On Shaky Ground? Exploring the Contingent Fundamentality Thesis

In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure. Oxford University Press (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The past decade and a half has seen an absolute explosion of literature discussing the structure of reality. One particular focus here has been on the fundamental. However, while there has been extensive discussion, numerous fundamental questions about fundamentality have not been touched upon. In this chapter, I focus on one such lacuna about the modal strength of fundamentality. More specifically, I am interested in exploring the contingent fundamentality thesis - that is, the idea that the fundamentalia are only contingently fundamental (or, in property-terms, that the property of being fundamental is not a (weakly) necessary property). And while I think this thesis is plausible – indeed, I show here that it lurks in the unexamined shadows/assumptions of some fairly prominent positions – as far as I can tell, nothing has been said either for or against it. Here, I hope to fix this by giving the thesis a proper airing. In this way, this chapter represents a first-pass at exploring not only the modal status of fundamentality, but also offers a starting point for examining broader issues about the relationship between fundamentality and modality.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Fundamentality and Ontological Minimality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2018 - In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure. Oxford University Press. pp. 237-253.
Fundamentality and Time-Travel.Shieva Kleinschmidt - 2015 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):46-51.
Dependence and Fundamentality.Justin Zylstra - 2014 - Studia Philosophica Estonica 7 (2):5.
Degrees of Being.Kris McDaniel - 2013 - Philosophers' Imprint 13.
Two Conceptions of Fundamentality.Mariam Thalos - 2011 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 41 (2):151-177.
By Our Bootstraps.Karen Bennett - 2011 - Philosophical Perspectives 25 (1):27-41.
An Introduction to Metametaphysics.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2015 - United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Grounding in the image of causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):49-100.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-02-14

Downloads
616 (#25,130)

6 months
62 (#62,848)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Nathan Wildman
Tilburg University

Citations of this work

There are no fundamental facts.Roberto Loss - 2021 - Analysis 81 (1):32-39.
On the necessity of essence.Gaétan Bovey - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (7):2167-2185.
The Fundamentality of Fundamental Powers.Joaquim Giannotti - 2021 - Acta Analytica 36 (4):589-613.

View all 9 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Writing the Book of the World.Theodore Sider - 2011 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Modal Logic as Metaphysics.Timothy Williamson - 2013 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
A World of States of Affairs.D. M. Armstrong - 1997 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
No Work for a Theory of Grounding.Jessica M. Wilson - 2014 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (5-6):535-579.

View all 44 references / Add more references