Analytic Philosophy, Volume 63, Issue 1, Page 44-61, March 2022.

Priority Monism—the position that what is fundamental is one object, the Cosmos—has recently been brought to the fore by Jonathan Schaffer, who has put forward a variety of arguments in its favour. However, Priority Monism has been criticised on the grounds that junk—where for some structure to be junky is for every object in it to be a proper part of another object in the structure—is metaphysically possible. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the monist can deal (...) with this problem. I argue they can successfully argue against junk's possibility, but their response leaves a new problem for monism. To address this problem, they need to develop a new version of Priority Monism, on which the Cosmos is identical to all its parts taken collectively. I denote this version of monism as Weak Priority Monism. Contra Schaffer, I think a Priority Monist can and should hold to the thesis that Composition is Identity. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem concerning the principles of the metaphysics explanatory basis, which provide the achievement of the goals in this most general, most abstract, and, at the same time, the most debatable field of knowledge. Different kinds of explanatory basis in metaphysics are analyzed – cosmic mereological monism, structural cosmic monism, cosmic modal monism, natural substance monism, transcendent substance monism, existential monism, abstract monism as well as the similar kinds of metaphysical pluralism including atomism and space-time pluralism. (...) The implausibility of pluralism and its inefficiency for solving the problems of metaphysics is argued, while for metaphysical monism the need for its clarification as a grounding force is stated. The conception of super-monism is proposed. It is based on the logic of fundamental reality which differs from generally accepted formal logic in that it lacks logical laws, primarily the law of contradiction. The fundamental reality is defined as pure being which is identical with a difference, identity, existence, and the existing. By the identification of the various, this reality is defined as one. By identity with distinction, this reality is defined as the ground of all world diversity. Being which is expressed in terms of difference and identity is reflected in the metaphysical formula, which is proposed as the only tool for describing everything that exists at the extremely abstract level. (shrink)

Discussion of atomistic and monistic theses about abstract reality.

Priority monism is roughly the view that the universe is the only fundamental object, that is, a concrete object that does not depend on any other concrete object. Schaffer, the main advocate of PM, claims that PM is compatible with dependence having two different directions: from parts to wholes for subcosmic wholes, and from whole to parts for the cosmic whole. Recently it has been argued that this position is untenable. Given plausible assumptions about dependence, PM entails that dependence has (...) only one direction, it always goes from wholes to parts. One such plausible assumption is a principle of Isolation. I argue that, given all extant accounts of dependence on the market, PM entails No Isolation. The argument depends upon a particular feature of the dependence relation, namely, necessitation and its direction. In the light of this, I contend that the argument is important, insofar as it suggests that we should distinguish dependence from other cognate notions, e.g. grounding. Once this distinction is made, I suggest we should also distinguish between two different notions of fundamentality that might turn out to be not-coextensive. (shrink)

Discussion of a metaphysical sense of 'inheritance' and cognate notions relevant to fundamentality.

In a series papers, Jonathan Schaffer defended priority monism, the thesis that the cosmos is the only fundamental material object, on which all other objects depend. A primitive notion of dependence plays a crucial role in Schaffer’s argu- ments for priority monism. The goal of this paper is to scrutinize this notion and also to shed new light on what is at stake in the debate. I present three familiar arguments for priority monism and point out that each relies on (...) a connecting principle that ties dependence to other metaphysical relations. I then argue for two desiderata: the relation between dependence and other metaphysical relations needs to be strong enough to establish that other metaphysical relations are relevant to the direction of dependence but not so strong as to leave no room for revisionary versions of priority monism. I propose a particular way of meeting these desiderata, according to which the target notion of dependence is graded rather than all-or-nothing. One upshot is that we should be less preoccupied with priority monism itself and should instead focus on specific aspects of a broader monistic worldview. (shrink)

Monism, characterized by Jonathan Schaffer as the thesis that the cosmos is the one and only basic actual concrete object, has been the subject of a great deal of recent interest. Spinoza is often taken, rightly, to be an important forebear. This article seeks to explain the distinctive content and basis of Spinoza’s monistic metaphysics and to compare it to contemporary Monism. It then argues that although Spinoza’s monistic metaphysics is not strictly a version of Monism as defined, it has (...) a number of theoretical advantages that make central aspects of it worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)