Suppose that A explains B. Do A and B need to be true? Provided that we have metaphysical explanation in mind, orthodoxy answers “yes:” metaphysical explanation is factive. This article introduces and defends a non-factive notion of metaphysical explanation. I argue that we need a non-factive notion of explanation in order to make sense of explanationist arguments where we motivate a view by claiming that it offers better explanations than its competitors. After presenting and rejecting some initially plausible rivals, I (...) account for non-factive metaphysical explanation by drawing on existing applications of structural equation models to metaphysical grounding. (shrink)

This paper develops and articulates a metaphysics of intersectionality, the idea that multiple axes of social oppression cross-cut each other. Though intersectionality is often described through metaphor, theories of intersectionality can be formulated using the tools of contemporary analytic metaphysics. A central tenet of intersectionality theory, that intersectional identities are inseparable, can be framed in terms of explanatory unity. Further, intersectionality is best understood as metaphysical and explanatory priority of the intersectional category over its constituents, akin to metaphysical priority of (...) the whole over its parts. (shrink)

In recent years, a hierarchical view of reality has become extremely influential. In order to understand the world as a whole, on this view, we need to understand the nature of the fundamental constituents of the world. We also need to understand the relations that build the world up from these fundamental constituents. Building pluralism is the view that there are at least two equally fundamental relations that together build the world. It has been widely, though tacitly, assumed in a (...) variety of important metaphysical debates. However, my primary aim in this paper is to argue that this has been a mistake. I will show that serious problems concerning the relationship between building and fundamentality afflict pluralism and are likely fatal to it. I claim that, for better or worse, our best hope is building singularism, the view that there is a single most fundamental building relation. I conclude by examining the advantage that singularist accounts enjoy over their pluralist rivals. (shrink)

Debates over what is fundamental assume that what is most fundamental must be either a “top” level (roughly, the biggest or highest-level thing), or a “bottom” level (roughly, the smallest or lowest-level things). Here I sketch an alternative to top-ism and bottom-ism, the view that a middle level could be the most fundamental, and argue for its plausibility. I then suggest that the view satisfies the desiderata of asymmetry, irreflexivity, transitivity, and well-foundedness of fundamentality, that the view has explanatory power (...) on par with that of top-ism and bottom-ism, and that it satisfies the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI present a new objection to Bundle Theory. The objection rests on the repeatability of universals, and targets every version of Bundle Theory that assumes that concrete particulars constituted by the same universals are numerically identical. The only way that bundle theorists can elude this objection is to admit the possibility of distinct bundles constituted by the same universals. If even this view is untenable, then Bundle Theory as such is hopeless. Finally, I show how the present inquiry reshapes the (...) dialectical relationship between Bundle Theory and the principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. (shrink)

I argue for the claim in the title. Along the way, I also address an independently interesting question: what is metaphysics, anyway? I think that the typical characterizations of metaphysics are inadequate, that a better one is available, and that the better one helps explain why metaphysics is no more problematic than the rest of philosophy.

A variety of relations widely invoked by philosophers—composition, constitution, realization, micro-basing, emergence, and many others—are species of what I call ‘building relations’. I argue that they are conceptually intertwined, articulate what it takes for a relation to count as a building relation, and argue that—contra appearances—it is an open possibility that these relations are all determinates of a common determinable, or even that there is really only one building relation.

Steinberg has recently proposed an argument against Schaffer’s priority monism. The argument assumes the principle of Necessity of Monism, which states that if priority monism is true, then it is necessarily true. In this paper, I argue that Steinberg’s objection can be eluded by giving up Necessity of Monism for an alternative principle, that I call Essentiality of Fundamentality, and that such a principle is to be preferred to Necessity of Monism on other grounds as well.

I argue that it is intuitive and useful to think about composition in the light of the familiar functionalist distinction between role and occupant. This involves factoring the standard notion of parthood into two related notions: being a parthood slot and occupying a parthood slot. One thing is part of another just in case it fills one of that thing's parthood slots. This move opens room to rethink mereology in various ways, and, in particular, to see the mereological structure of (...) a composite as potentially outreaching the individual entities that are its parts. I sketch one formal system that allows things to have individual entities as parts multiple times over. This is particularly useful to David Armstrong, given Lewis's charge that his structural universals must do exactly that. I close by reflecting upon the nature and point of formal mereology. (shrink)

Recently much has been made of the grounding relation, and of the idea that it is intimately tied to fundamentality. If A grounds B, then A is more fundamental than B (though not vice versa ), and A is ungrounded if and only if it is fundamental full stop—absolutely fundamental. But here is a puzzle: is grounding itself absolutely fundamental?

