Monism and Intrinsicality

Abstract

Central to the programme of sparse ontology is a hierarchical view of reality; the basic entities form the sparse structure of being, while the derivative entities form the abundant superstructure. Priority pluralism and priority monism are both theses of sparse ontology. Roughly speaking, the priority pluralist claims that wholes and their properties ontologically depend on parts and their properties, while the priority monist claims that it goes the other way around. In this paper I focus on Ted Sider's recent argument that priority monism is probably false because it is incompatible with our best account of intrinsicality. In response I propose an account of intrinsicality that is compatible with both priority monism and priority pluralism. I argue that the account, in addition to having the virtue of being neutral between priority monism and priority pluralism, is independently plausible.1 What I have presented above as monism and pluralism Jonathan Schaffer [forthcoming] presents as versions of monism and pluralism, what he calls 'droopy' monism and pluralism. For reasons that I do not have the space to address here, I think that the 'droopy' versions of these theses are the most plausible versions, and this is why I present the droopy versions as the versions of monism and pluralism in the main text. Contrast monism and pluralism with what Schaffer [2007a;2007b;forthcoming; unpublished ms] calls 'existence' monism and pluralism. According to the former, there is only one object, the world, while, according to the latter, there are many objects, but they are all mereological atoms. See Schaffer 2007b for an argument that existence monism is preferable to existence pluralism. Returning to (priority) monism, Schaffer [forthcoming] offers three arguments for the thesis. He argues that common sense (in particular the idea that the many parts

Intrinsic/Extrinsic: A Relational Account Defended

“…However, he worries that for the definition to remain compatible with a variety of different metaphysical theories, there is no telling how much the notion of a generalized part will need to include, making a satisfactory version of the grounding account difficult if not impossible to achieve.  Trogdon (2009) illustrates this point with the help of priority monism. On this view, facts about the world as a whole ground the facts about the world's proper parts.…”

Intrinsicality for Monists (and Pluralists)

“…In Trogdon [2009] I was not as clear as I should have been that fundamental properties for the monist, qua maximally specific distributional properties, are exhaustive in addition to comprehensive. If fundamental properties in this context were merely comprehensive, it would make sense to say that P is fundamental in w. After all, P, qua comprehensive property, covers everything about w. But if I am right that the monist should also claim that fundamental properties are exhaustive, then, once we see that P is not exhaustive because it is instantiated by a proper part of @, we can see that P is not fundamental in w after all.…”

“…In Trogdon [2009] I propose an account of intrinsicality that I claim is both independently plausible and compatible with both monism and pluralism. What is the account?…”

“…In Trogdon [2009] I distinguish between what I call 'intra-virtue-of' and 'inter-virtue-of' relations. A property P of an object x is instantiated intra-virtue-of a property Q of an object y just in case P is instantiated in virtue of Q and x and y occupy the same mereological level.…”

“…This objection is more complicated than the first one and requires some stage setting. In particular, I need to quickly recount five relevant (and controversial) claims I make in Trogdon [2009]. First, the theses of monism and pluralism are, if true, necessarily true.…”