TY - JOUR
T1 - On Metaphysics’ Independence from Truthmaking. Or, Why Humean Supervenience is Compatible with the Growing Block Universe
AU - FILOMENO FARRERONS, ALDO
N1 - Funding Information:
I would like to thank Axel Barceló, David Bordonaba, Graeme Forbes, Thomas Hodgson, John Horden, Andrea Raimondi, Juan Redmond, Alessandro Torza, and Jonathan Tallant for their helpful comments. For their helpful comments, this work was supported by the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, through a fellowship from the postdoctoral program DGAPA-UNAM, and by the grant ‘Formal Epistemology—the Future Synthesis’, in the framework of the program Praemium Academicum at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This paper aims to support the claim that analytic metaphysics should be more cautious regarding the constraints that truthmaking considerations impose on metaphysical theories. To this end, I reply to Briggs and Forbes (Philos Stud 174(4):927–943, 2017), who argue that certain truthmaking commitments are incurred by a Humean metaphysics and by the Growing-Block theory. First, I argue that Humean Supervenience does not need to endorse a standard version of truthmaker maximalism. This undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion that Humean Supervenience and the Growing-Block theory are incompatible. Second, I argue that the Growing-Block theory does not commit us to any weaker version of truthmaker maximalism, which also undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion. Finally, I point out other reasons to think that any version of truthmaker maximalism is disputable, undermining a fortiori Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion and supporting the moral that metaphysical theories—or at least Humean Supervenience, the Growing-Block theory, and presentism—are little constrained by truthmaking commitments.
AB - This paper aims to support the claim that analytic metaphysics should be more cautious regarding the constraints that truthmaking considerations impose on metaphysical theories. To this end, I reply to Briggs and Forbes (Philos Stud 174(4):927–943, 2017), who argue that certain truthmaking commitments are incurred by a Humean metaphysics and by the Growing-Block theory. First, I argue that Humean Supervenience does not need to endorse a standard version of truthmaker maximalism. This undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion that Humean Supervenience and the Growing-Block theory are incompatible. Second, I argue that the Growing-Block theory does not commit us to any weaker version of truthmaker maximalism, which also undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion. Finally, I point out other reasons to think that any version of truthmaker maximalism is disputable, undermining a fortiori Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion and supporting the moral that metaphysical theories—or at least Humean Supervenience, the Growing-Block theory, and presentism—are little constrained by truthmaking commitments.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105580493&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10670-021-00411-y
DO - 10.1007/s10670-021-00411-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105580493
JO - Erkenntnis
JF - Erkenntnis
SN - 0165-0106
ER -