This paper applies what I call the shrieking method (a refined version of an idea with roots in Priest's work) to one of – if not the – issues confronting glut-theoretic approaches to paradox (viz., the problem of ‘just true’ or, what comes to the same, ‘just false’). The paper serves as a challenge to formulate a problem of ‘just true’ that isn't solved by shrieking (as advanced in this paper), if such a problem be thought to exist.

I argue that an individual has aspects numerically identical with it and each other that nonetheless qualitatively differ from it and each other. This discernibility of identicals does not violate Leibniz's Law, however, which concerns only individuals and is silent about their aspects. They are not in its domain of quantification. To argue that there are aspects I will appeal to the internal conflicts of conscious beings. I do not mean to imply that aspects are confined to such cases, but (...) the best way to start is to recognize them experientially. We can feel the conflicts within ourselves. In doing so we can feel some of our aspects. I will try to enhance our understanding of the concept of aspect by listing and formalizing some principles for its use. After that I will argue that all sorts of individual things have aspects, not just people who are conflicted. (shrink)

The Physical Intentionality Thesis claims that dispositions share the marks of psychological intentionality; therefore, intentionality is not exclusively a mental phenomenon. Beyond the standard five marks, Alexander Bird introduces two additional marks of intentionality that he argues dispositions do not satisfy: first, thoughts are extrinsic; second, the direction of causation is that objects cause thoughts, not vice versa. In response, this paper identifies two relevant conceptions of extrinsicness, arguing that dispositions show deep parallels to thoughts on both conceptions. Then, it (...) shows that Bird’s discussion of direction of causation overlooks complexities of dispositionality and intentionality that problematize apparent differences between thoughts and dispositions. The paper ends with a discussion of why we find these parallels between thoughts and dispositions. (shrink)

If the universe and God are identical, as pantheism holds, how can we reconcile the supposed unity of God with the apparent dis-unity of the universe’s elements? I argue that a powers ontology, which generates a form of pantheism under plausible assumptions, is apt to solve the problem of unity. There is reason to think that the directedness of powers is equivalent to the directedness, or intentionality, of mental states. This implies that intentionality is a feature of the physical world (...) at large, not just the mind. As Pfeifer argues, this physical intentionality represents a mild form of panpsychism that is interpretable as a brand of pantheism. I argue that the theory of powers holism explains the unity of the universe’s elements and thus the unity of a pantheistic God, and that powers holism is strengthened by fully recognizing the role of physical intentionality. (shrink)

This paper motivates and develops a new theory of time: priority presentism. Priority presentism is the view according to which (i) only present entities exist fundamentally and (ii) past and future entities exist, but they are grounded in the present. The articulation of priority presentism is an exercise in applied grounding: it draws on concepts from the recent literature on ontological dependence and applies those concepts in a new way, to the philosophy of time. The result, as I will argue, (...) is an attractive position that can do much of the same work in satisfying our intuitions about time as presentism, but without the ontological cost. (shrink)

Mereological harmony is the idea that the mereological structure of objects mirrors the mereological structure of locations. Grounding harmony is the idea that there is a similar mirroring between the grounding structure of objects and locations. Our goal in this paper is exploratory: we introduce and then explore two notions of grounding harmony: locative and structural. We outline potential locative and structural harmony principles for grounding, and show which of these principles may entail, or be entailed by, principles of mereological (...) harmony. We then present a case study in grounding harmony, by applying it to Schaffer’s :31, 2010a) specific version of priority monism. We show that, given a strong form of grounding harmony, Schaffer-style monism is inconsistent, but that this inconsistency can be resolved by offering bespoke notions of grounding harmony. We use Schaffer’s priority monism to demonstrate a broader tension within certain packages of metaphysical views, including versions of priority pluralism. We close by briefly considering the case against structural grounding harmony. (shrink)

Social constructionism is often considered a form of anti-realism. But in contemporary feminist philosophy, an increasing number of philosophers defend views that are well-described as both realist and social constructionist. In this paper, I use the work of Sally Haslanger as an example of realist social constructionism. I argue: that Haslanger is best interpreted as defending metaphysical realism about social structures; that this type of metaphysical realism about the social world presents challenges to some popular ways of understanding metaphysical realism.

