what no longer exists, does not exist at all.  It is because Caesar does not exist at all that I say that 'Caesar existed' lacks a truth-maker on presentism. It is not because he doesn't exist at present. Of course he doesn't exist at present!

Feser's Dilemma

It seems to me that Ed is uncomfortably perched on the horns of a dilemma. Either the truth-maker of a past-tensed truth is fact that or it is a fact of.  But it cannot be a fact that, for such an item is just a true proposition, and no proposition can be its own truth-maker. For example, the fact that (the true proposition that) Caesar was assassinated cannot be what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated. On the other horn, the truth-maker of 'Caesar was assassinated' can be a fact of, i.e., a concrete state of affairs, but on presentism this fact does not exist. For on presentism, Caesar, who does not now exist, does not exist at all. Hence the fact of does not exist  either, for its existence depends on the existence of its constituents, one of which is the roman emperor in question.

I suggests that Ed does not see the dilemma because he equivocates on 'fact.'  That should be clear from his talk, above, of "facts about."  He wants to say that "facts about" are truth-makers. but no truth-making fact is about it constituents. A "fact about" can only be a proposition.  It is a fact about Caesar and Brutus that the latter stabbed the former (Et tu, Brute?), But that "fact about" is just a true proposition that needs a truth-maker. The gen-u-ine truth-maker, however, is not about anything.  For example, the truth-maker of 'I am seated' is a concrete fact-of that has as one of its constituents the 200 lb sweating animal who wears my clothes. This truth-making fact is not about me; it contains me.

Michael Dummett sees the problem with presentism very clearly:

. . . the thesis that only the present is real denies any truth-value to statements about the past or the future; for, if it were correct, there would be nothing in virtue of which a statement of either type could be true or false, whereas a proposition can be true only if there is something in virtue of which it is true. We must attribute some form of reality either to the past, or to the future, or both.  (Truth and the Past, Columbia UP, 2004, p. 74.)

Feser again:

The point I was trying to make, in any event, is that past objects and events were real (unlike fictional objects and events, which never were).  That fact is what serves as the truthmaker for statements about past objects and events.  Statements about present objects and events have as their truthmakers a different sort of fact, viz. facts about objects and events that are real.  

Ed and I will agree that Caesar's assassination is an actual past event: it is not something that merely could have happened way back when but didn't, nor is it a fictional event of the sort that one finds in historical novels. Ed is committed to saying that this event was real.  But if so, then it is true now that Caesar was assassinated. What makes it true?  Feser's answer is that the fact that Caesar was assassinated is what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated.  But this is not a satisfactory answer since it merely repeats the datum. It is given that Caesar was assassinated. The problem is to explain what makes this true given the truth of presentism.

It is obvious that the true proposition that Caesar was assassinated cannot be what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated. That would be to confuse a truth-maker with a truth-bearer. The truth-maker cannot be an item in the 'representational order'; it must be something in the 'real order' of concrete spatiotemporal particulars.  The truth-maker must be either Caesar himself, battle scars and all, or a concrete state of affairs that has him as a constituent. But if presentism is true, then there is no such man. And if Caesar does not exist, then no concrete state of affairs involving him exists.  But now I am starting to repeat myself.

Bill also writes:

I conclude that Feser hasn't appreciated the depth of the grounding problem. 'Caesar was assassinated' needs an existing truth-maker. But on presentism, neither Caesar nor his being assassinated exists. It is not just that these two items don't exist now; on presentism, they don't exist at all. What then makes the past-tensed sentence true?  This is the question that Feser hasn't satisfactorily answered.

End quote.  In fact I have answered it.  Yes, “Caesar was assassinated” needs an existing truthmaker.  And that truthmaker is not Caesar or his assassination (neither of which exist anymore) but the fact that he was assassinated (which does still exist – after all, it is as much a fact now as it was yesterday, and will remain a fact tomorrow).  To this Bill objects that “obviously this won't do [because] the past-tensed truth cannot serve as [its] own truth-maker.”  But again, this conflates facts with propositions, and these should not be conflated. 

Ed's response is a very strange one. I am suggesting that Ed might be conflating truth-makers with truth-bearers, truth-making facts with propositions.  He says he is not. Fine. But since I explicitly made the distinction, he cannot reasonably accuse me of conflating truth-making facts with propositions.  In any case, it definitely seems to me that Ed is succumbing to the conflation in question, as I have explained above.

Are My Objections Sound Only if I Have a Correct Alternative Theory?

This is a fascinating metaphilosophical question. Ed again:

One further point.  Even if the defender of the “truthmaker objection” could get around the criticisms I have been raising, the objection nevertheless will succeed only if some alternative to presentism is correct.  And as I argue in Aristotle’s Revenge, none of the alternatives is correct.  So it will not suffice for the critic merely to try to raise problems for the presentist’s understanding of truth-making.  He will also have to defend some non-presentist understanding of truth-making, which will require responding to the objections I’ve raised against the rivals to presentism.

In particular, the critic presupposes that we have a clear idea of what it would be for past objects and events and future objects and events to be no less real than the present is, and thus a clear idea of what it would be for such things to be truthmakers.  But I claim that that is an illusion.  The eternalist view is in fact not well-defined.  It is a tissue of confusions that presupposes errors such as a tendency to characterize time in terms that intelligibly apply only to space, and to mistake mathematical abstractions for concrete realities.  Indeed, on the Aristotelian view of time that I defend in the book, the approaches to the subject commonly taken by various contemporary writers are in several respects wrongheaded.  Again, what I say about the truthmaker objection must be read in light of the larger discussion of time in Aristotle’s Revenge.

I deny what Feser asserts in the second sentence of the quotation immediately above. The assertion seems to trade on a confusion of possible theories and extant theories. Even if there is no tenable extant competitor to Feser's version of presentism — which is of course only one of several different versions — it does not follow that there is no possible tenable competitor theory.  That is one concern. Another is more radical. 

It may be that all of the extant theories in the philosophy of time are untenable and open to powerful objections. In particular, I am not an 'eternalist' and I am very sensitive to the problems it faces. To mention one, it seems that eternalism needs an understanding of tenseless existence and tenseless property-possession that I suspect is unintelligible. Could all the extant theories be false? Why not? They might all, on deep analysis, turn out be logical contraries of each other.

An even more radical thought: It may be that all possible theories (all theories that it is possible for us to formulate)  in the philosophy of time are untenable and rationally insupportable in  the end  in such a way as definitively to give the palm to one of theories over all the others.

But even apart from the two radical proposals just bruited, it is not entirely clear why, if the objections I have raised are sound, I would have to consider Feser's (putative) refutations of the other theories.  If my objections are in fact sound, then I can stop right there.  In any case, I did in installment three of my ongoing critique consider Feser's notion that the truth-makers of past-tensed truths all exist at present.  By the way, it is not clear to me how this notion (causal trace theory) is supposed to cohere with what Feser says elsewhere in his section on time. How does it cohere with what we discussed above?  It is one thing to say that the truth-maker of 'Caesar was assassinated' is the fact that C. was assassinated, and quite another to say that the truth-maker exists in the present in the form of present effects of C.'s past existence.  

Time to punch the clock!

Is the Past Wholly Determinate? Edward Feser’s Presentism, Part III

This is the third in a series. Part I here; Part II here.

