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260How to Express Ontological Commitment in the VernacularPhilosophia Mathematica 18 (3): 293-310. 2010.According to the familiar Quinean understanding of ontological commitment, (1) one undertakes ontological commitments only via theoretical regimentations, and (2) ontological commitments are to be identified with the domain of a theory’s quantifiers. Jody Azzouni accepts (1), but rejects (2). Azzouni accepts (1) because he believes that no vernacular expression carries ontological commitments. He rejects (2) by locating a theory’s commitments with the extension of an existence predicate. I argue…Read more
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231Truthmaker TheoryInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2014.Truthmaker theory is the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists. Discussions of truthmakers and truthmaking typically start with the idea that truth depends on being, and not vice versa. For example, if the sentence ‘Kangaroos live in Australia’ is true, then there are kangaroos living in Australia. And if there are kangaroos living in Australia, then the sentence ‘Kangaroos live in Australia’ is true. But we can ask whether the sentence is tru…Read more
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221Constructive Empiricism and Deflationary TruthPhilosophy of Science 76 (4): 423-443. 2009.Constructive empiricists claim to offer a reconstruction of the aim and practice of science without adopting all the metaphysical commitments of scientific realism. Deflationists about truth boast of the ability to offer a full account of the nature of truth without adopting the metaphysical commitments accompanying substantive accounts. Though the two views would form an attractive package, I argue that the pairing is not possible: constructive empiricism requires a substantive account of truth…Read more
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155Irreplaceable truthSynthese 203 (3): 1-20. 2024.Conceptual engineers are always on the lookout for concepts that can be improved upon or replaced. Kevin Scharp has argued that the concept truth is inconsistent, and that this inconsistency thwarts its ability to serve in philosophical and scientific explanatory projects, such as developing linguistic theories of meaning. In this paper I present Scharp’s view about what makes a concept inconsistent, and why he believes that truth in particular is inconsistent. Then I examine the concepts that h…Read more
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150The Primitivist Theory of TruthCambridge University Press. 2013.Jamin Asay's book offers a fresh and daring perspective on the age-old question 'What is truth?', with a comprehensive articulation and defence of primitivism, the view that truth is a fundamental and indefinable concept. Often associated with Frege and the early Russell and Moore, primitivism has been largely absent from the larger conversation surrounding the nature of truth. Asay defends primitivism by drawing on a range of arguments from metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophy of …Read more
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118Experimenting with TruthReview of Philosophy and Psychology 1-22. forthcoming.In the last decade Robert Barnard and Joseph Ulatowski have conducted a number of experimental studies in order to better understand the ordinary notion of truth. In this paper I critically engage their ecological approach to the study of truth, and argue for a wider perspective on how truth should be empirically studied: in addition to the experimental data that they emphasize and collect, there should also be a substantial observational element to conceptual ecology. I then critically evaluate…Read more
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116Review of Truth, Reference and Realism (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26 (3): 345-348. 2012.International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, Page 345-348, September 2012
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113A Theory of Truthmaking: Metaphysics, Ontology, and RealityCambridge University Press. 2020.The theory of truthmaking has long aroused skepticism from philosophers who believe it to be tangled up in contentious ontological commitments and unnecessary theoretical baggage. In this book, Jamin Asay shows why that suspicion is unfounded. Challenging the current orthodoxy that truthmaking's fundamental purpose is to be a tool for explaining why truths are true, Asay revives the conception of truthmaking as fundamentally an exercise in ontology: a means for coordinating one's beliefs about w…Read more
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106TruthmakingCambridge University Press. 2023.Truthmaking is the metaphysical exploration of the idea that what is true depends upon what exists. Truthmaker theorists argue about what the truthmaking relation involves, which truths require truthmakers, and what those truthmakers are. This Element covers the dominant views on these core issues in truthmaking. It also explores some key metaphysical topics and debates that are usefully approached by employing the tools of truthmaker theory: the debate between presentists and eternalists over t…Read more
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105TruthmakingRoutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.Truthmaking is the relationship that holds between truths and the objects in the world in virtue of which those truths are true. Truthmaker theorists deploy the idea of truthmaking in order to advance arguments for the existence of various kinds of ontological posits, critique metaphysical positions, and better articulate accounts of truth, realism and other topics.
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77Truth(making) by ConventionAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2): 117-128. 2020.A common account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is that while the former are true solely in virtue of meaning, the latter are true also in virtue of the way of the world. Quine famously disputed this characterization, and his skepticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction has cast a long shadow. Against this skepticism, I argue that the common account comes close to the truth, and that truthmaker theory in particular offers the resources for providing a compelling a…Read more
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40Replies to criticsAsian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 1-15. 2022.The author replies to the critics of the symposium.
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Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
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Primitivism about Truth |