Truthmaker Theory

Truthmaker theory is not only an important branch of current metaphysics,but also a core issue of analytical philosophy,the theory based on the reality of intuition that truth is grounded in the reality and argue that a proposition is true,because something exist rather than on the contrary,every sentence of at least one truthmaker to make it true,there is a truthmaking relation between the two.In part One,first of all,we investigate the metaphysics history of truthmakers,showing the concept of the origin and formation of the theoretical background.Secondly,we describe and define the truthmaking relation between the propositions and truthmakers,and explain several properties the relation has,the cross-categorial relation proposed by David Armstrong is considered a nature of truthmaking relation,argue that proposition is truthbearer and truthmaker as the reason of truthmaking,the former represents the language,the later represents the world,the two belong to different categories.Finally,we illustrate the concept from the level of epistemology,and introduce the basic contents of truthmaker theory,for support Truthmaker Maximalism,with the aid of Russell's general facts to argue that general propositions has also truthmakers.In principle of entailment and truthmakers,the concept of truthmakers is given the axiomatic definition,and think have entailment relation in logics,but the entailment principle need certain restrict.In part Two,we introduce a controversial topic the truthmakers theorist faces : negative truths.For positive truths,it is easy to find some entities or facts make true a proposition,but that is difficult for negative truths,because negative truths described something in the reality does not exist,obviously,if negative truths without a truthmaker,it will be a challenge to the truthmaker theory.Negative propositions and positive propositions have different properties and truthmaking relation,means that need to compare and analyze the two and put forward the truthmaker principle of negative truths.Additionally,according to Wittgenstein's viewpoint about negative proposition,it can be found that the proposition has a significance of independent of the reality.The negative proposition from a negative description of be negated proposition,negative proposition and positive proposition correspond to the same reality,this kind of similar monism view to become solve the problem of one of the path.George Molnar using four constraint thesis to demonstrate the truthmakers of negative truths must be the existence of the positive,the discussion of the four constraint thesis covers the focus of the debate,so for the solution of the problem can be considered to solve the truthmaker problem of negative truths.For Molnar's problem,Jonas Waechter proposed a solution,called “Simple”,is to take every literal negative truth to be made true by the falsity of the atomic proposition that it embeds.The “Simple” coheres with Molnar's four constraint theses,and also relevant to the concept of falsemaker which is discussed by David Armstrong.The paper compares and analyzes the differences of truthmakers,falsemakers,positive propositions and negative propositions,and comments the solution of “Simple” to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages and the thought connotation.In part Three,first of all,we expound the explanation function of truthmaking relation,on the one hand,there is a explanatory relation between the propositions and reality,on the other hand,the different understandings to truthmaking relation make different explanations of cause of true propositions or true sentences.Secondly,we discuss the premise of the truthmaker theory in metaphysics,and introduce a kind of objection about it,in virtue of realism of truth,we can also explain the metaphysics premise of truthmaker theory make it weakened.Finally,we focus on the necessity and possibility of development of truthmaker theory,and put forward two possible paths.