The Facts in Logical Space

Abstract

Suppose you are a factalist. That is, suppose you believe that the world ultimately consists of (atomic) facts. Perhaps this is because you are attracted to some version of truthmaker theory, in which case, facts might well be the sought-for entities that necessitate any truth that there is. Or perhaps you are a factalist because you think that modality is ultimately a matter of recombination and that possibilities are generated by reshuffling atomic predications, so that taking modality to be a recombination of facts will give you all and only the possibilities that there are. Or perhaps your factalism is due to your having been convinced that there is only one category of things and that facts – under which individuals, qualities and many other things can be subsumed – are the best candidates for the required unifying category. No matter what your reasons are, you will have to explain why the world appears to ultimately consist not of facts – or perhaps not only of facts – but also of tables, books, pens and so on. In this rich and detailed book, Jason Turner sets out to provide the required explanation. And although he does not take the project to be a linguistic one, he thinks that it is convenient to carry it out by giving a grounding story, that is, by showing how the language we ordinarily use to talk about the world – the language of appearances – is related to the fundamental language, which only talks about facts. Thus, at the most general level, a grounding story will match sentences in the language of appearances with sentences in the fundamental language and, in so doing, will explain how appearances emerge from the facts. This is compatible with a number of views on the relationship between facts and appearances. On one view, there are no objects and qualities, only facts. In this case, the grounding story will in particular explain how we can talk as if there are objects and qualities. On another view, there are objects and qualities, but they are ultimately reducible to facts: there really are only facts. In this case, the grounding story will in particular explain how we can talk as if there really are objects and qualities. On yet another view, there really are objects and qualities, but they are metaphysically dependent upon the facts. In this case, the grounding story will in particular explain how we can talk as if objects and qualities exist unconstrained from the facts even though they metaphysically depend on them.