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  1. (1 other version)On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
    On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is. Metaphysics so conceived is concerned with such questions as whether properties exist, whether meanings exist, and whether numbers exist. I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what. Metaphysics so revived does not bother asking whether properties, meanings, and numbers exist (of course they do!) The question is whether or not they are fundamental.
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  • Is there a fundamental level?Jonathan Schaffer - 2003 - Noûs 37 (3):498–517.
    ‘‘Thus I believe that there is no part of matter which is not—I do not say divisible—but actually divided; and consequently the least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.’’ (Leibniz, letter to Foucher).
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  • (4 other versions)Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
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  • The question of realism.Kit Fine - 2001 - Philosophers' Imprint 1:1-30.
    This paper distinguishes two kinds of realist issue -- the issue of whether the propositions of a given domain are factual and the issue of whether they are fundamental. It criticizes previous accounts of what these issues come to and suggests that they are to be understood in terms of a basic metaphysical concept of reality. This leaves open the question of how such issues are to be resolved; and it is argued that this may be done through consideration of (...)
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  • Two concepts of causation.Ned Hall - 2004 - In John Collins, Ned Hall & Laurie Paul (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals. MIT Press. pp. 225-276.
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  • On Stage One of Feser's 'Aristotelian Proof'.Graham Oppy - 2021 - Religious Studies 57:491-502.
    Feser (2017) presents and defends five proofs of the existence of God. Each proof is in two stages: the first stage proves the existence of something which, in the second stage, is shown to possess an appropriate range of divine attributes. Each proof is given two presentations, one informal and one formal. In this paper, I critically examine two premises from one of Feser's five first stage proofs. I provide reasons for thinking that naturalists reject both of these premises. In (...)
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  • Chains of Being: Infinite Regress, Circularity, and Metaphysical Explanation.Ross P. Cameron - 2022 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    'Chains of Being' argues that there can be infinite chains of dependence or grounding. Cameron also defends the view that there can be circular relations of ontological dependence or grounding, and uses these claims to explore issues in logic and ontology.
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  • Stage One of the Aristotelian Proof: A Critical Appraisal.Joseph C. Schmid - 2021 - Sophia 60 (4):781-796.
    What explains change? Edward Feser argues in his ‘Aristotelian proof’ that the only adequate answer to these questions is ultimately in terms of an unchangeable, purely actual being. In this paper, I target the cogency of Feser’s reasoning to such an answer. In particular, I present novel paths of criticism—both undercutting and rebutting—against one of Feser’s central premises. I then argue that Feser’s inference that the unactualized actualizer lacks any potentialities contains a number of non-sequiturs.
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  • (2 other versions)Laws for Metaphysical Explanation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2017 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82:1-22.
    I argue that, just like causal explanation requires laws of nature, so metaphysical explanation requires laws of metaphysics. I offer a minimal rendition of the argument for laws of metaphysics, assuming nothing about grounding or essences, and little about explanation. And I offer a positive and minimal functional conception of the laws of metaphysics, coupled with an argument that some laws of metaphysics are fundamental.
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  • (4 other versions)Causation.D. Lewis - 1986 - In David K. Lewis (ed.), Philosophical Papers Vol. II. Oxford University Press. pp. 159-213.
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  • What Work the Fundamental?Ricki Leigh Bliss - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (2):359-379.
    Although it is very often taken for granted that there is something fundamental, the literature appears to have developed with little to no careful consideration of what exactly it is that the fundamentalia are supposed to do. If we are to have a good reason to believe that there is something fundamental, we need not only to know what exactly it is that the fundamentalia are invoked for, but why it is that nothing else is available for the task to (...)
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  • Making Things Up.Karen Bennett - 2017 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    We frequently speak of certain things or phenomena being built out of or based in others. Making Things Up concerns these relations, which connect more fundamental things to less fundamental things: Karen Bennett calls these 'building relations'. She aims to illuminate what it means to say that one thing is more fundamental than another.
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  • Metaphysical Interdependence.Naomi Thompson - 2016 - In Mark Jago (ed.), Reality Making. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 38-56.