On the principle of bivalence, every proposition is either true, or if not true, then false. Given that bivalence holds for what presently exists, it is difficult to see how it could fail to hold for what did exist. Why should the present, which is wholly determinate, become less than wholly determinate when it becomes past? However things stand with the future, one reasonably views the past as a realm of reality and thus as wholly determinate. Our knowledge of the past is spotty, but not the past itself. It WAS, and I would add: it ACTUALLY was.  When a thing passes away it does not pass from actuality to mere possibility; it remains actual, though no longer temporally present. Or so it would seem if we are realists about the past. The historian studies past actualities, not past possibilities. Compare Kierkegaard's engagement to Regine Olsen to his marriage to her.  There is a sense in which both events belong to the past. The crucial difference is that the first event actually occurred while the second was a mere possibility.  This is a difference that an adequate philosophy of time must be able to accommodate.  

One point to keep in mind is that if  the past is wholly determinate, as determinate as the present, this is the case whether or not determinism is true. The determinate is not to be confused with the determined. Consider the proposition that my grandfather Alfonso drank a glass of 'dago red' on New Year's Day, 1940. Bivalence ensures that the proposition is either true or false but not both. If the proposition is true and the event occurred, it doesn't matter whether the event was caused by prior events under the aegis of the laws of nature, or not. To say that the past is determinate is not to say that past events are determined; it is to say that, e.g., the past individual Alfonso V. cannot be such that he neither drank nor did not drink red wine on the date in question. It had to be one or the other if bivalence holds for the past.

Of course, no one now remembers whether or not this event occurred, and there is no written record or other evidence of the event's having occurred. If the event occurred, nothing in the present points back to it as to its cause.  Some past events, states, individuals, and property-instantiations leave causal traces in the present, but not all do.  My grandfather's gravestone and the dessicated bones lying beneath it are causal traces in the present of  a long-dead and wholly past individual. But there is nothing in the present that bears upon the truth of the proposition that Alfonso drank a glass of  red wine on New Year's Day, 1940,  assuming it is true. If true, it is true now but lacks a present truth-maker. 

Now if one were to hold both that there are truth-makers for all past-tensed truths, and that presentism is true, then one would have to hold that the past is not wholly determinate. For if presentism is true, all existing truth-makers must exist at present. (I assume, and I think Feser does as well, that there are no nonexistent or 'Meinongian' truth-makers.) But then there wouldn't be enough truth-makers for all the past-tensed truths. The following quartet of propositions is collectively inconsistent:

a) The past is wholly determinate: bivalence holds for every proposition about the past.
b) Presentism is true: only present items exist.
c) Contingent truths have (existing) truth-makers.
d) Not every contingent truth about the past has a presently existing truth-maker.

The members of the quartet are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent.  The first three propositions, taken together, entail that every contingent truth about the past has a presently existing truth-maker.  But this contradicts the fourth member, (d).  (d) is well-nigh self-evident as I have already established with the example of Alfonso and his wine. There is nothing that exists in the present that could make true the proposition in question, if it is true.  With how many men did Caesar cross the Rubicon? Were any of them barefoot? And when he met his end on the Ides of March, what was the exact size and shape and length and composition of the blade that entered his body?

So how do we solve this bad boy?  I suspect that it is insoluble, but to argue this out goes well beyond the scope of a mere blog post.  Some will solve it by abandoning  presentism.  This is precisely what Ed Feser will not do. But before discussing his suggestion, let me say just a little in support of (a).

Bivalence, as a principle of logic, strikes me as pretty solid.  But now consider: could the applicability of a principle of logic depend on when it is applied?  Could the passage of time restrict its application? Take identity: for any x, x = x.  Everything is self-identical. If this is true for temporally present values of 'x,' I should think it would be true also for past values of 'x.'  I am self-identical, but so is Alfonso, who is wholly past. When he ceased to exist, he didn't cease to be self-identical. When I refer to him now, I refer to the same man I referred to when I referred to him when he was alive. And when I cease to exist,  I won't cease to be self-identical.  I won't become self-diverse, or neither self-identical nor self-diverse.  The mere passage of time cannot bring it about that a principle of logic that applies to a thing in the present ceases to apply to that thing when it become past.

Likewise, when I cease to exist, I won't go from being a completely determinate individual to an incomplete object.  

Define a completely determinate, or complete, individual x as one  such that, for any pair of predicates, one the complement of the other, one member of the pair must be true of x, but not both, and not neither.  For example, 'non-smoker' is the complement of the predicate 'smoker.' If neither of these predicates is true of Peter, then Peter is an incomplete object.  Since Peter exists at present, he is one or the other. As it happens, he is a smoker.  When he dies, it will become true that he was a smoker, not that he was neither a smoker nor a non-smoker.

A Question for Feser

Feser is clearly a presentist: ". . . what actually exists in the strict sense is what exists now." (Aristotle's Revenge, 239) What then of the past and the future? It is trivially true, and mere fallout from ordinary language, that the (wholly) past is no longer. But it does not follow that the past is nothing or does not exist at all or has no reality. Feser appreciates the reality of the past. The question is whether he can adequately account for it.

The past and future exist now only in the loose sense that they are, as it were, causally contained in what exists now . . . . Future entities, states, and events are contained within the present as potentials which might be actualized. Past entities, states, and events are contained within the present insofar as their effects on the present remain. The present points forward to a range of things which might yet be caused to exist. The present also points backward toward formerly existing things qua causes proportionate to the effects that now exist. But again, what actually exists in the strict sense is what exists now. (Aristotle's Revenge, 239, italics in original.)

We are being told that wholly past items exist in that their effects in the present exist.  Here is an example, mine, not Feser's. Tom stood outside of Sally's window a few days ago.  That event on presentism does not exist. It is not just that it does not exist now — which is trivially true — it does not exist period. For on presentism, only what exists now exists period or simpliciter.  And yet  Tom's standing outside of Sally's window is not nothing: it actually occurred. The evidence that it occurred are Tom's distinctive footprints. On the causal trace theory, a version of which Feser is promoting, the reality of the past event is adequately accounted for by the footprints Tom left.  The theory is ontological, not epistemological. The footprints are not merely evidence of what occurred in the recent past; the footprints are the reality of what occurred in the recent past.

Now one objection to this scheme is that there are not enough present items to represent all past items.  There are not enough truth-makers in the present for all past-tensed truths. Big Al drank a glass of dago red on New Year's Day, 1940.  That event left no trace in the present. And yet it occurred. 

So if the past is wholly determinate and if past-tensed truths need truth-makers, then presentism is in trouble.  There are other objections to the causal trace theory.  I may consider them later.

Truth-Bearers and Truth-Makers: Disjoint Classes?

Wesley C. writes,
 
Today I read your critique of Feser on presentism. I am curious about something you said: A truth-bearer cannot serve as a truth-maker.
 
If that's right, how would you handle obvious truths that are about propositions. Take the following: "The proposition that Humphreys Peak is the tallest in Arizona is true and believed by many." 
 
That sentence would seem to express a proposition which has another proposition (the one about Humphreys Peak) as its truth-maker; it is about that proposition; that proposition, and nothing else, makes it true. But of course all propositions are truth-bearers. So it would seem that we have a case of some thing which bears truth and makes truth. How would you understand that sentence in a way that is consistent with the claim that a truth-bearer cannot serve a truth-maker? 
 
