Questions: Truthmaker Fundamentalism and Truth-Making Relations

Question 1

What makes negative existential truths like 'there are no dragons' particularly challenging for the truthmaker principle?

• A. They are not genuinely true — only positive existence claims can be true
• B. There is no positive entity in the world whose existence is sufficient to make the absence of dragons true
• C. Negative truths are always contingent, which exempts them from the truthmaker principle
• D. The concept of 'dragon' is too vague to admit precise ontological analysis

Answer: (B)

The truthmaker principle requires a worldly entity whose *existence* is metaphysically sufficient for the truth of the proposition. For 'the cat is on the mat,' the state of affairs of the cat's being on the mat exists and does the job. But for 'there are no dragons,' no positive entity seems available — the absence of dragons is not an entity that exists. This forces a choice: posit special entities like totality facts or negative facts, find a way to reduce negative truths to positive ones, or accept selective truthmaking (only some truths require truthmakers). Each option carries ontological costs.

Question 2

A philosopher asserts that mathematical truths (e.g., '2 + 2 = 4') are true but declines to specify what in the world makes them true. How does a truthmaker fundamentalist respond?

• A. This is acceptable — mathematical truths are necessary truths and make themselves true independently of any worldly entities
• B. The philosopher owes an account: either posit abstract mathematical objects as truthmakers, reduce mathematical truth to physical facts, or deny those propositions are genuinely true
• C. Mathematical truths are outside the scope of the truthmaker principle, which applies only to contingent empirical claims
• D. It is sufficient to show mathematical truths are useful; utility is the only ontological requirement

Answer: (B)

Truthmaker fundamentalism functions precisely as a discipline on this kind of free assertion. If you claim a proposition is true, you must identify what in your ontology makes it true. For mathematical truths, the options are: platonism (abstract mathematical objects serve as truthmakers), nominalism with reduction (mathematical truths reduce to truths about physical structures or possibilities), or fictionalism (mathematical propositions aren't strictly true). You cannot simply assert mathematical truths without choosing a position. This is what makes truthmaker fundamentalism demanding: it closes off the option of treating any class of truths as needing no worldly grounding.

Question 3

Truthmaker maximalism holds that mainly contingent, positive existential truths require truthmakers — necessary truths and negative truths are exempt.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

That describes a *selective* truthmaker theory, not maximalism. Truthmaker maximalism is the strict view that every true proposition, without exception, requires a truthmaker — including necessary truths, negative existential truths, and any other truth you can state. Maximalism is more metaphysically demanding and more systematically satisfying, but it cannot ignore hard cases like negative existentials. Selective truthmaker theories are weaker positions that limit the truthmaking requirement to specific categories of truths, typically to avoid these difficult cases.

Question 4

Truthmaker fundamentalism connects the theory of truthmaking to the theory of grounding: fundamental truthmakers are those entities that are not themselves grounded in anything further.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is the 'fundamentalism' in truthmaker fundamentalism. It is not enough to find some truthmaker for every truth — derived truths should trace back through a chain of grounding to genuinely fundamental truthmakers that are metaphysically bedrock. For example, if the truth 'this table exists' is grounded in facts about the atoms composing it, and those facts are grounded in further physical facts, the fundamentalist asks: what is at the bottom? The connection to grounding theory means truthmaker fundamentalism is part of the broader neo-Aristotelian project of identifying the fundamental structure of reality.

Question 5

Why are negative existential truths ('there are no dragons') a problem for the truthmaker principle, and what are two approaches philosophers have used to handle them?

Model answer: The truthmaker principle requires a worldly entity whose existence makes the proposition true. For positive existentials ('this rose is red'), the rose and its redness serve as truthmakers. But 'there are no dragons' seems to require the *absence* of something — and absences are not entities that exist. Two approaches: (1) Posit totality facts or negative facts as genuine entities — facts about what the world does NOT contain. (2) Use the totality of what exists: the world being exactly the totality it is, with no dragons among its members, is what makes 'there are no dragons' true. The first approach expands the ontology; the second tries to ground negatives in positive totality.

Both approaches have costs. Positing negative or totality facts multiplies the kinds of entities in one's ontology, which may seem extravagant. Using totality facts as a single catch-all threatens to make the truthmaking relation insufficiently fine-grained — the same totality fact would be invoked for every negative existential. This is why the problem of negative truths is a persistent pressure point for truthmaker theory, not a solved problem.