Fundamentality

How do we come to know metaphysical truths? How does metaphysical inquiry work? Are metaphysical debates substantial? These are the questions which characterize metametaphysics. This book, the first systematic student introduction dedicated to metametaphysics, discusses the nature of metaphysics - its methodology, epistemology, ontology and our access to metaphysical knowledge. It provides students with a firm grounding in the basics of metametaphysics, covering a broad range of topics in metaontology such as existence, quantification, ontological commitment and ontological realism. Contemporary views are discussed along with those of Quine, Carnap and Meinong. Going beyond the metaontological debate, thorough treatment is given to novel topics in metametaphysics, including grounding, ontological dependence, fundamentality, modal epistemology, intuitions, thought experiments and the relationship between metaphysics and science. The book will be an essential resource for those studying advanced metaphysics, philosophical methodology, metametaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of science.

This article aims to provide an explication of the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father. A precisification of the doctrine is made within the building-fundamentality framework provided by Karen Bennett, which enables a further clarification of the central elements of the doctrine to be made and an important objection against it to be answered.

In this article, I seek to assess the extent to which Theism, the claim that there is a God, can provide a true fundamental explanation for the existence of certain entities within the layered structure of reality. More precisely, I assume the cogency of Swinburne’s explanatory framework and seek to resituate it within a new philosophical context-that of the field of contemporary metaphysics-which will enable me to develop a true fundamental explanation for the existence of the non-fundamental entities that fill up the various levels of the layered structure of reality. And thus, given the truth of this type of explanation, we will have one more good reason to believe in the existence of God.

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.

In this article, I seek to assess the extent to which Theism, the claim that there is a God, can provide a true fundamental explanation for the instantiation of the grounding relation that connects the various entities within the layered structure of reality. More precisely, I seek to utilise the explanatory framework of Richard Swinburne within a specific metaphysical context, a ground-theoretic context, which will enable me to develop a true fundamental explanation for the existence of grounding. And thus, given the truth of this type of explanation, we will have a further reason to believe in the existence of God.

I will use paradox as a guide to metaphysical grounding, a kind of non-causal explanation that has recently shown itself to play a pivotal role in philosophical inquiry. Specifically, I will analyze the grounding structure of the Predestination paradox, the regresses of Carroll and Bradley, Russell's paradox and the Liar, Yablo's paradox, Zeno's paradoxes, and a novel omega plus one variant of Yablo's paradox, and thus find reason for the following: We should continue to characterize grounding as asymmetrical and irreflexive. We should change our understanding of the transitivity of grounding in a certain sense. We should require foundationality in a new, generalized sense, that has well-foundedness as its limit case. Meta-grounding is important. The polarity of grounding can be crucial. Thus we will learn a lot about structural properties of grounding from considering the various paradoxes. On the way, grounding will also turn out to be relevant to the diagnosis (if not the solution) of paradox. All the paradoxes under consideration will turn out to be breaches of some standard requirement on grounding, which makes uniform solutions of large groups of these paradoxes more desirable. In sum, bringing together paradox and grounding will be shown to be of considerable value to philosophy.

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 worldless junk – where for something to be junky is for every part of it to be a proper part – 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 get round this problem, they need to develop a new version of Priority Monism, on which the Cosmos is identical to all its parts taken collectively. Contra Schaffer, I think a Priority Monist can and should hold to the thesis that Composition is Identity.

The appeal of both neutral monism and panpsychism is that they appear to have the makings of two theories which are powerful, elegant and parsimonious (as the jargon has it). In other words, they join the philosophical dots. However, it also seems to be the case that these two theories are explicitly designed to join the dots. That is, both aim to ostensibly escape from perennial philosophical problems. (Except for the fact that monism itself has an ancient history.) But surely there must be more to these theories than all that.

So, again, both neutral monism and panpsychism seem to offer (in a manner of speaking) “elegant solutions”. The main example of this is, of course, the gap between the physical and experience/consciousness. And an almost obvious solution to that gap is to say that both the physical and experience/consciousness are “grounded” in the same “neutral stuff”. Now how neat is that? Not that neat, really:

i) We still need to say what this stuff is.
ii) And we still need to explain the link/s between this stuff and both the physical and consciousness.

