This dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that (...) discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to solve an existentially or universally quantified problem (e.g. to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to settle all discussions, or that it fails to settle even one discussion). In the literature, the Paradox Theory is fairly well-developed, and this dissertation provides the Failure Theory with the same tools. (shrink)

A prominent Thomistic cosmological argument maintains that an infinite regress of causes, which exhibits a certain pattern of ontological dependence among its members, would be vicious and so must terminate in a first member. Interestingly, Jonathan Schaffer offers a similar argument in the contemporary grounding literature for the view called metaphysical foundationalism. I consider the striking similarities between both arguments and conclude that both are unsuccessful for the same reason. I argue this negative result gives us indirect reason to consider (...) metaphysical infinitism as a genuine possibility, the view that chains of ontological dependence or ground can descend indefinitely. (shrink)

Modal metaphysics consumed much of the philosophical discussion at the turn of the century, yielding a number of epistemological insights. Modal analyses were applied within epistemology, yielding sensitivity and safety theories of knowledge as well as counterfactual accounts of the basing relation. The contemporary conversation has now turned to a new metaphysical notion – grounding – opening the way to a fresh wave of insights by bringing grounding into epistemology. In this paper, I attempt one such application, making sense of (...) the epistemic regress problem in terms of grounding. I argue that the relation that generates the epistemic regress is a grounding relation, showing that grounding can make sense of proposals by epistemic foundationalists and charting the course for similar applications to epistemic coherentism and epistemic infinitism. If it is right that grounding is involved in the epistemic regress, this points the way forward both for epistemologists and metaphysicians, revealing the prospects of solutions to the epistemic regress problem while providing grounding advocates with yet another example of grounding with which to theorize. (shrink)

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

This chapter argues that from a particularly weak recombination principle and plausible assumptions about the nature of parthood and location, it follows that it is possible that the mereological structure of the material world and that of space-time fail to correspond to one another in very radical ways. The chapter suggests, moreover, that rejecting the possibility of such failures of correspondence leaves us with a choice of no less unappealing alternatives. It also discusses a few ways in which their possibility (...) is relevant to various important debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

Priority pluralism, perdurantism and that temporal gunk – where some interval of time is gunky iff every interval of it has a proper subinterval – is at least metaphysically possible, are three commonly held views in contemporary metaphysics. However, there cannot be a temporally gunky world where objects perdure, and where there are mereological simples. Given that – as I will argue – pluralists should be committed to atomism, and cannot plausibly revise their view to accommodate temporal gunk if they (...) are perdurantists, pluralism is incompatible with the combination of temporal gunk and perdurantism. Therefore, priority pluralism, perdurantism and the possibility of temporal gunk are jointly incompatible, and at least one of these views must be false. Subsequently, it means that at least one of the following views must be true: priority monism or metaphysical infinitism; endurantism; and/or that time is atomistic. The triad's inconsistency, then, has some interesting metaphysical implications. (shrink)

Once one accepts that certain things metaphysically depend upon, or are metaphysically explained by, other things, it is natural to begin to wonder whether these chains of dependence or explanation must come to an end. This essay surveys the work that has been done on this issue—the issue of grounding and infinite descent. I frame the discussion around two questions: (1) What is infinite descent of ground? and (2) Is infinite descent of ground possible? In addressing the second question, I (...) will consider a number of arguments that have been made for and against the possibility of infinite descent of ground. When relevant, I connect the discussion to two important views about the way reality can be structured by grounding: metaphysical foundationalism and metaphysical infinitism. (shrink)

Fundamentality plays a pivotal role in discussions of ontology, supervenience, and possibility, and other key topics in metaphysics. However, there are two different ways of characterising the fundamental: as that which is not grounded, and as that which is the ground of everything else. I show that whether these two characterisations pick out the same property turns on a principle—which I call “Dichotomy”—that is of independent interest in the theory of ground: that everything is either fully grounded or not even (...) partially grounded. I then argue that Dichotomy fails: some facts have partial grounds that cannot be complemented to a full ground. Rejecting Dichotomy opens the door to recognising a bifurcation in our notion of fundamentality. I sketch some of the far-reaching metaphysical consequences this might have, with reference to big-picture views such as Humeanism. Since Dichotomy is entailed by the standard account of partial ground, according to which partial grounds are subpluralities of full grounds, a non-standard account is needed. In a technical “Appendix”, I show that truthmaker semantics furnishes such an account, and identify a semantic condition that corresponds to Dichotomy. (shrink)