As always, I enjoy your philosophical contributions. 
I didn't go into this because it would have expanded and complicated an already long and difficult entry. But the point is well-taken: it seems that some truth-bearers are truth-makers.  Let us assume that truth-bearers are abstract items, propositions in roughly Frege's sense.

In the typical case of truth-making, it is correct to say that if x makes-true y, then x is not a proposition, only y is. But if propositions exist, then doesn't the existence of any proposition make-true various propositions? The proposition expressed by 'The Earth has only one moon' exists. By its very existence it makes-true the proposition that there are propositions. So it seems that a proposition can serve as a truth-maker and that not every truth-maker is a non-proposition. One response is that it is not the Earth proposition qua true that makes-true the proposition that there are propositions, but the Earth proposition qua existent. But this response does not seem quite adequate.  Perhaps the following works.

The intuition behind the truth-maker principle (TM) is that truth-makers are 'in the world' where the world is the totality of concrete extra-linguistic and extra-mental particulars (unrepeatables) including e.g. Socrates, and the concrete fact of Socrates' being wise.  Representations are not part of the world in this sense. Representations are either mental or abstract. Mental representations are mind-dependent in the sense that they cannot exist except in or for minds as their contents or accusatives. Abstract representations are not dependent for their existence on finite minds, but they are accessible or graspable or understandable by such minds. Abstract propositions are representations in this sense. Thus the (abstract, Fregean) proposition expressed by 'Snow is white' represents snow as having a certain color. Abstract propositions are therefore not 'in the world' in the sense just defined. But truth-makers are. Therefore, abstract propositions are not truth-makers. And so truth-bearers and truth-makers form disjoint classes. But if course a lot depends on what we pack into the notion of a truth-maker.

The basic idea behind TM is that for every truth, or at least for every contingent truth, there must be at least one (though there could be more than one) item distinct from the truth that 'makes' it true, an item that is not itself a truth and is not some finite person's say-so. As Michael Dummett puts it in his 1959 article “Truth,” “. . . a statement is true only if there is something in the world in virtue of which it is true.” (Dummett 1980, 14) He tells us that this is “one important feature of the concept of truth.” (ibid.) TM implies a commitment to realism, as correspondence theories of truth do, but without sharing the specific commitments of the latter, where “Realism consists in the belief that for any statement there must be something in virtue of which either it or its negation is true . . . .” (ibid.) This something must be 'in the world,' which for present purposes means that it must be extra-mental, extra-linguistic, and extra-propositional, if propositions are abstract objects.

 

A Reader Proposes a Puzzle

This from Cyrus:

Suppose there is a possible world in which only God exists. Further suppose that that world is actual instead of this one. Further suppose divine simplicity. What is the truthmaker for the proposition “God exists, and nothing more” in that world?

If God alone exists, and God is simple, then there are no propositions in that world, and hence no true propositions, and therefore no need for truth-makers.  Too quick?

A Critique of Edward Feser’s Defense of Presentism, Part I

Ed Feser very kindly sent me a copy of his latest book, Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science (Editiones Scholasticae, 2019).  As I noted in my journal: 

Synchronicity. Feser's latest book, with its section on time and its defense of presentism, has arrived at just the right time — as I am immersed in my chapter on time for my metaphilosophy book. A mere coincidence, no doubt!?

Herewith, some critical commentary by way of a 'thank you' to Ed for his ongoing generosity.

Feser AristotleAccording to Feser, "The classical form taken by the A-theory [of time] is presentism, according to which only the present is real, with past events no longer existing and future events not yet existing (237-238) Let's focus on the past and not worry about the future. With respect to the past, the presentist idea is not adequately captured by saying that wholly past items no longer exist, since all who understand English will agree to that.  The presentist idea is that wholly past items do not exist at all. John F. Kennedy's assassination, for example, is a wholly past event.  (A wholly past event is one that doesn't overlap the present.)  Standard presentism implies that this event does not exist at all. It is not just that it does not exist at present — which is trivially true — but that it does not exist, period. As Feser himself says, on presentism, "there are no past events," (300) and "past things and events do not exist."(301)  These latter are accurate formulations.  But note carefully that the second formulation is accurate only if 'exists' is not read as present-tensed, in which case the formulation is tautological, but as 'exists simpliciter,' in which case it is not.  What exactly it means to 'exist at all' or to 'exist 'simpliciter' is part of the problem of formulating a coherent version of presentism that can withstand close scrutiny. For present purposes we will assume that we understand well enough what these phrases mean.

But then a certain 'grounding problem' or 'truth-maker problem' arises that very much impresses me, but leaves Feser unfazed: "it seems to me unimpressive." (300)  Here is my formulation of the grounding problem, so-called because it is the problem of providing ontological grounds for grammatically past-tensed truths.  Truth-makers, if there are any, are ontological grounds of true truth-bearers, whether declarative sentences, statements, propositions, whatever you deem to be the primary truth-bearers or vehicles of the truth-values.

1) There are contingent past-tensed truths.

2) Past-tensed truths are true at present.

3) Truth-Maker Principle: contingent truths need truth-makers.

4) Presentism: Only (temporally) present items exist.

The limbs of this aporetic tetrad, although individually plausible, appear to be collectively inconsistent. 'Kennedy was assassinated' is contingent, past-tensed, true, and known to be true. So (1) is true.  The sentence is also true at present.   It IS the case that JFK WAS assassinated.  So (2) is true.   

(3) is an exceedingly plausible principle, especially if restricted to contingently true affirmative singular propositions. Consider ' I am seated' assertively uttered by BV now as he sits in front of his computer. The sentence is (or expresses) a contingent truth.  Now would it be at all plausible to say that this sentence is just true?  Define a brute truth as a contingent truth that is just true, i.e., true, but not in virtue of anything external to the truth. The question is then: Is it plausible that 'I am seated' or the proposition it expresses be a brute truth?

I say that that is implausible in the extreme. There has to be something external  to the truth-bearer that plays a role in its being true and this something cannot be anyone's say-so. At a bare minimum, the subject term 'I' must refer to something extra-linguistic, and we know what that has to be: the 200 lb animal that wears my clothes.  So at a bare minimum, the sentence, to be true, must be about something, something that exists, and indeed exists extra-mentally and extra-linguistically.

Without bringing in truth-making facts or states of affairs, I have said enough to refute the notion that 'I am seated' could be a brute truth.  So far so good.

Now if 'I am seated' needs a truth-maker (in a very broad sense of the term), then presumably 'Kennedy was assassinated' does as well.  It can no more be  a brute truth than 'I am seated' could be a brute truth. 

Now Feser does not oppose truth-makers tout court.  He appears to be proposing a revision of  the truth-maker principle as formulated in (3). Could the truth-makers for past-tensed truths be different in kind from those for present-tensed truths? This is what Feser appears to be proposing: “. . . the truthmaker for the statement that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March is simply the fact that Julius Caesar actually was assassinated on the Ides of March, and nothing more need be said.” (Feser 2019, 301)  A little farther down, he writes, 

The whole point of presentism, after all, is that the past and future don't have the same kind of reality that the present does. Hence it shouldn't be surprising if the truthmakers for statements about the past and future are unlike the truthmakers for statements about the present. (301)

Feser seems to be proposing the following. In the case of the present-tensed 'BV exists,' the truth-maker is BV. But when BV is no more and it is true that BV existed, the truth-maker of the past-tensed truth will be the fact that BV existed and will not involve BV himself.

