Maverick Philosopher

An Exchange on the Metaphysics of Truthmaking

Dan M:

Discussing a puzzle about divine simplicity has led us to the metaphysics of truthmaking; I'll just focus on the latter for now – but the broader dialectic is this: I was thinking that a particular view about truthmaking can help us with that puzzle about simplicity. [Cf. first related article below.]

Take your sentence 'Al is fat', and suppose it's true. I agree it must be somehow *made* true, and I agree it can't be made true by Al, or fatness, or the sum or set of the two.

I suspect that we disagree about the following question: Must the sentence be made true by an item (entity, etc.)? If we answer "yes", then the natural proposal is to posit an entity with, as you say, a proposition-like structure, such as a state of affairs of Al's being fat. But suppose we answer "no": though 'Al is fat' must, if true, be made true, it needn't be made true by an item. How could it be made true without being made true by an item? Well suppose we express its being made true as follows:

(*) The sentence 'Al is fat' is true because Al is fat.

That is, the sentence (a linguistic item) is true because Al (a man) is fat. The sentence to the right of 'because' in (*) expresses what it is about the world in virtue of which the sentence 'Al is fat' is true. But (*) nowhere refers to an *item* of Al's being fat. The only referring term appearing to the right of 'because' is 'Al'.

Bill V:

Dan grants that some truthbearers need truthmakers, but thinks that truthmakers needn't be entities. Right here I must lodge an objection. A truthmaker is an entity by definition. That truthmakers are entities is built into the theory. If the true sentence 'Al is fat' (or the proposition expressed by a thoughtful utterance of this sentence) needs a truthmaker, then this sentence/proposition cannot just be true: there must be, external to the sentence/proposition, an entity that 'makes' it true. But of course this entity cannot itself be a truthbearer, whether a declarative sentence, a Fregean proposition, an Aristotelian proposition, a judgment, a statement, a belief, or any cognate item. This point is crucial, so forgive me for belaboring it a bit.

Suppose we have a valid deductive argument all of the premises of which are true. Then, from Logic 101, we know that the conclusion must also be true. To put it precisely, and taking care not to confuse the necessitas consequentiae with the necessitas consequentiis: Necessarily, if the premises are all true, then the conclusion is true. In this precise sense the truth of the premises necessitates the truth of the conclusion.

Could one say that the conjunction of the premises 'makes true' the conclusion, that the conjunction of premises is the truthmaker of the conclusion? One could say this, but this is not what truthmaker theorists mean when that say that a truthmaker makes true a truthbearer, or that a truthbearer needs a truthmaker. What they mean is that some if not all truthbearers need truthmakers that are not truthbearers.

As I use 'truthmaker,' no truthmaker is a truthbearer. (I ignore some recherché counterexamples.) So the proposition Tom is tall is not the truthmaker of the proposition Someone is tall. And this despite the fact that the first proposition entails the second. Does the second proposition have a truthmaker? Yes. In fact it has more than one. Tom's being tall is one, Bill's being tall is another. But these are not propositions, but ontological grounds of true propositions.

So if 'Al is fat' has a truthmaker, then there exists an entity external to this sentence and to every sentence (proposition, etc.) that makes the sentence (proposition, etc.) true. If entailment is a logical relation, then truthmaking is not a logical relation. Logical relations connect propositions to propositions; truthmaking, however, connects a non-propositional chunk of external reality to a proposition (or cognate item). Al's being fat, for example, is not a proposition. It is a state of affairs or concrete fact. Propositions are either true or false, but it is neither; it either exists or it does not. If it exists, then it it can serve as the truthmaker of 'Al is fat.' Concrete (Armstrongian) states of affairs are not bipolar or bivalent items. In this respect they are not like Chisholmian-Plantingian abstract states of affairs.

What Dan should say is there is no need for truthmakers, not that truthmakers needn't be entities.

Dan offers

(*) The sentence 'Al is fat' is true because Al is fat

to show that a truthmaker need not be an entity.

It seems to me, though, that Dan is confusing a truthmaker with a truth condition. A truthmaker is concrete chunk of extralinguistic and extramental reality whereas a truth condition is just another sentence, proposition, or cognate item. Our old friend Alan Rhoda in an old blog post does a good job of explaining the distinction:

. . .truthmakers are parcels of reality . . . .

