Two Concepts of Truthmaking: a Compatibilist Solution to the Controversy Between Substantive and Deflationary Approach

Abstract

For many years there has been a debate in truthmaking theory between proponents of the substantive and deflationary approaches. Substantivists about truthmaking maintain that we need entities called truthmakers, while deflationists of truthmaking argue that the asymmetric form of the T-schema is sufficient. In contrast to incompatibilists, who argue that one should adopt only one of these approaches, I propose a compatibilist theory of truthmaking in which the two approaches complement each other through the distribution of different functions of truthmaking. I find that this helps to solve the problem of truthmaking of certain contentious truths, such as negative truths.