 But optimalists aren’t just “spooked” or “timid” maximalists. They stand on their two feet with a principled position of their own that need neither be based upon “gerrymandered intuition” nor adopted as a consequence of a forced retreat from maximalism. If maximalism is intellectual heir to Russell’s logical atomism, then optimalism (at least in the form under consideration) is heir to Wittgenstein’s version of the doctrine according to which it is only atomic propositions that represent the existence of states of affairs. The optimalists’ idea is that once truth-makers have been supplied for the atomic truths there is simply no need to posit further truth-makers for the molecular ones. All we need to recognise is that an atomic statement P is true whenever a truth-maker for P exists, that P is false if and only if no truth-maker for P exists. Once the existence and non-existence of the truth-makers has settled the truth-values of all the atomic statements, the logical operations described by the truth-tables then settle the truth and falsity of all the molecular statements (another story must be told about what the truth-makers are for the non-extensional constructions—another elephant in the room). In particular, the truth-table for negation—that tells us what “~” means—assures us that if P is false then ~P is true. So all it takes to make ~P true is that no truth-maker for P exists. Thus Mulligan, Simons, and Smith: 