Not so with truth conditions. Truth conditions are semantic explications of the meaning of statements. They tell us in very precise terms what has to be true for a particular statement to be true. For example, a B-theorist like Nathan Oaklander will say that the truth conditions of the sentence "The 2006 Winter Olympics are over" is given by the sentence "The 2006 Winter Olympics end earlier than the date of this utterance". Thus truth conditions are meaning entities like statements that are used to spell out or analyze the meaning of other statements.

Dan's (*) merely sets forth a truth condition. It doesn't get us off the level of propositions and down to the level of truthmakers.

Another important point has to do with the asymmetry of truthmaking: if T makes true p, it does not follow that p makes true T. It's an asymmetry of explanation. If one thing explains another, it does not follow that the other explains the one. The truthmaker theorist takes seriously the project of metaphysical explanation. Truthmakers explain why true truthbearers are true. Dan's (*), however, entails the following non-explanatory biconditional:

(**) The sentence 'Al is fat' is true iff Al is fat.

But (**) has nothing to do with truthmaking; it is but an instance of Quine's disquotational schema according to which the truth predicate is but a device of disquotation. We remain on the level of sentences (propositions, etc.)

In sum, I see no merit in Dan's suggestion that there are truthmakers but they needn't be entities. That shows a failure to grasp the notion of a truthmaker. What Dan should say is that there is no need for truthmakers. He might also try arguing that the truthmaking relation is bogus or unintelligible since it is neither a logical relation nor a causal one.

The Cowards of Academia

Dennis Prager:

Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak this week at the University of California, Berkeley. Last week, the university announced it was canceling her speech, providing the usual excuse that it couldn't guarantee her safety, or others'. This excuse is as phony as it is cowardly. Berkeley and other universities know well that there is a way to ensure safety. They can do so in precisely the same way every other institution in a civilized society ensures citizens' safety: by calling in sufficient police to protect the innocent and arrest the violent. But college presidents don't do that sort of thing — not at Berkeley, or Yale University, or Middlebury College, or just about anywhere else. They don't want to tick off their clients (students), their faculty, leftist activist groups or the liberal media.

That's right: arrest the violent. And if they resist arrest? Use the force necessary to subdue them. They will call you 'fascist.' But they will call you that anyway. The epithet is without meaning as they use it. Above all, no hand wringing. After all, the miscreants are destructive, hate-America leftist thugs.

Rod Dreher’s Monastic Vision

An article in The New Yorker.

Of Bocce and Blog

I just got off a language rant and now I'm warmed up. Here's another. Snowflakes turn back now.

The name of the game is bocce, not 'bocce ball.'

Do you call tennis 'tennis ball'? Soccer 'soccer ball'? Golf 'golf ball'? Get on the ball.

And there are still idiots who refer to a blog post or a blog entry as a 'blog.' Can't you think at all? Do you call an item on a list a list? A paragraph of an essay an essay? A sentence in a paragraph a paragraph? A word in a sentence a sentence? A letter in a word a word?

On ‘Reaching Out’ and ‘Educate’

Language rant up ahead! All language lemmings to their safe spaces.

Last Fall I made an appointment to speak with an auto salesperson. I arrived at the dealership on time, but she didn't. After waiting five minutes, I consulted the general manager. His response was that if she didn't arrive soon, he would "reach out to her." About the same time I received an e-mail message from the Internet Chess Club hawking some product or other. "We are reaching out to inform you . . . ."

Examples are easily multiplied. What explains the prevalence of this ridiculously inflated use of an otherwise unobjectionable expression?

If your spouse dies, I may reach out to you to offer my condolence and help. But if I notice a rattlesnake near your back door, I won't 'reach out' to you about it, but simply inform you of the fact.

And if I inform you of some paltry fact, I haven't 'educated' you about it, but merely provided you with a scrap of information.

An educated person is not the one whose head is stuffed with information, but the one whose experientially-honed judgment is capable of making sense of information. To become well-informed is not difficult; to become well-educated is a task of self-development for a lifetime.

