Arthur Schipper

• • Synthese (Peer-reviewed): (2018). Volume 195, Issue 8, August, pp. 3685--3722; [Downloaded 6,500+ times so far] OPENACCESS: here DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1396-x

  • NOTE: it is OPEN ACCESS, so the PDF is free forever; just click the link above.

  • Abstract: A central problem for any truthmaker theory is the problem of negative truths (P-NEG). In this paper, I develop a novel, piecemeal strategy for solving this problem. The strategy puts central focus on a truth-relevant notion of aboutness within a metaphysically modest version of truthmaker theory and uses key conceptual tools gained by taking a deeper look at the best attempts to solve the problem of intentionality. I begin this task by critically discussing past proposed solutions to P-NEG in light of Russell’s debate with Demos. This reveals a central difficulty with addressing the problem, specifically that one cannot be committed to incompatibility facts in one’s account of negation and of the truth of negative truths. I then present an aboutness-based version of truthmaker theory. Utilising what I call the strict and full account of aboutness, I extract aboutness-based theories of truth and falsity. I use this machinery to present a promising new strategy for solving P-NEG which does not have the problems of alternative approaches. Finally, I present and respond to some potential objections.

• • Philosophical Studies (Peer-reviewed): (2020). February, 177, pages 505–533; [Downloaded 4,500+ times so far] Published Online First and OPEN ACCESS 28 October 2018: DOI: 10.1007/s11098-018-1192-6

  • NOTE: it is OPEN ACCESS, so the PDF is free forever; just click the link above.

  • Abstract: Truthmaker theory has been used to argue for substantial conclusions about the categorial structure of the world, in particular that states of affairs are needed to play the role of truthmakers. In this paper, I argue that closely considering the role of aboutness in truthmaking, that is considering what truthbearers are about, yields the result that there is no good truthmaker-based reason to think that truthmakers must be states of affairs understood as existing entities, whether complex or simple. First, I introduce an aboutness-based account of truthmaking as a metaphysically modest alternative to the orthodox necessitarian account of truthmaking. Second, I discuss the distinction between states and events that has been made on the basis of linguistic evidence regarding aspectual markers and nominalisation. I argue that the modest approach to truthmaking allows us to accept that there is a real distinction between states and events without requiring that the distinction is ontologically substantial. Specifically, what we are talking about with state-truthbearers really differs from what we are talking about with event-truthbearers, but this difference need not be understood as a difference in kinds of entities. Because of its overall modesty, this is a theoretically virtuous result. 

• • Synthese (Peer-reviewed): (2021; 198(4):3073-3098; Online First: 4th June, 2019).  [Downloaded 6,300+ times so far]  DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02266-x; 26 pages total (Open Access)

  • NOTE: it is OPEN ACCESS, so the PDF is free forever; just click the link above.

  • Abstract: Recently, philosophers have tried to develop a version of truthmaker theory which ties the truthmaking relation (T-REL) closely to the notion of fundamentality. In fact, some of these truthmaker-fundamentalists (TF-ists), as I call them, assume that the notion of fundamentality is intelligible in part by citing, as central examples of fundamentals, truthmakers, which they understand necessarily as constituents of fundamental reality. The aim of this paper is first to bring some order and clarity to this discussion, sketching how far TF is compatible with orthodox truthmaking, and then critically to evaluate the limits of TF. It will be argued that truthmaker theory cannot directly help with articulating the nature of fundamental reality and that T-REL does not necessarily relate truths with anything more fundamental, unless what is fundamental is what the truthbearers in question are about. I shall argue that TF faces a rather thorny dilemma and some general problems. I shall present two exhaustive types of fundamentalism on which a version of TF can be based: deflationary and inflationary. It will be argued that each version of TF runs into significant troubles accounting for all truth, specifically ordinary truths and metaphysical truths about the relations between ordinary facts and fundamental facts. I shall not attempt to solve these problems, but rather, at the end, diagnose the issues with TF as lying in the difficulties with reconciling the manifest image with the scientific and metaphysical images of reality. 

