At the core of Jamin Asay’s book is a distinction and a claim. The distinction is between two conceptions of truthmaker theory. On one of them, truthmaker theory aims at “ontological accounting”—that is, “properly coordinating our beliefs and ontological inventories”; on the other conception, it aims at “alethic explanation”—that is, “offering systematic explanations as to why true truth-bearers are true” (31). The claim is that we should embrace the first conception and abandon the second.
The distinction is spelled out, and the claim defended, in part 1 of the book, entitled “Foundations.” There, Asay also defends the (nowadays) nonorthodox view that truthmaking is necessitation; he argues, against many philosophers, that truthmaker maximalism—the view that all truths have truthmakers—is not part of the “nature” of truthmaker theory and that truthmaker theorists should reject it; and he finally addresses several objections against the theory. In part 2, he discusses the consequences that...
