Truth and Truthmakers

This book, first published in 2004, makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy.

D. M. Armstrong (Author)

9780521838320, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 May 2004

172 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 table
22.8 x 14.3 x 1.6 cm, 0.346 kg

'Armstrong's systematic contribution in this book to the truth maker style of metaphysical enquiry is a very major one; we may well learn more from suggestions he makes … covers much more ground than its length would suggest.' Journal of Philosophy

Truths are determined not by what we believe, but by the way the world is. Or so realists about truth believe. Philosophers call such theories correspondence theories of truth. Truthmaking theory, which now has many adherents among contemporary philosophers, is a recent development of a realist theory of truth, and in this book, first published in 2004, D. M. Armstrong offers the first full-length study of this theory. He examines its applications to different sorts of truth, including contingent truths, modal truths, truths about the past and the future, and mathematical truths. In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion he makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. His book marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy.

1. An introduction to truthmakers
2. The general theory of truthmaking
3. Epistemology and methodology
4. Properties, relations and states of affairs
5. Negative truths
6. General truths
7. Truthmakers for modal truths: Part 1, possibility
8. Truthmakers for modal truths: Part 2, necessity
9. Numbers and classes
10. Causes, laws and dispositions
11. Time.

Subject Areas: Analytical philosophy & Logical Positivism [HPCF5]