Fundamentality without Foundations

Abstract

A commonly held view is that a central aim of metaphysics is to give a fundamental account of reality which refers only to the fundamental entities. But a puzzle arises. It is at least a working hypothesis for those pursuing the aim that, first, there must be fundamental entities. But, second, it also seems possible that the world has no foundation, with each entity depending on others. These two claims are inconsistent with the widely held third claim that the fundamental just is the foundational. It is tempting to resolve the puzzle by rejecting the first or second claim, perhaps because it is obscure how the third claim might plausibly be challenged. But I develop a new analysis of fundamentality which challenges the third claim by allowing for an entity to be fundamental without being foundational. The analysis, roughly, is that an entity is fundamental (or ineliminable, as I call it) just in case not all facts about it are grounded in facts about other entities. The possibility of fundamentality without foundations not only provides for a novel resolution to the puzzle, but has applications to some live debates: for example, it undermines Jonathan Schaffer's modal argument for priority monism.

Constitutive Explanation

“…Raven (forthcoming) distinguishes between “unionists”, who identify ground with metaphysical explanation, from “separatists” who distinguish them. In his terms, I would count as a unionist and Schaffer a separatist.…”

Ground

“…What's more, this job description can be bolstered by exploring new and fruitful applications of ground. One such application is to the characterization of an entity's being eliminable from the ultimate account of reality: roughly, it is eliminable if all the facts about it are grounded in facts not about it (Raven []). Because this characterization crucially appeals to ground instead of other kinds of dependence, it does not prejudge whether ineliminable entities can depend on others.…”

Priority monism

“…For an alternative grounding‐theoretic take on fundamentality, see Raven (). Raven argues that Schaffer's gunk argument for priority monism (something we later consider) fails given his conception of fundamentality.…”

“…In addition to displaying a mereological structure, concreta display a topological structure-this concrete entity is next to that one, these concreta are between those, and so on Giberman (2015). develops a concrete foundationalist thesis that aims to characterize the c-fundamental concreta in topological rather than mereological terms.6 For an alternative grounding-theoretic take on fundamentality, seeRaven (2016). Raven argues that Schaffer's gunk argument for priority monism (something we later consider) fails given his conception of fundamentality.7 Relevant here is the thesis of foundationalism according to which any grounded entity is grounded by fundamental entities.…”