Kant presents three principles of modality in the Critique of Pure Reason. Historically, commentators have mostly disregarded them; a few have rejected them outright. In recent years, however, a consensus has begun to develop around the idea that the role of these principles is to rule out certain metaphysical doctrines. I argue that this understates their importance. Rather, the principles of modality are essential conditions of the possibility of experience. I conclude by examining the question of their truth, which, I (...) argue, can only be grasped by considering them as postulates—i.e., as practical propositions of a certain kind. (shrink)

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

Contemporary metaphysicians have been drawn to a certain attractive picture of the structure of the world. This picture consists in classical mereology, the priority of parts over wholes, and the well-foundedness of metaphysical priority. In this short note, I show that this combination of theses entails superatomism, which is a significant strengthening of mereological atomism. This commitment has been missed in the literature due to certain sorts of models of mereology being overlooked. But the entailment is an important one: we (...) must either accept superatomism or reject one (or other) of the most widespread theses of contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Two kinds of explanation might be put forward. The first goes like this: the necessary connection between the location of a whole and the location of its parts holds because the location of the whole is nothing but the collective location of its parts. The second style of explanation goes like this: the connection holds because what it is for a material whole to have something as a part, is (perhaps among other things) for the whole to contain the part.

Recently I defended a hybrid view of persistence whereby simple objects endure while composite objects are stage related. I argued that it deserves further investigation given the explanatory work it does with regard to two problems raised in the literature on the metaphysics of the persistence of objects. In this paper I look at two further problems that have been raised—one from natural explanation, the other from time travel. I show how the hybrid view is able to deal with these (...) problems. In doing so I further build the case that the hybrid view is a serious contender in the persistence debate based on the explanatory work it can do. (shrink)

Realists about universals face a question about grounding. Are things how they are because they instantiate the universals they do? Or do they instantiate those universals because they are how they are? Take Ebenezer Scrooge. You can say that Scrooge is greedy because he instantiates greediness, or you can say that Scrooge instantiates greediness because he is greedy. I argue that there is reason to prefer the latter to the former. I develop two arguments for the view. I also respond (...) to some concerns one might have about the view defended. I close by showing that analogous views regarding the truth of propositions and the existence of facts are supported by analogs of one of these arguments. (shrink)

In this article I introduce a hybrid view of persistence whereby simple objects persist by enduring while composite objects persist by being stage-related. I first show how, by sharing certain features and not others with the standard views of persistence, this hybrid view navigates two metaphysical problems that have been raised against such standard views. I then consider some implications of the view by addressing a couple of worries that may be raised against it. I conclude that this hybrid view (...) provides an attractive theory, one that deserves further investigation in the debate on persistence. (shrink)

A number of philosophers think that grounding is, in some sense, well-founded. This thesis, however, is not always articulated precisely, nor is there a consensus in the literature as to how it should be characterized. In what follows, I consider several principles that one might have in mind when asserting that grounding is well-founded, and I argue that one of these principles, which I call ‘full foundations’, best captures the relevant claim. My argument is by the process of elimination. For (...) each of the inadequate principles, I illustrate its inadequacy by showing either that it excludes cases that should not be ruled out by a well-foundedness axiom for grounding, or that it admits cases that should be ruled out. (shrink)

Several disputes about the nature of experience operate under the assumption that experiences have parts, including temporal parts. There's the widely held view, when it comes to temporal experiences, that we should follow James' exhortation that such experiences aren't mere successions of their temporal parts, but something more. And there's the question of whether it is the parts of experiences which determine whole experiences and the properties they have, or whether the determination goes instead from the whole to the parts, (...) as holists have it. But what are parts, or temporal parts, of experiences exactly—what does it mean to say that an experience is “part” of another? Are the participants in those disputes talking about the same thing—is there a univocal notion of “experiential part” available? Are there different kinds of experiential parts? And if there are, is there a systematic way of carving them out? More importantly, how should we conceive of the temporal parts of experiences, and how can we establish that experiences really do have temporal parts, against those who reject the notion? (shrink)