As it seems to me, this proposal betrays a failure to appreciate the difference between a fact construed as a true proposition, and a truth-maker, which cannot be a (Fregean or abstract) proposition. A truth-bearer cannot serve as a truth-maker. On one common use of 'fact,' a fact is just a true (abstract) proposition. We may refer to such facts as facts that. A fact that cannot serve as a truth-maker. Facts that need truth-makers. 'It is a fact that Venus is a planet' says no more and no less than 'It is true that Venus is a planet.' The factuality of a fact that is just its being true; if an item is true, however, it must be a truth-bearer and cannot be a truth-maker.

Now just as we can sensibly ask what makes it true that Venus is a planet, we can sensibly ask what makes it a fact that Venus is a planet. The answer must make reference to Venus itself which is neither a proposition nor a fact that, but a massive chunk of the physical world. What we need as a truth-maker is a fact of. What we need is the concrete state of affairs or fact of Venus' being a planet, a state if affairs which has as a constituent Venus itself. Therefore, nothing is accomplished by saying that what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated is the fact that Caesar was assassinated. That amounts to saying that what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated is the truth that he was assassinated. Obviously, no truth-maker has been specified. A truth-bearer cannot serve as a truth-maker.

Here is a second problem. Read again the second quotation:

The whole point of presentism, after all, is that the past and future don't have the same kind of reality that the present does. Hence it shouldn't be surprising if the truthmakers for statements about the past and future are unlike the truthmakers for statements about the present. (301)

The second problem is that on standard presentism, there is no distinction between kinds of reality. The claim is not that the wholly past and the wholly future have a different kind of reality or existence than the present, but that the past and future are not real or existent at all. On presentism, what no longer exists, does not exist at all. It passes out existence entirely; it does not retain a lesser kind of existence or exist in a looser sense of 'exist.'  As Feser himself says, “But the presentist holds that past things and events do not exist.” (301) 

I conclude that Feser hasn't appreciated the depth of the grounding problem. 'Caesar was assassinated' needs an existing truth-maker. But on presentism, neither Caesar nor his being assassinated exists. It is not just that these two items don't exist now; on presentism, they don't exist at all. What then makes the past-tensed sentence true?  This is the question that Feser hasn't satisfactorily answered. He wants to hold both to presentism and the truth-maker principle, but he hasn't shown how this is possible. Feser tells us that what makes it true that Caesar was assassinated is the fact that Caesar was assassinated, and that nothing more  need be said.  But obviously this won't do. The past-tensed truth cannot serve as it own truth-maker.  

Truth and Falsity from a Deflationary Point of View

The following equivalence is taken by many to support the deflationary thesis that truth has no substantive nature, a nature that could justify a substantive theory along correspondentist, or coherentist, or pragmatic,  or other lines.  For example, someone who maintains that truth is rational acceptability at the ideal (Peircean) limit of inquiry is advancing a substantive theory of truth that purports to nail down the nature of truth.  Here is the equivalence:

1)  <p> is true iff p.

The angle brackets surrounding a declarative sentence make of it a name of the proposition the sentence expresses. For example, <snow is white> –  the proposition that snow is white — is true iff snow is white. (1) suggests that the predicate ' ___ is true' does not express a substantive property.  We can dispense with the predicate and say what we want without it. It suggests that there is no such legitimate metaphysical question as: What is the nature of truth?  Having gotten rid of truth, can we get rid of falsity as well?

A false proposition is one that is not true.  This suggests that 'false,' as a predicate applicable to propositions and truth-bearers generally, is definable in terms of 'true' and 'not.' Perhaps as follows:

2) <p> is false iff <p> is not true.

From (2) we may infer

2*) <p> is false iff ~(<p> is true)

and then, given (1),

2**) <p> is false iff ~p.

This suggests that if we are given the notions of 'proposition' and 'negation,' we can dispense with the supposed properties of truth and falsity. (1) shows us how to dispense with 'true' and (2**) show us how to dispense with 'false.'

But we hit a snag when we ask what 'not' means.  Now the standard way to explain the logical constants employs truth tables. Here is the truth table for the logician's 'not' which is symbolized by the tilde, '~'.

$$\vbox{\offinterlineskip \halign{& \vrule # & \strut \hfil \quad # \quad \hfil \cr \noalign{\hrule} height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr & P & & $\lnot P$ & \cr height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr \noalign{\hrule} height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr & T & & F & \cr height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr \noalign{\hrule} height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr & F & & T & \cr height2pt & \omit & & \omit & \cr \noalign{\hrule} }} $$

But now we see that our explanation is circular. We set out to explain the meaning of 'false' in terms of 'not' only to find that 'not' cannot be explained except in terms of 'false.' We have moved in a circle.

The Ostrich has a response to this:

. . . we can define negation without reaching for the notions of truth and falsity. Assume that the notion of ‘all possible situations’ is coherent, and suppose it is coherent for any proposition ‘p’ to map onto a subset of that set. Then ‘not p’ maps onto the complement. The question is whether the very idea of a complement of a subset covertly appeals to the concept of negation. But then that suggests that negation is a primitive indefinable concept, rather than what you are claiming (namely that it is truth and falsity which are primitive).

So let's assume that there is a set S of possible worlds,and that every proposition (except impossible propositions)  maps onto to an improper or a proper subset of S. The necessary propositions map onto the improper subset of S, namely S itself. Each contingent proposition p maps onto a proper subset of S, but a different proper subset for different propositions. If so, ~p maps onto the complement of the proper subset that p maps onto.  And let's assume that negation can be understood in terms of complementation.

The most obvious problem with the Ostrich response is that it relies on the notion of a proposition. But this notion cannot be understood apart from the notions of truth and falsity.  Propositions are standardly introduced as the primary vehicles of the truth-values. They alone are the items appropriately characterizable as either true or false. Therefore, to understand what a proposition is one must have an antecedent grasp of the difference between truth and falsity. 

To understand the operation of negation we have to understand that upon which negation operates, namely, propositions, and to understand propositions, we need to understand truth and falsity.

A second problem is this. Suppose contingent p maps onto proper subset T of S.  Why that mapping rather than some other? Because T is the set of situations or worlds in which p is true . . . . The circularity again rears its ugly head.

The Ostrich, being a nominalist, might try to dispense with propositions in favor of declarative sentences. But when we learned our grammar back in grammar school we learned that a declarative sentence is one that expresses a complete thought, and a complete thought is — wait for it — a proposition or what Frege calls ein Gedanke: not a thinking, but the accusative of a thinking. 

Truth and falsity resist elimination.

Excluded Middle, Presentism, Truth-Maker: An Aporetic Triad

Suppose we acquiesce in the conflation of Excluded Middle and Bivalence.  The conflation is not unreasonable.  Now try this trio on for size:

Excluded Middle: Every proposition is either true, or if not true, then false.
Presentism: Only what exists at present, exists.
Truth-Maker: Every contingent truth has a truth-maker.

The limbs of the triad are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent. Why inconsistent?

I will die. This future-tensed sentence is true now. It is true that I will die. Is there something existing at present that could serve as truth-maker? Arguably yes, my being mortal. I am now mortal, and my present mortality suffices for the truth of 'I will die.' Something similar holds for my coat. It is true now that it will cease to exist.  While it is inevitable that I will die and that my coat will cease to exist, it is not inevitable that my coat will be burnt up (wholly consumed by fire).  For there are other ways for it to cease to exist, by being cut to pieces, for example, or by just wearing out.