    It is commonly assumed that grounding relations are asymmetric. Here I develop and argue for a theory of metaphysical structure that takes grounding to be nonsymmetric rather than asymmetric. Even without infinite descending chains of dependence, it might be that every entity is grounded in some other entity. Having first addressed an immediate objection to the position under discussion, I introduce two examples of symmetric grounding. I give three arguments for the view that grounding is nonsymmetric (I call this view (...)
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  • Grounding Is Not Causation.Sara Bernstein - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):21-38.
    Proponents of grounding often describe the notion as "metaphysical causation" involving determination and production relations similar to causation. This paper argues that the similarities between grounding and causation are merely superficial. I show that there are several sorts of causation that have no analogue in grounding; that the type of "bringing into existence" that both involve is extremely different; and that the synchronicity of ground and the diachronicity of causation make them too different to be explanatorily intertwined.
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  • Social construction as grounding; or: fundamentality for feminists, a reply to Barnes and Mikkola.Jonathan Schaffer - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (10):2449-2465.
    Feminist metaphysics is guided by the insight that gender is socially constructed, yet the metaphysics behind social construction remains obscure. Barnes and Mikkola charge that current metaphysical frameworks—including my grounding framework—are hostile to feminist metaphysics. I argue that not only is a grounding framework hospitable to feminist metaphysics, but also that a grounding framework can help shed light on the metaphysics behind social construction. By treating social construction claims as grounding claims, the feminist metaphysician and the social ontologist both gain (...)
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  • What Is the Well-Foundedness of Grounding?T. Scott Dixon - 2016 - Mind 125 (498):439-468.
    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 (...)
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  • Fundamentality without Foundations.Michael J. Raven - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3):607-626.
    A commonly held view is that a central aim of metaphysics is to give a fundamental account of reality which refers only to the fundamental entities. But a puzzle arises. It is at least a working hypothesis for those pursuing the aim that, first, there must be fundamental entities. But, second, it also seems possible that the world has no foundation, with each entity depending on others. These two claims are inconsistent with the widely held third claim that the fundamental (...)
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  • Indefinitely Descending Ground.Einar Duenger Bohn - 2018 - In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 167-181.
    In this paper I argue against grounding being necessarily well-founded, and provide some reasons to think it's actually not well-founded.
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  • Inheritance arguments for fundamentality.Kelly Trogdon - 2018 - In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 182-198.
    Discussion of a metaphysical sense of 'inheritance' and cognate notions relevant to fundamentality.
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  • (1 other version)Causality.Judea Pearl - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Written by one of the preeminent researchers in the field, this book provides a comprehensive exposition of modern analysis of causation. It shows how causality has grown from a nebulous concept into a mathematical theory with significant applications in the fields of statistics, artificial intelligence, economics, philosophy, cognitive science, and the health and social sciences. Judea Pearl presents and unifies the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual, and structural approaches to causation and devises simple mathematical tools for studying the relationships between causal connections (...)
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  • Arguing About Gods.Graham Robert Oppy - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    In this book, Graham Oppy examines arguments for and against the existence of God. He shows that none of these arguments is powerful enough to change the minds of reasonable participants in debates on the question of the existence of God. His conclusion is supported by detailed analyses of the arguments as well as by the development of a theory about the purpose of arguments and the criteria that should be used in judging whether or not arguments are successful. Oppy (...)
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  • The Internal Relatedness of All Things.J. Schaffer - 2010 - Mind 119 (474):341-376.
    The argument from internal relatedness was one of the major nineteenth century neo-Hegelian arguments for monism. This argument has been misunderstood, and may even be sound. The argument, as I reconstruct it, proceeds in two stages: first, it is argued that all things are internally related in ways that render them interdependent; second, the substantial unity of the whole universe is inferred from the interdependence of all of its parts. The guiding idea behind the argument is that failure of free (...)
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  • Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary.Brian Davies - 2016 - Oxford University Press USA.