Can we blame the decline of language and good sense on liberals? I'll leave you with that (rhetorical) question.

The Left versus Free Speech

By the way, it is important not to forget that the rights enshrined, not conferred, by the First Amendment find their concrete, real-world, back-up in the rights, not conferred, but enshrined in the Second Amendment. This is why it is so important who sits on SCOTUS. Donald Trump and his team have accomplished a lot in their first 100 days, with the appointment and confirmation of the 49-year-old Neil Gorsuch being the premier achievement.

In case it is not clear what the image depicts, it shows a leftist thug trying to blow out the light shed by free speech, a value held aloft by Lady Liberty.

Is Conservatism a Belief System?

I should think so. But in an otherwise excellent entry, Tony M. writes,

Conservatism is not really an ideology because it is neither a belief system per se nor a comprehensive social system. It is not a belief system because it does not take its foundational standards from belief but by reference to more basic truths that can be demonstrated or are self-evident. In contrast, progressivism for example is rooted in beliefs that could not be established firmly even in principle.

It follows from what Mr M. is saying that if a proposition p is demonstrable or self-evident, then there is no subject S such that S believes that p. In plain English: no one believes demonstrable or self-evident truths. But 'surely' (i) it is self-evident that nothing is both F and not F at the same time and in the same respect and in the same sense of 'F'; and (ii) I along with Mr. M. believe that! So some of us believe the self-evident.

Could M. have blundered so badly? But let's be charitable. Is there a way to read what M. writes in such a way that it has a chance of being true?

Most philosophers maintain that knowledge entails belief: Necessarily, if I know that p, then I believe that p. (At issue is propositional knowledge, not know-how, or carnal knowledge, or knowledge by acquaintance.) To put it another way, believing that p is a necessary but not sufficient condition of knowing that p. We could call this the orthodox line and trace it all the way back to the Theaetetus of Plato. But it doesn't seem quite obvious.

One heterodox position is that knowledge logically excludes belief: Necessarily, if I know that p, then it is not the case that I believe that p. Ordinary language lends some support to this. "I don't believe that the sun is shining; I know that it is!" Suppose I am asked by a phone pollster whether I am male or female. It would be very strange were I to reply, "I believe I'm male." Accordingly, what one believes one doesn't know, and what one knows one doesn't believe. I'm told John Cook Wilson held this view. Dallas Willard reports that Roy Wood Sellars held it, and Willard himself held it.

I have puzzled over this heterodox view without coming to a clear decision. But if knowledge excludes belief, and if the basic truths of conservatism are either demonstrable or self-evident, then it makes sense for M. to claim that conservatism is not a belief system.

In philosophy it is very important that we be as civil and charitable as possible. There is no place for polemics in philosophy. In politics it is quite otherwise. Please do not confuse political philosophy with politics.

Hyperbole

Every word they write is a lie, and every syllable they speak. Their mendacity extends even unto the syntax of their sentences. Their periods prevaricate and their dashes dissemble.

Hate Speech

There's no such thing.

Glenn Reynolds talks sense against such liberal knuckleheads as Howard Dean:

The other hallmark of constitutional illiteracy is the claim that the First Amendment doesn’t protect “hate speech.” And by making that claim last week, Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate, revealed himself to be a constitutional illiterate. Then, predictably, he doubled down on his ignorance.

In First Amendment law, the term “hate speech” is meaningless. All speech is equally protected whether it’s hateful or cheerful. It doesn’t matter if it’s racist, sexist or in poor taste, unless speech falls into a few very narrow categories — like “true threats,” which have to address a specific individual, or “incitement,” which must constitute an immediate and intentional encouragement to imminent lawless action — it’s protected.

The term “hate speech” was invented by people who don’t like that freedom, and who want to give the — completely false — impression that there’s a kind of speech that the First Amendment doesn’t protect because it’s hateful. What they mean by “hateful,” it seems, is really just that it’s speech they don’t agree with. Some even try to argue that since hearing disagreeable ideas is unpleasant, expressing those ideas is somehow an act of “violence.”