Priority monism (hereafter, ‘monism’) is the view that there exists one fundamental entity—the world—and that all other objects that exist (a set of objects typically taken to include tables, chairs, and the whole menagerie of everyday items) are merely derivative. Jonathan Schaffer has defended monism in its current guise, across a range of papers. Each paper looks to add something to the monistic picture of the world. In this paper we argue that monism—as Schaffer describes it—is false. To do so (...) we develop an ‘island universe’ argument against Schaffer's monistic theory. (shrink)

We defend two claims: (1) if one is attracted to a strong non-maximalist view about truthmaking, then it is natural to construe this as the view that there exist fundamental truths; (2) despite considerable aversion to fundamental truths, there is as yet no viable independent argument against them. That is, there is no argument against the existence of fundamental truths that is independent of any more specific arguments against the ontology accepted by the strong non-maximalist. Thus there is no argument (...) that the strong non-maximalist herself will find dialectically motivating. (shrink)

According to the Ontological Innocence Thesis (OIT), grounded entities are ontologically innocent relative to their full grounds. I argue that OIT entails a contradiction, and therefore must be discarded. My argument turns on the notion of “groundmates,” two or more numerically distinct entities that share at least one of their full grounds. I argue that, if OIT is true, then it is both the case that there are groundmates and that there are no groundmates. Therefore, so I conclude, OIT is (...) false. Moreover, once we have seen why OIT is false, only three heterodox views about reality's structure remain. So this paper’s second conclusion is that, even after we have discarded OIT, we are in for an additional surprise. (shrink)

Ockham's razor asks that we not multiply entities beyond necessity. The razor is a powerful methodological tool, enabling us to articulate reasons for preferring one theory to another. There are those, however, who would modify the razor. Schaffer, for one, tells us that, ‘I think the proper rendering of Ockham's razor should be ‘Do not multiply fundamental entities without necessity’’. Our aim, here, is to challenge such re-workings of Ockham's razor.

I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what, and about what grounds what—can be used to deflect or neutralize the threat posed by a debunking explanation. I use a well-known debunking argument in the metaphysics of material objects as a case study. Then, after defending the proposed strategy from the charge of question-begging, I close by showing how the proposed strategy can be used by certain (...) moral realists to resist the evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

A fundamental fact is “pure” just in case it has no grounded entities—ex. Tokyo, President Biden, the River Nile, {Socrates}, etc.—among its constituents. Purity is the thesis that every fundamental fact is pure. I argue that Purity is false. My argument begins with a familiar conditional: if Purity is true, then there are no fundamental “grounding facts” or facts about what grounds what. This conditional is accepted by virtually all of Purity’s defenders. However, I argue that it is also the (...) first step toward Purity’s undoing. For, if every grounding fact has a ground, then some grounded entities have “groundmates” or distinct grounded entities that share their full grounds. But, if there are groundmates, then Purity is false. So Purity leads to a contradiction. Therefore, it is false. I close by noting that my argument against Purity also gives us a powerful reason to think that some grounding facts are fundamental. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in other words, I argue that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any composite objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain how my argument is suggestive of a much more general conclusion, namely, that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any material objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that (...) if there were a fact of the matter about whether composite objects exist, then it would be either a necessary fact or a contingent fact, and both of these alternatives are implausible. (shrink)

Many say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are (...) themselves substantive. (shrink)

Some have it that wholes are, somehow, identical to their parts. This doctrine is as alluring as it is puzzling. But in this paper, I show that the doctrine is inconsistent with two widely accepted theses. Something has to go.

We develop a new puzzle concerning a material being's relationship to the smallest parts of the material world. In particular, we investigate how a being could be responsible for anything if its be...

