According to the deflationary theory of truth, nothing is added to the assertion, "The cat is on the mat.", by saying the "The cat is on the mat is true.", since to assert it is to say it's true. — Aleksander Kvam

But asserting the "The cat is on the mat" does not make it true. I could be lying or I could be mistaken.

What makes it true or false is whether the cat and mat being referred to is on the mat.

Another way of putting this is that to assert the cat is on the mat is not the same thing as the cat is on the mat being true.

Is what made true by "some non-obtaining state of affairs"? Do you mean that if she won the election then she would have been president? That is made true by definition (assuming that some other intervening state of affairs hadn't prevented it). — Janus

Something like "if Clinton had won the election then Trump would have cried himself to sleep that night".

But asserting the "The cat is on the mat" does not make it true. — Marchesk

The deflationist is just saying that "'the cat is on the mat' is true" and "the cat is on the mat" mean the same thing.

Compare it to saying that I am a husband if and only if I am a married man. It does say something even if not what it takes to be a married man.

And so the deflationary account is saying something even if not what it takes for a cat to be on a mat. It's just a semantic theory of truth rather than a theory on the ontology/metaphysics of cats being on mats.

Well, that may have been true, but we'll never know. :lol:

I can't see the problem; the "state of how things really are" is that she lost the election.

It is true that "The cat is on the mat" if it's a fact the cat is on the mat.

It is true that "Clinton did not win the election" if something is absent (namely, an absence of Clinton winning).

To accept correspondence as explaining the truths in these cases, one may have to endorse things like negative properties. Perhaps positive facts can explain the truths of negative facts, but it's a historically difficult project for those who believe in correspondence and truth makers. But regardless, it seems an oddity when compared to corresponding to things which are actually there.

Also what said.

But regardless, it seems an oddity when compared to corresponding to things which are actually there. — MindForged

It is, unless one accepts possible worlds into one's ontology.

Yes, but as I said it is also true that Clinton did not won the election if something is present (namely a presence of Clinton losing).

A presence of something is always the absence of some other thing(s). The fulfilment of any potential or possibilty is always the absence of fulfilment of others.

The fact that some may see this as an oddity seems odd to me. If you see reality as a system of signs or relations, then the play of presence and absence, of possibility and actuality, seems to be exactly what you would expect to see. If reality presupposes the possibility of unreality, then what else could reality consist in but such a play?

But I didn't make a negative modal claim, so possible worlds are irrelevant. If "It is true that Clinton did not win the election" is true in virtue of some fact in the actual world, it seems really strange on the face of it.

Yes, but as I said it is also true that Clinton did not won the election if something is present (namely a presence of Clinton losing).

I don't see how that's different than what I said. It sounds like if one said the winner of a chess game lost because they failed to lose. If the presence of the fact that the cat is on the mat is what makes "the cat is on the mat" true, then why does the absence of a fact make a negative claim true? The role of facts (and their ontology) seems a little odd. I mean on one hand it seems intuitively fine (even to me, who probably accepts correspondence truth), but I still struggle thinking through it.