Alethic pluralism and truthmaker theory

AbstractAccording to alethic pluralism, sentences belonging to different domains of discourse can be true by having different alethic (i.e., truth‐constituting) properties. Against this pluralistic view, Jamin Asay has recently argued that pluralists' appeal to multiple alethic properties is ill‐motivated because the main advantages of pluralism can already be obtained within the framework of standard truthmaker theory. In response to this objection, this paper argues that Asay's claim does not hold with respect to one of the central advantages of pluralism, namely, the ability to offer a proper understanding of the realism/anti‐realism debate. This is because, first, when simply construed, truthmaker theory can only provide an inadequate understanding of the debate, and second, when construed in certain ways that allow it to avoid inadequacy, it becomes committed to multiple alethic properties.