Analyticity, Truthmaking and Mathematics

Abstract

Whereas for many truths, truthmaker theory offers a plausible account, there are certain kinds of truths for which the theory seems less helpful: principally (though not exclusively) analytic truths. I argue that an augmentation of the usual idea of truthmakers can solve this problem. Moreover that once solved we are able to look afresh at the nature of mathematics, whether conceived as analytic or synthetic, necessary or contingent, and reduce the ontological options. I also argue that it was Quine’s reformulation of analyticity, deployed in place of the correct Leibniz-Wolff-Kant account, which led to his holistic account of knowledge and pragmatist account of scientific revisability.

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