The doctrine of divine simplicity has recently been ably defended, but very little work has been done considering reasons to believe God is simple. This paper begins to address this lack. I consider whether divine aseity or the related notion of divine sovereignty provide us with good reason to affirm divine simplicity. Divine complexity has sometimes been thought to imply that God would possess an efficient cause; or, alternatively, that God would be grounded by God’s constituents. I argue that divine (...) complexity implies neither of these, and so that a complex God could also exist a se. Similarly, a complex God might be thought less sovereign than a simple God, due to lacking control over the divine constituents. I argue in reply that a complex God either has just as much control as a simple God, or that a complex God’s relative lack of control should cause no theological problems. The upshot is that neither the doctrines of divine aseity or of divine sovereignty give theists good reason to endorse divine simplicity. (shrink)

According to the subset account of realization, a property, F, is realized by another property, G, whenever F is individuated by a non-empty proper subset of the causal powers by which G is individuated (and F is not a conjunctive property of which G is a conjunct). This account is especially attractive because it seems both to explain the way in which realized properties are nothing over and above their realizers, and to provide for the causal efficacy of realized properties. (...) It therefore seems to provide a way around the causal exclusion problem. There is reason to doubt, however, that the subset account can achieve both tasks. The problem arises when we look closely at the relation between properties and causal powers, specifically, at the idea that properties confer powers on the things that have them. If realizers are to be ontically prior to what they realize, then we must regard the conferral of powers by properties as a substantive relation of determination. This relation of conferral is at the heart of a kind of exclusion problem, analogous to the familiar causal exclusion problem. I argue that the subset account cannot adequately answer this new exclusion problem, and is for that reason ill-suited to be the backbone of a non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

The dual-aspect monist conjecture launched by Pauli and Jung in the mid-20th century will be couched in somewhat formal terms to characterize it more concisely than by verbal description alone. After some background material situating the Pauli–Jung conjecture among other conceptual approaches to the mind–matter problem, the main body of this paper outlines its general framework of a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects. Some related (...) approaches are discussed to identify key similarities to and deviations from the Pauli–Jung framework that may be useful for cross-fertilization. (shrink)

Cases of grounding failure present a puzzle for fundamental metaphysics. Typically, solutions are thought to lie either in adding ontology such as haecceities or in re‐describing the cases by means of the ideology of metaphysical indeterminacy. The controversial status of haecceities has led some to favour metaphysical indeterminacy as the way to solve the puzzle. We consider two further treatments of grounding failure each of which, we argue, is a more plausible alternative. As such, the initial dichotomy is a false (...) one, and these alternative options deserve consideration before resorting to the heavyweight machinery of metaphysical indeterminacy. -/- . (shrink)

A ‘state of affairs’ is understood here as any kind of concrete entity that can play the role of truthmaker. Different ontologies propose different structures of entities to work as ‘states of affairs’ in this sense. Defenders of universals will propose for the role non- mereological structures of universals, objects and times. Defenders of tropes will propose tropes, either with or without universals and objects. Resemblance nominalists will propose primitive ontological facts of resemblance between objects in time. In any of (...) these cases, times are an essential component of a state of affairs. Any ontology of states of affairs, then, should clarify what times are in order to clarify what states of affairs are. An examination of the dominant reductivist conceptions of times shows that these connections have not yet been thought through carefully. In any of the dominant reductivist conceptions, times are entities that either include or describe everything that happens simultaneously at a given instant. Even in some cases they include the description of everything that happens at any time. If one introduce times taken as they are in any of these reductivist conceptions, it will be essential to a state of affairs everything that happens simultaneously with it, or even everything that happens at any time. Under some assumptions the internal relation of every state of affairs with every other state of affairs expands to the internal relation of everything with everything. This is an unhappy theoretical situation that calls for a more careful consideration of some central tenets in our ontology of time. (shrink)

Physicalism is standardly construed as a form of monism, on which all concrete phenomena fall under one fundamental type. It is natural to think that monism, and therefore physicalism, is committed to a supervenience claim. Monism is true only if all phenomena supervene on a certain fundamental type of phenomena. Physicalism, as a form of monism, specifies that these fundamental phenomena are physical. But some argue that physicalism might be true even if the world is disorderly, i.e., not ordered by (...) supervenience relations in the way commonly supposed (Montero in J Philos 110:92–110, 2013; Leuenberger in Inquiry 57:151–174, 2014; Montero and Brown in Topoi 37(3):523–532, 2018; Zhong in Philos Stud 178(5):1529–1544, 2021). Unless these authors intend to challenge the claim that physicalism is a type of monism—a claim so central to the dialectic in philosophy of mind that rejecting it risks changing the subject—they are committed to challenging a supervenience requirement for monism. We argue that monism entails that there are substantial supervenience relations among concrete phenomena: relations that would not obtain in a disorderly world. Our argument thus has implications for debates about physicalism and supervenience, and sheds light on an under-discussed issue: what is implied by classifying a theory in the philosophy of mind as a form of monism? We also argue that physicalism’s commitment to monism creates problems for _via negativa_ physicalism, on which the physical is characterized negatively. (shrink)