By 'future contingent,' I mean a presently true future-tensed contingent proposition.  The following seems to be a clear example: BV's coat will sometime in the future cease to exist by being wholly consumed in a fire. To save keystrokes: My coat will be burnt up.

By Excluded Middle, either my coat will be burnt up or my coat will not be burnt up. One of these propositions must be true, and whichever one it is, it is true now. Suppose it is true now that my  coat will be burnt up. There  is nothing existing at present that could serve as truth-maker for this contingent truth.  And given Presentism, there is nothing existing at all that could serve as truth-maker.  For on Presentism, only what exists now, exists full stop.  The first two limbs, taken in conjunction, entail the negation of the third, Truth-Maker.  The triad is therefore inconsistent.

So one of the limbs must be rejected. Which one?

An Objection

You say that nothing that now exists could serve as the truth-maker of the presently true future-tensed  contingent proposition BV's coat will be burnt up. I disagree.  If determinism is true, then the present state of the world together with the laws of nature necessitates every later state.   Assuming the truth of the proposition in question, there is a later state of the world in which your shabby coat is burnt up. The truth-maker of the future contingent proposition would then be the present state of the world plus the laws of nature.  So if determinism is true, your triad is consistent, contrary to what you maintain, and we will not be forced to give up one of the very plausible constituent propositions.

Question: Is there a plausible reply to this objection? No. I'll explain why later.

Excluded Middle, Bivalence, and Disquotation

LEM: For every  p, p v ~p.

BV: Every proposition is either true or false.

These principles are obviously not identical.  Excluded Middle is syntactic principle, a law of logic, whereas Bivalence is a semantic principle. The first says nothing about truth or falsity. The second does. (See Michael Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard UP, 2nd ed. , 1980, p. xix; Paul Horwich, Truth, Oxford UP, 2nd ed., 1998, p. 79) Though not identical they might nonetheless be logically equivalent.  Two propositions are logically equivalent iff each entails the other.  Entailment is the necessitation of material implication. Can it be shown that (LEM) and (BV)  entail each other? Let's see.

The logical equivalence of the two principles can be demonstrated if we assume the disquotational schema:

DS: p is true iff p.

For example, snow is white is true iff snow is white. Or, if you insist, 'snow is white' is true iff snow is white. In the latter forrmulation, which does not involve reference to propositions, the truth predicate  — 'is true' — is merely a device of disquotation or of semantic descent. On either formulation, 'is true' adds no sentential/propositional content:  the sentential/propositional content is the same on both sides of the biconditional.  The content of my assertion is exactly the same whether I assert that snow is white or I assert that snow is white is true.  But if (DS) is granted, then so is:

DS-F: p is false iff ~p.

For example, snow is white is false iff ~(snow is white).    

Now if the disquotational schemata exhaust what it is to be true and what it is to be false, then (LEM) and (BV) are logically equivalent.

Given (DS) and (DS-F), we can rewrite (LEM) as

LEM-T: For every p, p is true v p is false.

Now (LEM-T) is simply a restatement of (BV). The principles are therefore logically equivalent given the disquotational schemata. 

But this works only if falsehood can be adequately explained in terms of the merely logical operation of negation.  This will NOT work if negation can only be explained in terms of falsehood.  For then we would enter  an explanatory circle of embarrassingly short diameter. 

Ask yourself: when is one proposition the negation of another? The negation of p is the proposition that is true iff p is false and false iff p is true.  To explain the logico-syntactic notion of negation we have to reach for the semantic notions of truth and falsehood.  But then falsehood cannot be exhaustively understood or reduced to negation.

It is telling that to explain negation and the other logical connectives we use TRUTH tables.  Such explanation is satisfactory.  But it would not be if the redundancy or disappearance or disquotational schemata gave the whole meaning of 'true' and 'false.'  (The point is made by M. Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, p. 7)

I take this explanatory circle to show that there is more to truth and falsehood than is captured in the above disquotational schemata.

Conclusion: if one's reason for accepting the logical equivalence of (LEM) and (BV) is (DS) then that is a bad reason.

Are there counterexamples to (DS)?  It seems to fail right-to-left if 'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' is plugged in for 'p' on the RHS of (DS).  Arguably, Holmes is a detective, but it is not true that Holmes is a detective.  For it to be true that Holmes is a detective, 'Holmes' would have to refer to something that exists.  But this requirement is not satisfied in the case of purely fictional items.  I am assuming that veritas sequitur esse, that truth 'follows' or supervenes upon being (existence):

VSE:  There are no true predications about what does not exist.

Since Holmes does not exist, 'Holmes is a detective' appears to express a proposition that is neither true nor false. Likewise for its negation, 'Holmes is not a detective.'  (LEM) is not violated since either Holmes is a detective or Holmes is not a detective. But (BV) is violated since the two Holmes propositions are neither true nor false.

It is worth noting that from 'Only propositions have truth-values' one cannot validly infer 'All propositions have truth-values.'  

A New and Improved Argument for the Necessity of Something

Previous versions were long-winded.  Herewith, an approach to the lapidary.

1) If nothing exists, then something exists.
2) If something exists, then something exists.
3) Either nothing exists or something exists.
Therefore
4) Necessarily, something exists.

The argument is valid. The second two premises are tautologies. The conclusion is interesting, to put it mildly: it is equivalent to the proposition that it is impossible that there be nothing at all.  But why accept (1)?

Argument for (1)

5) If p, then the proposition expressed by 'p' is true.
Therefore
6) If nothing exists, then nothing exists is true.
7) The consequent of (6) commits us to the existence of at least one proposition.
Therefore
1) If nothing exists, then something exists.

Surely (5) is unproblematic, being one half of the disquotational schema,

DS. P iff the proposition expressed by 'p' is true.

For example, snow is white if and only if snow is white is true. The semantic ascent on the right-hand side of the biconditional involves the application of the predicate 'true' to a proposition. So it is not the case that the left and right hand sides of the biconditional say the same thing or express the same proposition. The LHS says that snow is white; the RHS says something different, namely, that the proposition expressed by 'snow is white' is true. The RHS has an ontological commitment that the LHS does not have: the RHS commits us to a proposition. Since the RHS is true, the proposition exists. (Cf. Colin McGinn, Logical Properties, Oxford UP 2000, 92-93. I am taking from McGinn only the insight that the LHS and RHS of (DS) do not say the same thing.)

But what about the inference from (5) to (6)? Can it be questioned? Yes, if we are willing to countenance counterexamples to (5) and thereby call into question Bivalence, the semantic principle that every proposition is either true or false, but not both. I'll pursue this in a later post. If, however, one accepts Bivalence and its syntactic counterpart, Excluded Middle, then it looks as if I've got me a rigorous a priori argument for the necessity of something and the impossibility of there being nothing at all.

Assertion and Truth In Itself

The Ostrich reports that  he gave up on my transcendental argument from assertion to truth when he came to this paragraph:

To further unpack the concept of assertion, we note that whatever is asserted is asserted to be true independently of one's asserting it.  Of course, it does not follow from one's asserting that p that p is true independently of one's asserting it.  That's a further question. The point is rather that the act of assertion purports to get at reality as it is in itself.  This is a matter of conceptual necessity: the act of assertion would not be what it is if it did have a built-in nisus or directedness toward truth.

