Primitivism about Intrinsicality

Skiles, Alexander

doi:10.1515/9783110292596.221

Companion to Intrinsic Properties 2014

DOI: 10.1515/9783110292596.221

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Primitivism about Intrinsicality

Alexander Skiles¹

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2017

2024

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Cited by 7 publications

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“… Correia (forthcoming) and Skiles (, pp. 225‐230) sketch accounts of full real definition on the model of reductive analysis utilizing notions of grounding. …”

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confidence: 99%

Grounding, Essence, and Identity

Correia

Skiles

2017

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Recent metaphysics has turned its focus to two notions that are-as well as having a common Aristotelian pedigree-widely thought to be intimately related: grounding and essence. Yet how, exactly, the two are related remains opaque. We develop a unified and uniform account of grounding and essence, one which understands them both in terms of a generalized notion of identity examined in recent work by Fabrice Correia, Cian Dorr, Agustín Rayo, and others. We argue that the account comports with antecedently plausible principles governing grounding, essence, and identity taken individually, and illuminates how the three interact. We also argue that the account compares favorably to an alternative unification of grounding and essence recently proposed by Kit Fine.Recent metaphysics has turned its focus to two notions that are-as well as having a common Aristotelian pedigree-widely thought to be intimately related:grounding (when some phenomenon non-causally 'derives' from another) and essence (when some phenomenon is in the 'nature' of another). However, how they're related remains quite opaque. 1 We aim to clarify their link by proposing a unified and uniform account of both notions that analyzes them in terms of a third: what we call, following Linnebo (2014), generalized identity. Along with the intrinsic desirability of accounting for either notion alone (which has proven elusive), our proposal illuminates how the two interact by means of a single, relatively wellbehaved conceptual tool.What do we mean by "generalized" identity? Objectual identities (e.g. "Hesperus is Phosphorus") are familiar, and display a canonical form: an identity-indicating * This article is the product of full and equal collaboration between its authors; the order of authorship is alphabetical.

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“… Correia (forthcoming) and Skiles (, pp. 225‐230) sketch accounts of full real definition on the model of reductive analysis utilizing notions of grounding. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grounding, Essence, and Identity

Correia

Skiles

2017

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Ground by Status

Vogt

2024

Philos Stud

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What is the explanatory role of ‘status-truths’ such as essence-truths, necessity-truths and law-truths? A plausible principle, suggested by various authors, is Ground by Status, according to which status truths ground their prejacents. For instance, if it is essential to a that p, then this grounds the fact that p. But Ground by Status faces a forceful objection: it is inconsistent with widely accepted principles regarding the logic of grounding (Glazier in Philos Stud 174(11):2871–2889, 2017a, Synthese 174(198):1409–1424, 2017b; Kappes in Synthese 199(1–2):2575–2595, 2020, Philos Stud 178(4):1267–1284, 2021). I defend Ground by Status against this objection.

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Metaphysical Constraints, Primitivism, and Reduction

Bertrand¹

2019

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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The argument from absence of analysis (AAA) infers primitivism about some x from the absence of a reductive analysis of x. But philosophers use the word ‘primitive’ to mean many distinct things. I argue that there is a robust sense of ‘primitive’ present in the metaphysics literature that cannot be inferred via the AAA. Successfully demonstrating robust primitivism about some x requires showing two things at once: that a reduction of x is not possible and that an explanatorily deep characterization of x is not available. In order to secure this second explanatory claim, the AAA must wrongly assume that reductive analysis is our only source of explanatory characterization. I argue that this is false by offering a distinct way of providing explanatory characterizations backed by suitably understood metaphysical constraints. While there remains a minimal sense of ‘primitive’ inferable via the AAA, this sense is exhausted by the denial of reduction. With minimal primitivism as its target, the AAA is uninteresting.

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Primitivism about Intrinsicality

Cited by 7 publications

References 39 publications

Grounding, Essence, and Identity

Grounding, Essence, and Identity

Ground by Status

Metaphysical Constraints, Primitivism, and Reduction

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