The supervenience requirement on physicalism says roughly that if physicalism is true then mental properties supervene on fundamental physical properties. After explaining the basis of the requirement, I defend it against objections presented by Lei Zhong (“Physicalism without supervenience,” Philosophical Studies 178 (5), 2021: 1529–44), Barbara Gail Montero (“Must physicalism imply supervenience of the mental on the physical?” Journal of Philosophy 110, 2013: 93–110), and Montero and Christopher Devlin Brown (“Making room for a this-worldly physicalism,” Topoi 37 (3), 2018: 523–32).

According to a common philosophical intuition, the deep nature of things is hidden from us, and the world as we know it through perception and science is somehow shallow and lacking in reality. For all we knwo, the intuition goes, we could be living in a cave facing shadows, in a dream or even in a computer simulation, This “intuition of unreality” clashes with a strong, but perhaps more naive, intuition to the effect that the world as we know it (...) seems perfectly real. Shadows, dreams, or informational structures appear too unreal to be identical to the world as we know it! This clash between the two intuitions forms the basis of the "problem of reality." At the turn of the nineteenth century psychiatrists encountered patients they referred to as “metaphysician doubters” who constantly questioned the reality of the world. This essay draws on the study of these patients to reject, and indeed diagnose, the intuition of unreality and recent metaphysical doctrines drawing on it, such as structuralism, digitalism, and virtual realism. (shrink)

I argue that Spinoza endorses "conceptual dependence monism," the thesis that all forms of metaphysical dependence (such as causation, inherence, and existential dependence) are conceptual in kind. In the course of explaining the view, I further argue that it is actually presupposed in the proof for his more famed substance monism. Conceptual dependence monism also illuminates several of Spinoza’s most striking metaphysical views, including the intensionality of causal contexts, parallelism, metaphysical perfection, and explanatory rationalism. I also argue that this priority (...) of the conceptual does not commit Spinoza to forms of idealism or mentalism. The question of how to understand different kinds of metaphysical dependence is quite controversial in Spinoza studies; I address major alternative readings in the notes. But there I also try to draw connections to the growing debate in contemporary discussions about metaphysical dependence, as this topic is a happy point of shared interest between Spinoza and contemporary metaphysicians alike. (shrink)

According to the subset view of realization, a property realizes another if the causal powers of the latter are a subset of those of the former. Against this view, some authors (in particular, Kevin Morris and Paul Audi) have argued that it has an untenable consequence that realizing properties are less fundamental than the properties they realize, because the subset view characterizes realized properties as parts (subsets) of their realizers whereas it is generally true that a part is prior to (...) its whole. This paper defends the subset view from this “part-whole” objection, by arguing that if we compare individual powers of realizer and realizee with particular attention to their manifestation conditions, it turns out that each power of a realizee is grounded in some power of its realizer. This grounding relation between powers, I shall argue, allows subset theorists to explain why a realizer is more fundamental than its realizee, even while having the latter as a part. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the supposition of divine omnipotence entails a contradiction: omnipotence both must and must not be intrinsic to God. Hence, traditional theism must be rejected. To begin, I separate out some theoretical distinctions needed to inform the discussion. I then advance two different arguments for the conclusion that omnipotence must be intrinsic to God; these utilise the notions of essence and aseity. Next, I argue that some necessary conditions on being omnipotent are extrinsic, and that (...) this means omnipotence cannot be intrinsic to God. I consider three different ways of resolving this conflict, but contend that each is unsuccessful. Before concluding, I explain why the type of strategy used to resolve the traditional paradoxes of omnipotence cannot be successfully employed against the paradox presented here. (shrink)