    The Summa Contra Gentiles, one of Aquinas's best known works after the Summa Theologiae, is a philosophical and theological synthesis that examines what can be known of God both by reason and by divine revelation. A detailed expository account of and commentary on this famous work, Davies's book aims to help readers think about the value of the Summa Contra Gentiles for themselves, relating the contents and teachings found in the SCG to those of other works and other thinkers both (...)
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  • Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time.E. J. Lowe - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by idetifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency between entities of different categories. He proceeds to set out a unified and original metaphysical system: he defends a substance ontology, according to which the existence of the world s (...)
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  • Ground.Michael J. Raven - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (5):322-333.
    This essay focuses on a recently prominent notion of ground which is distinctive for how it links metaphysics to explanation. Ground is supposed to serve both as the common factor in diverse in virtue of questions as well as the structuring relation in the project of explaining how some phenomena are “built” from more fundamental phenomena. My aim is to provide an opinionated synopsis of this notion of ground without engaging with others. Ground, so understood, generally resists illumination by appeal (...)
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  • Grounding in the image of causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):49-100.
    Grounding is often glossed as metaphysical causation, yet no current theory of grounding looks remotely like a plausible treatment of causation. I propose to take the analogy between grounding and causation seriously, by providing an account of grounding in the image of causation, on the template of structural equation models for causation.
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  • Dependence, Justification and Explanation: Must Reality be Well-Founded?Matteo Morganti - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (3):555-572.
    This paper is about metaphysical ‘infinitism’, the view that there are, or could be, infinite chains of ontological dependence. Its main aim is to show that, contrary to widespread opinion, metaphysical infinitism is a coherent position. On the basis of this, it is then additionally argued that metaphysical infinitism need not fare worse than the more canonical ‘foundationalist’ alternatives when it comes to formulating metaphysical explanations. In the course of the discussion, a rather unexplored parallel with the debate concerning infinitism (...)
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  • Viciousness and Circles of Ground.Ricki Bliss - 2014 - Metaphilosophy 45 (2):245-256.
    Metaphysicians of a certain stripe are almost unanimously of the view that grounding is necessarily irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, and well-founded. They deny the possibility of circles of ground and, therewith, the possibility of species of metaphysical coherentism. But what's so bad about circles of ground? One problem for coherentism might be that it ushers in anti-foundationalism: grounding loops give rise to infinite regresses. And this is bad because infinite grounding regresses are vicious. This article argues that circles of ground do (...)
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  • Metaphysical Infinitism and the Regress of Being.Matteo Morganti - 2014 - Metaphilosophy 45 (2):232-244.
    This article offers a limited defense of metaphysical “infinitism,” the view that there are, or might be, infinite chains of ontological dependence. According to a widespread presupposition, there must be an ultimate ground of being—most likely, a plurality of fundamental atoms. Contrary to this view, this article shows that metaphysical infinitism is internally coherent. In particular, a parallel with the debate concerning infinitism about epistemic justification is suggested, and an “emergence model” of being is put forward. According to the emergence (...)
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  • Boring Infinite Descent.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2014 - Metaphilosophy 45 (2):257-269.
    In formal ontology, infinite regresses are generally considered a bad sign. One debate where such regresses come into play is the debate about fundamentality. Arguments in favour of some type of fundamentalism are many, but they generally share the idea that infinite chains of ontological dependence must be ruled out. Some motivations for this view are assessed in this article, with the conclusion that such infinite chains may not always be vicious. Indeed, there may even be room for a type (...)
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  • A clarification and defense of the notion of grounding.Paul Audi - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 101-121.
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  • Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
    A number of philosophers have recently become receptive to the idea that, in addition to scientific or causal explanation, there may be a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation, in which explanans and explanandum are connected, not through some sort of causal mechanism, but through some constitutive form of determination. I myself have long been sympathetic to this idea of constitutive determination or ‘ontological ground’; and it is the aim of the present paper to help put the idea on a firmer (...)
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  • There Must Be A First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series.Caleb Cohoe - 2013 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (5):838 - 856.
