使真者理论与关于基本存在的形而上学

Truthmaker Theory and Grounding Theory

使真者理论有两个目标,其一是解释使真关系的不对称性,其二是借助一种形而上学中立的标准,来找出那些缺乏本体论基础的被声称的真断定。许多人通过奠基理论来帮助使真者理论家完成这两个目标。然而,他们的努力因为如下原因不可能成功。首先,奠基概念不可能在没有使真概念实质参与的条件下,解释使真这个直觉的不对称关系;其次,识别欺骗者必须根据具体的形而上学断定,这一点注定奠基理论不能成为判定谁是欺骗者的中立的标准。重要的是,完整的使真概念内在地包含关于性概念,后者与纯粹形而上学的奠基概念有本质不同,这是奠基理论之所以不能有效地完成解释使真关系和抓住欺骗者两项任务的深层原因。

Two goals,giving an account of the asymmetry of truth-making relation and identifying cheaters who claim a truth without any entity as its truthmaker,motivate philosophers to develop a truthmaker theory.Many authors believe that grounding theory could help truthmaker theorists in addressing the two tasks.This paper attempts to show(1)that no grounding theory can explain the asymmetry in question unless the truthmaking relation has already been understood,and(2)that recognizing a cheater requires a grounding theory to be both a metaphysically substantial theory and a metaphysically neutral criterion,but this is impossible.Furthermore,a deeper reason why grounding theory fails to complete the two purposes is that aboutness,crucial to truthmaking,is conceptually independent of grounding.