He grants that " it can be true that p even though no one asserts that p, or believes that p, or thinks that p." But he has trouble with "reality as it is in itself."

But ‘the act of assertion purports to get at reality as it is in itself’? And I still don’t really understand the ‘act’ involved in asserting. I agree that uttering the utterance ‘grass is green’ is an act. Definitely an act. Is it an ‘act of assertion’? Well the utterance-act is performed against the backdrop of conventional meaning and so forth. The conventional or literal meaning of the English sentence ‘grass is green’ is that grass is green. So the utterer is aiming to communicate the proposition (in your sense of ‘proposition’) that grass is green.

To assert that grass is green I must produce a token of a sentence (sentence-type) in some language that has the meaning that 'grass is green' has in English. So I can assert that grass is green by the assertive utterance of 'das Gras ist grün': I don't need to be speaking English. But let's stick to our mother tongue.

We can use 'sentence' and 'sentence type' interchangeably. But we must scrupulously distinguish sentences/sentence types from sentence tokens.  I use 'token' both as a noun and as a verb. One way to token a sentence is by uttering it. Another way is by writing it on a piece of paper. A third is by carving it into stone. And of course there are other more sophisticated ways of tokening or encoding a sentence.  To utter a sentence is to say it, whether sotto voce, or loudly. But you have to use your tongue and vocal cords, etc.  An utterance is the act of an agent. The speaker is  the agent; the saying or speaking of the words composing a sentence is the act. We can use 'inscribe' to covering tokenings that do not require speech, as when I write 'Sally is drunk' on a piece of paper and hand it to you to convey to you the proposition that — wait for it — Sally is drunk!  I can do that in such away that it constitutes an assertion and is taken by you to be one.  And let's be clear that by sentences in this discussion we mean sentences in the indicative mood.  I discern no difference between such a sentence and a declarative sentence.

Are you with me so far?

Now suppose I assert that grass is green and I do so in English.  To do this I must produce a token of 'Grass is green' either by utterance or by inscription or in some other way such as sign language.   I produce this token with the intention of (i) expressing a proposition or thought and (ii) conveying it to my hearer or reader.  I intend by my act of communication to convey to my hearer  or reader what I take to be a truth, where a truth is a true proposition. 

To assert is to assert something.  We must distinguish the asserting from that which is asserted.  That which is asserted is the proposition. Now what I assert, I assert to be true. That's analytic: I am merely unpacking (analyzing) the concept of assertion.

Now stop and think about that. It would make no sense to say that what one asserts, one asserts to be false. Of course, one can assert that a certain proposition is false. For example, I can assert that the proposition Trafalgar Square is in Brighton is false. But this is no counterexample to my claim since I assert it to be true that the proposition in question is false.

Of course, not everything I assert to be true IS true in reality. But that does not alter the fact that whenever one makes an assertion, the proposition one asserts is asserted to be true.  Every sincere assertion aims at truth whether or not it hits the target. Every sincere assertion is truth-directed as a matter of conceptual necessity.

To assert, then, is to assert to be true. But not only that. What I assert to be true I assert to be true independently of my asserting it or anyone's asserting it.  What is true independently of anyone's asserting it is true in itself. What is true in itself is true in reality.  What is true in reality is true extramentally and extralinguistically. 

We can therefore say that anyone who makes an assertion purports to say something true about reality as it is in itself.

Alles klar?

A Transcendental Argument from Assertion to Truth

We start with a fact: we make assertions. The fact is actual, so it must be possible. What are the conditions of its possibility? What has to be the case for assertion to be possible?  I will argue that there has to be truth for assertion to be possible.

We proceed by unpacking the concept of assertion.

By 'assertion' I mean the speech act of asserting a proposition, not the proposition asserted taken in abstraction from the act of assertion.  Clearly, the asserting and the proposition asserted — the content of the assertion — must be distinguished despite the fact that there is no act of assertion without a content.  To assert is to assert something.

If one asserts that p, then one asserts it to be true that p. There is a conceptual link between assertion and truth.  Whatever is asserted is presented as true by the one who makes the assertion. And it doesn't matter whether the proposition asserted is true or false.  Suppose that, unbeknownst to me, the proposition I assert is false; it is still the case that I assert it to be true. 

Assertion is the overt verbal  expression of belief, and believing a proposition to be true is logically consistent with the proposition's being false. To believe a proposition is to believe it to be true, and to assert a proposition is to assert it to be true.

To further unpack the concept of assertion, we note that whatever is asserted is asserted to be true independently of one's asserting it.  Of course, it does not follow from one's asserting that p that p is true independently of one's asserting it.  That's a further question. The point is rather that the act of assertion purports to get at reality as it is in itself.  This is a matter of conceptual necessity: the act of assertion would not be what it is if it did have a built-in nisus or directedness toward truth.

We take a step further by noting that to assert a proposition is to affirm it as true independently of anyone's asserting of it. This follows because a proposition such as The Moon is a natural satellite of Earth can be asserted by anyone. If so, then to assert a proposition is to assert it as intersubjectively true, true for all assertors. But if a proposition is asserted to be true independently of anyone's asserting it, then it is asserted to be true not just intersubjectively, but absolutely (non-relatively). But there is no need to speak, pleonastically, of absolute truth; it suffices to speak of truth. Truth is absolute by its very nature.

The main point here is that when one makes an assertion one purports to state what is true in itself independently of any of us.  The presupposition of truth is built into the concept of assertion.  Now could this presupposition fail in every case of assertion?  Granted, it fails in some cases. There are false assertions. Could every assertion be false? Well, if every assertion is false, then it is true that every assertion is false, and if I assert that this is so, then I make a true assertion, one that is true independently of my assertion.  Therefore, it cannot be that every assertion is false. So some assertions are true,  absolutely true.

Therefore, for assertion to be possible, there must be some (absolute) truths even if we do not know which propositions are the true ones.

In sum: assertion is actual, hence possible. But it cannot be possible unless there are truths that are true independently of anyone's assertions.  This is because, as a matter of conceptual necessity, assertion is linked to truth.  Therefore, given that assertions are made as a matter of fact,  there are truths. 

I have just argued from the fact that we make assertions to the existence of truth (truths) as a transcendental presupposition of assertion.

But the following question disturbs me: Is truth merely a transcendental presupposition, or is it also an absolute presupposition?

A Merely Transcendental Presupposition?

Have I really proven the existence of truths that subsist independently of our acts of assertion (and independently of all our other discursive operations), truths that would subsist even if if we did not exist; or have I merely proven that we cannot make assertions  without presupposing truth?

I have argued that the fact of assertion presupposes the existence of truths: if there are true assertions, then there is truth. But also: if there are false assertions, then there is truth. But it doesn't follow that necessarily there are truths. For the fact of assertion entails the existence of assertors who are the agents of the various acts of assertion.  But these agents are contingent beings. We who assert might not have existed. It follows that the fact of assertion, the starting point of my transcendental argument, is a contingent fact.

What this seems to entail is that the necessity that there be truths is a conditional, as opposed to an absolute, necessity. I would like to be able to conclude that it is is absolutely necessary that there be truth. But the contingency of my starting point seems to spread to my conclusion, relativizing it.

