The Logic of Truth-Making

Cathy Legg (Deakin University , University of Waikato)

Cathy Legg (Deakin) will present "The Logic of Truth-Making " at 11 on 27 April in Arts West Research Lounge, 5th Floor North Wing.

Abstract: I argue that if a truthmaker theory is to be illuminating it should answer the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its particular truthbearer(s) true? I suggest that although this question is unjustly neglected, truthmaker theories currently on the market generally offer three implicit answers to it: the truthbearer i) describes, ii) indexes and ii) pictures the truthmaker. I suggest that none of these simple dyadic relations suffice to model truth. I then draw on original recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a “particular double structure”, according to which a predicate not only depicts certain characters as pertaining to an object, it also depicts itself claiming that those characters pertain to that object. This original recursive understanding of propositional structure is argued to resolve some important issues in truthmaker theory, such as the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning the reflexivity (or not) of the truthmaking relation.