I would add that 'liberals' have a strange tendency to conflate dissent with hate. Obviously, if I dissent from what you maintain, it does not follow that I hate you. And if I express my dissent in speech, it does not follow that my speech is 'hate speech.'

I suspect most 'liberals' have the intellectual equipment to grasp these simple distinctions. So what ought we conclude? That they are hate-filled individuals?

And another thing. If a liberal claims that the Great Wall of Trump is 'hateful,' then I will put to him the question: Is it 'hateful' when you lock your doors at night? No? But doesn't anyone have the right to 'migrate' anywhere he pleases? You just hate people that are different from you, you xenophobe!

Nothing So Stupid a Liberal Won’t Embrace It

Another example. (HT: Karl White) My correspondent, an Irishman living in London, really ought to change his 'racist' surname. And while he's at it, he should ditch his 'Nazi' Christian name or have the decency to change the spelling to 'Carl.' His very name is a two-termed 'micro-aggression'!

The Collapse of the Catholic Universities

Yet another example, one so egregious that I pinch myself to see if I am awake:

Stéphane Mercier, a lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven (UCL) in Belgium initially was suspended from teaching, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings, because there was opposition in a class from a feminist group to his philosophical argument to the effect that abortion is the killing of an innocent unborn human life, which is an “intrinsically evil,” always unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances. The response from both the UCL administration and the Belgium Bishops Conference to his philosophical argument, which was put forth in a document entitled “The Philosophy Supporting Life: Against a so-called Right to Choose an Abortion", has been confusing.

UPDATE 2/24:

A reader sends this:

A student at the institution informs me this is the passage that led to the lecturer's sacking. It was a First Year Philosophy course:

"[…] reminds me of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984. Voluntary interruption of pregnancy is a euphemism that hides a message, namely the truth, which is that abortion is the murder of an innocent person. It is a murder particularly abject, because the victim has no defense against it. if murdering an innocent person capable of self-defense weren't repulsive enough, taking the life of someone who doesn't have the power to defend himself is even more vile. Today, we hear people who believe abortion is immoral, but don't think about making it illegal, a disturbingly absurd way of reasoning. […] Imagine that the same person declares rape immoral, but thinks it shouldn't be made illegal in order to protect the freedoms of an individual (except for the victim…). that's absurd, right? So, if abortion is murder, as it is said to be by some, doesn't that make it worse than rape? Rape is immoral, and fortunately illegal as well. Shouldn't abortion, which is even more immoral, be illegal too?"

BV's comment: Imagine getting sacked at any university, let alone a supposedly Catholic university with the word 'Catholic' in its name, for giving this argument!

Leftist termites are undermining the great institutions of the West, and the authorities in charge of these institutions have either abdicated, or are termites themselves. The edifices of higher culture are in dire need of fumigation. Figuratively speaking, of course . . . .

Why Do You Carry a Notebook?

If I am wearing a shirt with pockets, I almost always carry a 3 X 5 notebook and a pen in my top left pocket. People sometimes ask why I carry it. I have a prepared response:

It's in case I get a good idea. Haven't had one yet, but you never know.

And if I am out walking around, another element of my schtick is my stick which is distinctive and also elicits questions. Ask me why I carry it and I have a line at the ready:

Time was when I needed it to beat off women; but now I just need it to keep from toppling over.

I have found that the second line doesn't go over as well. While both involve self-deprecation, which will often endear you to people, or at least blunt the blade of their hidden hostility, the self-deprecation in the second line comes too late for some.

So I cannot recommend the second line in all circumstances. The perceived machismo of the first clause of the second line will sometimes stick in the craw of a humorless feminist.

Perhaps the best advice I could give is to paraphrase a line attributed to the cowboy wit, Will Rogers:

Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.

That of course is an exaggeration. But exaggerations are rhetorically useful if they are in the direction of truths. The truth here is that the damage caused by idle talk is rarely offset by its paltry benefits.

My mind drifts back to the fourth or fifth grade and the time a nun planted an image in my mind that remains. She likened the tongue to a sword capable of great damage, positioned behind two 'gates,' the teeth and the lips. Those gates are there for a reason, she explained, and the sword should come out only when it can be well deployed.

Related: Safe Speech