Misgivings About Deflationary Theories of Truth

1. From my survey of the literature, there are four main types of truth theory being discussed: substantive theories, nihilist (for want of a better label) theories, deflationary theories, and identity theories.  Let me say just a little about the first two main types and then move on to deflationism.

2. Substantive theories maintain that truth is (i) a metaphysically substantive item, presumably a property or relation, (ii) susceptible of non-trivial analysis or explication. Correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories count as substantive theories.  Such theories purport to analyze truth in terms of other, presumably more basic, terms such as a relation of correspondence or adequation to reality or to facts or mind-independent things as in Veritas est adequatio intellectus ad rem.  Or in terms of coherence of truth-bearers (beliefs, propositions, etc.) among themselves.  Or in terms of conduciveness to human flourishing as in William James' "the true is the good by way of belief."    Or in terms of broadly epistemic notions such as rational acceptability or warranted asseribility as in the Putnamian-Peircean 'Truth is rational acceptability at the ideal limit of inquiry.'

The latter is not a good proposal for reasons I won't go into now, but it illustrates the project of giving a substantive theory of truth.  One tries to analyze truth in more basic terms.  One tries to give an informative, non-circular answer to the  question, What is truth?  The substantive approach is in the Grand Tradition deriving from Plato wherein one asks What is X?  (What is justice? (Republic) What is piety? (Euthyphro) What is knowledge? (Theaetetus) What is courage? (Laches)

The substantive approach to truth can be summed up in three propositions:

A. The facts about truth are not exhausted by the substitution-instances of the equivalence schemata 'p' is true iff p and *p* is true iff p.

B.  There is a substantive property of truth common to all and only truths.

C.  This substantive property is susceptible of analysis or explication.

3. The 'nihilist' as he is known in the truth literature rejects substantive theories, not because they are substantive, but because they are theories.  He may grant that truth is a deep, substantial, metaphysically loaded, ontologically thick, topic.  But he denies that one can have a theory about it, that one can account for it in more basic terms: truth is just too basic to be explained in more fundamental terms.  The nihilist accepts (A) and (B) above but denies (C).

4.  The deflationist, like the nihilist, rejects substantive theories of truth.  The difference is that the deflationist holds that an account of truth is possible albeit in very 'thin' terms, while the nihilist denies that any account is possible thick or thin:  truth is too basic to be accountable.  Nihilism allows truth to be a thick (metaphysical) topic.  Deflationism disallows this.  Deflationists deny (A), (B), and (C).

5.  The deflationist makes a big deal out of certain seemingly obvious equivalences and he tries to squeeze a lot of anti-metaphysical mileage out of them.  Here are two examples, one involving a declarative sentence, the other involving a proposition.  Note that asterisks around a sentence, or around a placeholder for a sentence, form a name of the proposition expressed by the sentence. 

E1. 'Grass is green' is true iff grass is green.

E2. *Grass is green* is true iff grass is green.

Now let us assume something which, though false, will simplify our discussion.  Let us assume that there is no other type of use of the truth predicate other than the uses illustrated in logical equivalences like the foregoing.  (Thus I am proposing that we ignore such uses as the one illustrated by 'Everything Percy says is true.') 

The deflationist thesis can now be formulated as follows:  There is nothing more to truth  than what is expressed by such truisms as the foregoing equivalences.  Thus there is no metaphysically substantive property of truth that the LHS predicates of 'Grass is green' or of *Grass is green.*  The content on both sides is exactly the same: 'is true' adds no new content.  'Is true' plays a merely syntactic role.  In terms of Quine's disquotationalism (which is a version of the deflationary approach), 'is true' is merely a device of disquotation.  'Is true' has no semantic dimension: it neither expresses a substantive property, nor does it refer to anything.  Truth drops out as a topic of philosophical inquiry.  There is no such property susceptible of informative explication in terms of correspondence, coherence, rational acceptability, or whatnot.  The question What is truth? gets answered by saying that there is no such 'thing' as truth: there are truths, and every such truth reduces via the equivalence schema to a sentence or proposition in which the truth predicate does not appear.  Accordingly, there is nothing all truths have in common in virtue of which they are truths.  There is only a multiplicity of disparate truths.  But even this says too much since each 'truth' reduces to a sentence or proposition in which 'true' does not appear.

6. Now for my misgivings about deflationism.  But first three preliminary points.

a. Equivalence is symmetrical (commutative); if p is equivalent to q, then q is equivalent to p.  But explanation is asymmetrical: if p explains q, then q does not explain p.  From ' p iff q' one cannot infer 'p because q' or 'q because p.' 'p iff q' is consistent with both.   Connected with the asymmetry of explanation is that equivalences do not sanction reductions.  Triangularity and trilaterality are logically equivalent properties, but it doesn't follow that either reduces to the other.

b. If two items are equivalent, then both are propositions or sentences.  There cannot be equivalence between a sentence or proposition and something that is neither. 

c. To define equivalence we need to recur to truth.  To say that p, q are logically equivalent is to say that there is no possible situation in which p is true and q false, or q true, and p false.

Now what is the deflationist saying? His thesis is negative: there is nothing to truth except what is captured in the the equivalence schemata and their substitution-instances. Consider

E2. *p* is true iff p.

First Misgiving: The truth of the biconditional is not in question.  But equivalences don't sanction reductions. See point (a) above. From (E2) one cannot infer that the LHS reduces to the RHS, or vice versa.  But the deflationist is saying that the LHS reduces to, and is explained by, the RHS.  But what is his justification for saying this?  Why not the other way around?  Why not say that p because *p* is true?

Second Misgiving:  For an equivalence to hold, both sides must be true (or false).  Suppose both sides are true.  Then, although the predicate 'true' does not appear on the RHS, the RHS must be true.  So, far from dispensing with truth, the equivalence schemata and their instances presuppose it!

You don't get it, do you?  Let me try an analogy with existence.  He who is deflationary about truth can be expected to be deflationary about existence as well.  A deflationist about existence might offer this equivalence schema:

F. Fs exist iff something is an F.   (E.g., 'Cats exist iff something is a cat.')

I grant that every instance of the schema is true.  So our deflationist about existence announces that 'exist' on the LHS of (F) plays a merely logico-syntactic role and that there is no substantive property of existence.  He could put his point paradoxically by saying that there is nothing existential about general existentials. But is it not obvious that if something is an F, then that thing must exist?  Are we quantifying over a domain of nonexistents?  If yes, then the equivalence fails.  But if we are quantifying over a domain of existents, then the existence of those existents is being presupposed.  So, even though 'exist' does not occur on the RHS of (F), existence is along for the ride.  Same with (E2).  Even though 'true' does not occur on the RHS of (E2), truth is along for the ride.  In both cases, existence and truth in meaty substantive senses are being presupposed.

Third Misgiving.  'Grass is green' and 'It is true that grass is green' have exactly the same content. That is perfectly obvious and denied by no one.  'Is true' adds no new content.  But how is it supposed to follow that truth is not a substantive property?  What follows is that truth is not a content property.  How do our deflationist pals get from 'Truth is not a content property' to 'Truth is not a substantive property'?  Isn't it obvious that truth refers us outside the content of the proposition or sentence?

