Truthmaker Internalism and the Mind-Dependence of Propositions

Abstract

It is generally thought that truthmaking has to be an internal relation because if it weren’t, then, as David Armstrong argues, “everything may be a truthmaker for any truth” (1997: 198). Depending on whether we take an internal relation to be one that is necessitated by the mere existence of its terms (Armstrong 1997: 87 and 2004: 9) or one that supervenes on the intrinsic properties of its relata (Lewis 1986: 62), the truthbearers involved in the truthmaking relation must either have their contents essentially or intrinsically. In this paper, I examine Armstrong’s account (1973; 1997 and 2004), according to which what is made true at the fundamental level are mental state tokens. The conclusion is reached that such tokens have their contents neither essentially nor intrinsically, and so, are simply the wrong kind of entities to be made true internally.