    Several of Thomas Aquinas's proofs for the existence of God rely on the claim that causal series cannot proceed in infinitum. I argue that Aquinas has good reason to hold this claim given his conception of causation. Because he holds that effects are ontologically dependent on their causes, he holds that the relevant causal series are wholly derivative: the later members of such series serve as causes only insofar as they have been caused by and are effects of the earlier (...)
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  • Is ground a strict partial order?Michael Raven - 2013 - American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (2):191-199.
    Interest surges in a distinctively metaphysical notion of ground. But a Schism has emerged between Orthodoxy’s view of ground as inducing a strict partial order structure on reality and Heresy’s rejection of this view. What’s at stake is the structure of reality (for proponents of ground), or even ground itself (for those who think this Schism casts doubt upon its coherence). I defend Orthodoxy against Heresy.
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  • Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. qnew York: Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.
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  • Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
    Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?
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  • The miracle of theism: arguments for and against the existence of God.J. L. Mackie - 1982 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Bernard Williams.
    The late John L. Mackie, formerly of University College, Oxford.
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  • Truth and ontology – Trenton Merricks.Ross Cameron - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (232):544–546.
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  • Turtles all the way down: Regress, priority and fundamentality.Ross P. Cameron - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (230):1-14.
    I address an intuition commonly endorsed by metaphysicians, that there must be a fundamental layer of reality, i.e., that chains of ontological dependence must terminate: there cannot be turtles all the way down. I discuss applications of this intuition with reference to Bradley’s regress, composition, realism about the mental and the cosmological argument. I discuss some arguments for the intui- tion, but argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude by making some suggestions for how the intuition should be argued for, (...)
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  • The Non-Existence of the Real World.Jan Westerhoff - 2020 - Oxford University Press.
    Does the real world, defined as a world of objects that exist independent of human interests, concerns, and cognitive activities, really exist? Jan Westerhoff argues that we have good reason to believe it does not. His discussion considers four main facets of the idea of the real world, ranging from the existence of a separate external and internal world, to the existence of an ontological foundation that grounds the existence of all the entities in the world, and the existence of (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Laws for Metaphysical Explanation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2017 - Philosophical Issues 27 (1):302-321.
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  • Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference.Judea Pearl - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):201-202.
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  • Essentially Ordered Series Reconsidered.Gaven Kerr - 2012 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4):541-555.
    Herein I offer a model for understanding the traditional distinction between essentially and accidentally ordered causal series and their function in traditional proofs for the existence of God. I argue that, like the traditional proofs, my model of the causal series in question permits an infinite regress of the accidentally ordered series but not of the essentially ordered series. Furthermore, I argue that on the basis of this model one can avoid Edwards’s criticism that no matter how we conceive of (...)
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  • (2 other versions)The Construction of Social Reality. Anthony Freeman in conversation with John Searle.J. Searle & A. Freeman - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (2):180-189.
    John Searle began to discuss his recently published book `The Construction of Social Reality' with Anthony Freeman, and they ended up talking about God. The book itself and part of their conversation are introduced and briefly reflected upon by Anthony Freeman. Many familiar social facts -- like money and marriage and monarchy -- are only facts by human agreement. They exist only because we believe them to exist. That is the thesis, at once startling yet obvious, that philosopher John Searle (...)
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  • (2 other versions)On Locating Composite Objects.Jacek Brzozowski - 2008 - In Dean Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 4. Oxford University Press UK.
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  • Well Founding Grounding Grounding.Gabriel Oak Rabin & Brian Rabern - 2016 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 45 (4):349-379.
    Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with (...)
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  • Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity.Jonathan Schaffer - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 122-138.
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  • (2 other versions)On Locating Composite Objects.Jacek Brzozowski - 2008 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 4:193-222.
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  • Book Review:The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. J. L. Mackie. [REVIEW]Steven L. Ross - 1982 - Ethics 94 (4):718-.
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  • (4 other versions)Atheism and Theism.J. J. C. Smart & J. J. Haldane - 1996 - Mind 110 (439):836-839.
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