The doctrine of divine aseity has played a significant role in the development of classical theism. However, very little attention has been paid in recent years to the question of how precisely aseity should be characterized. We argue that this neglect is unwarranted since extant characterizations of this central divine attribute quickly encounter difficulties. In particular, we present a new argument to show that the most widely accepted contemporary account of aseity is inconsistent. We then consider the prospects for developing (...) a new account of aseity which avoids the pitfalls we have highlighted. (shrink)

This is the first part of a two-tier overview article on fundamentality in metaphysics and the philosophy of physics. It provides an introduction to the notion of fundamentality in metaphysics, as well as to several related concepts. The key issues in the contemporary debate on the topic are summarised, making systematic reference to the most relevant literature. In particular, various ways in which the fundamental entities and the fundamental structure of reality may be conceived are illustrated and discussed. A final (...) brief section looks at the methodological issue of naturalism, paving the way for the survey of fundamentality in the philosophy of physics, which is carried out in the second part. (shrink)

We put forward a new, ‘coherentist’ account of quantum entanglement, according to which entangled systems are characterized by symmetric relations of ontological dependence among the component particles. We compare this coherentist viewpoint with the two most popular alternatives currently on offer—structuralism and holism—and argue that it is essentially different from, and preferable to, both. In the course of this article, we point out how coherentism might be extended beyond the case of entanglement and further articulated.

The paper critically discusses the treatment of Russellian monism in Tomáš Hříbek’s monograph Jaké to je, nebo o čem to je? (What It’s Like, or What It’s About?). According to Hříbek, Russellian monism, the approach to phenomenal consciousness inspired by the insights of Bertrand Russell, is not a real alternative to materialism, dualism and idealism. I argue that Russellian monism, on the contrary, can be viewed as a self-standing philosophical position which, moreover, avoids the main problems of these traditional approaches. (...) I first address the objection that the fundamental entities of neutral monism have a mental, rather than neutral nature. In connection with neutral monism, I also express some worries concerning Hříbek’s via negativa definition of physicalism. Thereafter I explain why the causal closure of the physical which poses a serious difficulty for dualism is not a problem for Russellian monism and emphasize that Russellian monism is able to tackle challenges, such as the conceivability argument and the knowledge argument, better than materialism. While then Russellian monism has certain affinities with materialism, dualism and idealism, it avoids the most serious challenges for these approaches and we therefore have a good reason to view it as a self-standing and promising approach to phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

A lot of philosophers engage in debates about what claims are “metaphysically necessary”, and a lot more assume with little argument that some classes of claims have the status of “metaphysical necessity”. I think we can usefully replace questions about metaphysical necessity with five other questions which each capture some of what people may have had in mind when talking about metaphysical necessity. This paper explains these five other questions, and then discusses the question “how much of metaphysics is metaphysically (...) necessary?”, and each of its five replacements. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018.

Are there any things that are such that any things whatsoever are among them. I argue that there are not. My thesis follows from these three premises: (1) There are two or more things; (2) for any things, there is a unique thing that corresponds to those things; (3) for any two or more things, there are fewer of them than there are pluralities of them.

After many years of enduring the drought and famine of Quinean ontology and Carnapian meta-ontology, the notion of ground, with its distinctively philosophical flavor, finally promises to give metaphysicians something they can believe in again and around which they can rally: their very own metaphysical explanatory connection which apparently cannot be reduced to, or analyzed in terms of, other familiar idioms such as identity, modality, parthood, supervenience, realization, causation or counterfactual dependence. Often, phenomena such as the following are cited as (...) putative examples of grounding connections: systematic connections between entire realms of facts (mental/physical; moral/natural; etc.); truthmaking (e.g., the relation between the truth of the proposition that snow is white and snow’s being white); logical cases (e.g., the connection between conjunctive facts or disjunctive facts and their constituent facts); the determinate/determinable relation (e.g., the relation between something’s being maroon and its being red). I argue in this paper that classifying all of these phenomena as exhibiting grounding connections does not achieve much in the way of illumination. In fact, by treating a collection of phenomena which is in fact heterogeneous as though it were homogeneous, we have, if anything, taken a dialectical step backward. (shrink)

I provide a theory of the metaphysical foundations of identity: an account what grounds facts of the form a=b. In particular, I defend the claim that indiscernibility grounds identity. This is typically rejected because it is viciously circular; plausible assumptions about the logic of ground entail that the fact that a=b partially grounds itself. The theory I defend is immune to this circularity.