• • Asian Journal of Philosophy (Peer-reviewed Book Symposium): (2022; 1(1):1-8).  [Downloaded 1900+ times so far]

  • FREE TO DOWNLOAD FOR 2 YEARS: DOI: 10.1007%2Fs44204-021-00005-z ; pre-print: PDF

  • Abstract: In this paper, I first present an overview of Asay’s A Theory of Truthmaking, highlighting what I take to be some of its most attractive features, especially his re-invigoration of the ontological understanding of truthmaking and his defence of ontology-first truthmaking over explanation-first truthmaking. Then, I articulate what I take to be a puzzling potential inconsistency: (a) he appeals to considerations to do with aboutness in criticising how well ontological views account for truth while (b) ruling out aboutness from the right account of truthmaking. He argues, instead, that necessitation is both necessary and sufficient for truthmaking (§3.3). I suggest that adding aboutness to one’s account in the right way is not just compatible with but important for ontology-first truthmaking. I do all this to invite Asay to clarify his position on these matters. Overall, Asay’s worldview displays the fruitfulness of an ontologically serious approach to metaphysics that puts truthmaking centre-stage. 

• • Metaphysica. (2022, Volume 23, Issue 2; published by De Guyter on 26 August 2022)

  • https://doi.org/10.1515/mp-2021-0035; 

  • Pre-publication version:  https://tinyurl.com/schipper-metaphysica2022-pp

  • Abstract: This paper argues that accepting an ordinary approach to truthmakers and rejecting something I call “the metaphysical knowledge assumption” (MKA) allows us to account for inquiry in terms of truthmaking. §1 introduces inquiry and the potential place of truthmakers in inquiry. §2 presents the relevant ordinary notion of truthmakers. §3 presents and motivates MKA. This assumption, I argue (§4), makes a truthmaker-focused account of inquiry whose objects are not the fundamental nature of things impossible and thus should be rejected. The ordinary picture, which understands truthmakers not exclusively in terms of the objects of fundamental reality or of semantics (§5), but in terms of the relevant, intentional objects of inquiry, gives us an attractive, general, truthmaker-based view of inquiry. 

• • Theoria (Stockholm). (2022; Volume88, Issue5, October 2022, pp. 997-1013) (behind paywall): 

  • https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12424; 

  • Pre-publication (available without paywall): here

  • Abstract: A central tenet of truthmaker theory is that necessitation is necessary for truthmaking (nec). This paper defends nec in a novel, piecemeal way, namely by responding to a potential counterexample involving a changing past. If Carter won a race at t1 but is later disqualified at t2, then Carter no longer won at t1. A wholly past event seems to have changed in the future. The event makes ‘Carter won the race at t1’ (race) true between t1-2 but fails to make it true at t2. So, we have a potential counterexample to necessitation: a truthmaker of race fails in another context to make the same truthbearer race true. I argue that the best solution to this challenge is not that there are different truthbearers at t1-2 and t2 (the semantic response), or that race was never true because of the future disqualification or will always be true despite the future disqualification. The best solution is to accept that the past can change: past events can change based on what happens in the future (e.g., via their effects). This paper's novel defence of necessitation will illustrate the importance of utilising explicitly ontological and commonsensical tools in accounting for truth. 

• • Journal of the American Philosophical Association. (2023; Volume 9, Issue 3 , September 2023 , pp. 574 - 595) (behind paywall) 

  • https://www.doi.org/10.1017/apa.2022.10, 

  • Available to view for free on the Cambridge Core Share site: https://tinyurl.com/schipper-j-apa2022-ccshare (email me if you want a PDF). 

  • Abstract: Linguistic ontologists and antilinguistic, ‘serious’ ontologists both accept the inference from ‘Fido is a dog’ to ‘Fido has the property of being a dog’ but disagree about its ontological consequences. In arguing that we are committed to properties on the basis of these transformations, linguistic ontologists employ a neo-Fregean meta-ontological principle, on which the function of singular terms is to refer. To reject this, serious ontologists must defend an alternative. This paper defends an alternative on which the function of singular terms is not generally to refer and on which they are generally ontologically noncommittal. This is the best way to reject linguistic, ‘easy’ arguments for the existence of properties. The account recommends neutralism about quantification (drawing on Barcan Marcus and Meinongianism), coherently bringing together two important yet uncombined meta-ontological movements. Moreover, it employs Ramseyan insights about the transformations to provide a nonreductionist, non-error-theoretic redundancy approach to explicit talk about properties. 

• • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

  • Published on 4 November 2023 (free to access): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/price/ 

  • co-authored with Paul F. Snowdon; I am the official first author and editor of the entry.

  • Abstract: This paper presents Henry Habberley Price's main contributions to philosophy, especially in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, studies of David Hume, and the philosophy of religion, and his influence on contemporary philosophy.

• • Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy; Cambridge University Press; 2024; Volume 99, Issue 4: 563-595; doi:10.1017/S0031819124000238

  • Gold Open Access (free forever): here

  • Direct link to the PDF: here

  • Abstract: This paper presents an abductive argument for realism and truthmaker realism as follows. A metaphysical theory is better if it ontologically accounts for truths better than its rivals (the Abductive Principle). Truthmaker realism gives us a better ontological account for truths than its antirealist truthmaker rivals (Abductive Step). So, truthmaker realism is better than antirealist rivals. It presents the truthmaker project as an abductive project which asks us what accounts best ontologically for our truths. Antirealisms, especially idealisms, fail against their realist rivals on various abductive criteria. 

Truthmaker realism is plagued by three main objections. Presenting an abductive argument for realism does two important things. First, it dissolves the standard objections. Second, it shows how truthmaker realism is overall better motivated than antirealist, pluralist, and neutralist rivals. Simple truthmaker principles added to a plausible abductive package of principles give us a straightforward argument for realism and against antirealism or any neutralist middle ground.

• • European Journal of Philosophy (2025); Volume 33, Issue 1

  • https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejop.12925?af=R

  • Pre-print pdf available here

  • Abstract: There is a wide variety of cases of alienation, including (a) when an agent is alienated from her own motivational states and (b) deviant causal cases when an agent's motivational states cause her intended actions but via a deviant causal pathway. Reflecting on the variety of kinds of alienation reveals that action explanation still needs to account for the positive role that agents play in non-alienated actions in general. To fill this gap, this paper identifies a sui generis but crucial notion of control, what I call “synchronic executive control,” where agents act on their reasons, which must be distinguished from (a) endorsing one's reasons as reasonable or as the reasons for action (from the autonomy literature), and (b) other, diachronic notions of executive control such as competence, skills-based control, planning-based control, and counterfactual control generally (from especially the deviant causation literature). The presence of such executive control is crucial for explaining the role of agents in non-alienated actions, and its absence explains the lack of agency in alienation cases. The result is the identification of a relationship agents have with their reasons which unifies the variety of non-alienated actions in a novel way.

• • Philosophical Explorations; March 2025, Volume 28, Issue 1; Early View published 28 October 2024.

  • Gold Open Access (free forever): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13869795.2024.2419652 

  • co-authored with Ivan V. Ivanov; I am the official corresponding author.

  • Abstract: In this paper, we propose an account of how perceptual evidence might allow us to draw justified conclusions about the existence of composite objects. We call the thesis at issue PERCEPTUAL ADEQUACY, and argue that a specific, naïve realist picture of the phenomenal character of perception provides us with a straightforward way to defend it. The claim that we have empirical evidence for the existence of macroscopic composites cannot be propped up merely by the plausible claim, granted by many, that our perceptual experiences have composites-presenting phenomenology. Rather, a specific account of the nature of the phenomenology is needed so that it can provide the required evidence. We propose a way to accomplish this: one on which in the good cases it would be constituted by the presentation of the truth-makers of the relevant ontological claims. We argue, further, that this potential defence of a feasible empirically-informed approach to metaphysics is preferable to the best alternative, one based on an object-dependent version of intentionalism about perceptual consciousness. 

• • 2023 in Methods of Philosophy: Lectures at Peking University by Timothy Williamson. Edited by Chen Bo. Translated into Chinese by Xu Zhaoqing. Book Chapter. Beijing: Renmin University Press.

  • English pre-print copy available: here 

  • Abstract: In this paper, I engage with Timothy Williamson's claims that philosophy is in fact and should be done abductively.

• • The Philosophical Quarterly: (2017). Volume 67, Issue 269, 1 October 2017, Pages 863–865, DOI: 10.1093/pq/pqw063; available online: here

• • Marx & Philosophy Review of Books: (2016). available online (for free): here