Compare existence.  A thing and the same thing existing have exactly the same quidditative content.  The fastest runner and the existing fastest runner are numerically the same individual. Does it follow that existence is not a property?  No, what follows it that existence is not a quidditative property.  Existing Amby Burfoot and Amby Burfoot are quidditatively the same.  But if Burfoot lacked existence he wouldn't be able to do any running, or anything else: he would be nothing at all. Same with truth.  There is no difference in content between p and true p.  But it makes a world of difference whether p is true or false just as it makes a world of difference whether an individual exists or not.

Fourth Misgiving.  If p and q are equivalent, then both are propositions.  The instances of (E) therefore do not get us outside the 'circle of  propositions.'  But isn't it obvious that whether or not a sentence or a proposition or a belief (or any truthbearer) is true or false depends on matters external to the truthbearer?

Fifth Misgiving.  Is (E1) even true? If grass is green, it doesn't follow that 'grass is green' is true.  For grass is green whether or not the English language exists.

If Nothing Exists, is it True that Nothing Exists? Well Yes, but Then . . .

Here is a puzzle for London Ed and anyone else who finds it interesting. It is very simple, an aporetic dyad.

To warm up, note that if snow is white, then it is true that snow is white.  This seems quite unexceptionable, a nice, solid, datanic starting point. It generalizes, of course: for any proposition p, if p, then it is true that p.  Now the connection between antecedent and consequent is so tight that we are loathe to say that it just happens to hold.  It holds of necessity.  So here is the first limb of our aporetic dyad:

a) Necessarily, for any p, if p, then it is true that p.

Equivalently: there is no possible world in which both p and it is not true that p.  For example, there is no possible world in which both 7 + 5 = 12 and it is not true that 7 + 5 = 12.

Intuitively, though, there might have been nothing at all.  Is it not possible that nothing exists? Things exist, of course. But might it not be that everything that exists exists contingently? If so, then there might never have existed anything. Our second limb, then, is this:

b) Possibly, nothing exists.

Equivalently: There is at least one possible world in which nothing exists.

Both limbs of the dyad are plausible, but they can't both be true.  To see this, substitute 'nothing exists' for 'p' in (a) and drop the universal quantifier and the modal operator. This yields:

c) If nothing exists, then it is true that nothing exists.

But (c) can't be true in every world given (b).  For if (c) is true, then something does exist, namely, the truth (true proposition) that nothing exists. But (c) is true in every world given (a).

Therefore (a) and (b) cannot both be true: the dyad is logically inconsistent.

So something has to give, assuming we are not willing to accept that the dyad is an aporia in the strict sense, a conceptual impasse that stops the discursive intellect dead in its tracks.  A-poria: no way.  Do we reject (a) or do we reject (b)? If a solution is possible, then I am inclined to reject (b).

But then I must affirm its negation:

d) Necessarily, something (or other) exists.

(Note that if it is necessary that something exist, it does not follow that some one thing necessarily exists. If there is no possible world in which nothing exists, it does not follow that there is some one thing that exists in every world.)

Yikes! Have I just proven by a priori reasoning the necessary existence of something or other outside the mind?  Of course, I have not proven the necessary existence of God; I may have proven only the necessary existence of those abstract objects called propositions.

(Father Parmenides, with open arms, welcomes home his prodigal son?)

Robert Spaemann Dies at 91

Professor Robert Spaemann, Philosopher and Advocate of the Traditional Mass, Dies at 91. (HT: Kai Frederik Lorentzen)

See also, Philosophie und Glaube: Vom Tod von Robert Spaemann. Excerpt:

Gott als Grundlage aller Wahrheitsansprüche

Gottesglaube ist weder Bedingung für wahre Urteile noch für Gewissensüberzeugungen. Aber da die Existenz Gottes der ontologische Grund beider und in ihnen impliziert ist, beseitigt die Leugnung Gottes die Grundlage aller Wahrheitsansprüche und aller sittlicher Überzeugungen und damit tendenziell diese Ansprüche selbst.

God as Foundation of all Truth Claims

Belief in God is a condition neither of true judgments nor of convictions of conscience. But because the existence of God is implied by both and is the ontological ground of both, the denial of God does away with the foundation of all truth claims and all moral convictions, and thereby tends to do away with these claims and convictions themselves. (tr. BV)

You don't need to believe in God to make  true statements. Atheists make many true statements. And you don't need to believe in God to have correct moral convictions. Atheists have many correct moral convictions. But if there is no God, then there is no truth including moral truth. If there is no God, there are no truths to state.  Atheists don't need to know that God exists to make true statements, but if there is no God, then they cannot make true statements.

But is it obvious that: no God, no truth?  It is not obvious but it can be persuasively argued. Here is a rough sketch of one such argument.  The laws of logic are not only true, they are necessarily true. As we say in the trade, they are true in all possible worlds. Now finite minds are not to be found in every possible world: there are possible worlds in which there are no finite minds, Furthermore, truth cannot exist outside of a mind: truth resides in minds to the extent that said minds are in contact with extramental reality.   Since the laws of logic are necessarily true, there must be a necessary mind. And this all men call God.

Now that was quick and dirty. I present the argument with considerably more rigor and intellectual cleanliness here.

Nietzsche, Truth, Power, and the Left

According to Victor Davis Hanson, the following is one of the tenets of contemporary leftism as represented by the Democrat Party:

Truth is not universal, but individualized. [Christine Blasey] Ford’s “truth” is as valid as the “Truth,” given that competing narratives are adjudicated only by access to power. Ford is a victim, therefore her truth trumps “their” truth based on evidence and testimony.

To understand this adequately you need to understand Nietzsche. Old Fritz has posthumously insinuated himself into our politics, and Democrat politicians, though they are too dumb to know it, are Nietzscheans.  So take a gander at Nietzsche, Truth, and Power.  It concludes thusly:

What Nietzsche wants to say is that there is no truth 'in itself'; there are only various interpretations from the varying perspectives of power-hungry individuals and groups, interpretations that serve to enhance the power of these individuals and groups. At bottom, the world is a vast constellation of ever-changing power-centers vying with each other for dominance, and what a particular power-center calls 'true' are merely those interpretations that enhance and preserve its power.  For the essence of the world is not reason or order, but blind will, will to power.

But if that is the way it is, then there is an absolute truth after all. Nietzsche never extricates himself from this contradiction. And where he fails, his followers do not succeed.  We are now, as a culture, living and dying in the shadow of this contradiction, reaping the consequences of the death of God and the death of truth.

I now add that I count it as one of Nietzsche's great insights to have perceived the link between God and truth, and that between the death of God and the death of truth. For Nietzsche, no God, no truth; no God; ergo, no truth.  For me, no God, no truth;  truth; ergo, God. Nietzsche's  modus ponens is my modus tollens.

I believe it is in De Veritate where the doctor angelicus says something along these lines: If, per impossibile, God did not exist, then truth would not exist either.

Now God cannot die, nor truth. But the disappearance among the educated elites of the God-belief brings with it the disappearance among the elites of the belief in truth which, by its very nature is universal and absolute. 

It is important to appreciate that the statement that truth is perspectival only masquerades as a statement of the nature of truth; in reality it is a denial that there is truth.  Truth simply cannot be perspectival; to call it such is therefore to deny its existence.  The attempt at identification collapses into elimination. Perspectivism is an eliminativist theory of truth.

So all is lost if we allow talk of 'Ford's truth' and 'Kavanaugh's truth' where each has his own truth in the measure that he is 'empowered' by it.

That way the abyss.