Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

Abstract

In recent work, the interrelated questions of whether there is a fundamental level to reality, whether ontological dependence must have an ultimate ground, and whether the monist thesis should be endorsed that the whole universe is ontologically prior to its parts have been explored with renewed interest. Jonathan Schaffer has provided arguments in favour of ‘priority monism’ in a series of articles (2003, 2004, 2007a, 2007b, forthcoming). In this paper, these arguments are analysed, and it is claimed that they are not compelling: in particular, the possibility that there is no ultimate level of basic entities that compose everything else is on a par with the possibility of infinite ‘upward’ complexity. The idea that we must, at any rate, postulate an ontologically fundamental level for methodological reasons (Cameron 2008) is also discussed and found unconvincing: all things considered, there may be good reasons for endorsing ‘metaphysical infinitism’. In any event, a higher degree of caution in formulating metaphysical claims than found in the extant literature appears advisable.

Fine’s McTaggart: Reloaded

“…For simplicity's sake in this paper I take tense-realism as equipped with a basic notion of constitution and leave a discussion of the alleged viciousness of such an infinite regress for another occasion. Among others, see Bliss (2013Bliss ( , 2014, Morganti (2009) andTahko (2014) for recent criticism of the idea that infinite regresses and circularities in explanation are always vicious.…”

Boring Infinite Descent

“…Metaphysical infinitism, as opposed to metaphysical foundationalism , allows that the (hierarchical) structure of reality could be infinitist, that is, there could be an infinite descent of “levels,” each further level dependent on the former in a yet to be specified sense of dependence (cf. Morganti , 272). But does an infinite regress of ontological dependence automatically result in a violation of fundamentality?…”

Metaphysical Interdependence

“…Morganti, 2009). Accepting asymmetry generates chains of grounding where each entity appears only once in the chain, but rather than bottoming out in some fundamental entity, these chains continue infinitely.…”