Metaphysicy and Truthmakers

The essays collected in this volume concern the general question of truthmaking. Most bear upon the metaphysical nature of truthmakers (moments, tropes, property-instances, Aristotelian substances, states of affairs, meanings or essences). Taking as their starting point a famous seminal paper by Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith, as well as David Armstrong's outstanding contribution to the subject, they offer a fresh assay of the main concepts involved, in order to assess the explanatory value of truthmakers and truthmaker necessitarianism, and explore such delicate issues as contingent truth, bare possibility, tensed propositions, the ontological irreducibility of relations, the subsistence of facts and the epistemic role of negative truths. The collection as a whole provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking survey of the current debate about truthmaking theory.

Jean-Maurice Monnoyer is professor of philosophy at the University of Provence (Aix-Marseille, France). He is the editor of Quine: Logique et Ontologie (L'Eclat, Paris 2006), La structure du monde: objets, proprits, tats de choses (Vrin, Paris 2004) and "Mtaphysique et ontologie contemporaines," Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale (Paris, 2002, with F. Nef).