All this also seems like a resurrection of a discussion (or debate) within Anglo-American philosophy at a particular point in history – i.e., roughly from William James in the late 1890s to Bertrand Russell in the 1920s. Of course that doesn't mean that it's all wrong or false. But it could mean that philosophical fashions are often resurrected when philosophers have become bored of all the contemporary alternatives on offer.

Bertrand Russell puts the case for neutral monism at the very same time as he puts the case for for what may be deemed to be structural realism. So Russell's bottom line was that we have no access - either observationally or otherwise - to the “intrinsic characteristics” of objects/entities/etc. Instead “[w]hat we know about them” is simply “their structure and their mathematical laws”. That is, all we've got is structure and maths “all the way down”. Nonetheless, Russell himself still had a problem with this scientific rejection of intrinsic properties. In basic terms, it simply can't be a question of “relations all the way down”.

Despite all that, according to the American philosopher Gregory Landini, Russell's neutral monism is *not* also a version of panpsychism. That is, Landini's Russell didn't believe in experience “all the way down”. Instead:

“qualia never occur in transient particulars. In Russell’s view, qualia emerge from the series of brain states…colors, pitches, smells, tastes and textures are emergent properties of series of brain states…”

In other words, qualia belong to brain states. And brain states are highly complex.

One of the other main points which unites contemporary panpsychists with Russell isn't only the latter's commitment to a monistic basic stuff, but also the commitment to the “fundamentality” of consciousness/experience. (Or percepts, in Russell's own case.) To all these philosophers, nothing is more (as it were) Given than experience, consciousness or percepts. Thus surely that is where we must start. Or, as David Chalmers put it, “Experience is a datum in its own right.”

According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.

Abstract: Sider’s Writing the Book of the World gives an account of fundamentality in terms of his central ideological notion ‘structure’. Here I first argue against Sider’s claim that to be fundamental to a degree is to be structural to a degree. I argue there’s a pair of properties, P1 and P2, such that P1 is the more fundamental, but Sider is committed to counting P2 as the more structural. I then argue that if relative structure and relative fundamentality can come apart in this way, then Sider is likely also wrong to identify being absolutely structural with being absolutely fundamental.

The mathematical structure of realist quantum theories has given rise to a debate about how our ordinary 3-dimensional space is related to the 3N-dimensional configuration space on which the wave function is defined. Which of the two spaces is our (more) fundamental physical space? I review the debate between 3N-Fundamentalists and 3D-Fundamentalists and evaluate it based on three criteria. I argue that when we consider which view leads to a deeper understanding of the physical world, especially given the deeper topological explanation from the unordered configurations to the Symmetrization Postulate, we have strong reasons in favor of 3D-Fundamentalism. I conclude that our evidence favors the view that our fundamental physical space in a quantum world is 3-dimensional rather than 3N-dimensional. I outline lines of future research where the evidential balance can be restored or reversed. Finally, I draw lessons from this case study to the debate about theoretical equivalence.

Ontological dependence is a relation—or, more accurately, a family of relations—between entities or beings (onta in Greek, whence ontological). For there are various ways in which one being may be said to depend upon one or more other beings, in a sense of “depend” that is distinctly metaphysical in character and that may be contrasted, thus, with various causal senses of this word. More specifically, a being may be said to depend, in such a sense, upon one or more other beings for its existence or for its identity. Some varieties of ontological dependence may be analyzed in modal terms—that is, in terms of distinctly metaphysical notions of possibility and necessity—while others seem to demand an analysis in terms of the notion of essence. The latter varieties of ontological dependence may accordingly be called species of essential dependence. Notions of ontological dependence are frequently called upon by metaphysicians in their proposed analyses of other metaphysically important notions, such as the notion of substance.

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, in seeing why OIT is false, we will be left with three heterodox options about grounding and reality’s structure. So this paper’s second conclusion is that, even after we have discarded OIT, we are in for an additional surprise.

Recently, philosophers have tried to develop a version of truthmaker theory which ties the truthmaking relation (T-REL) closely to the notion of fundamentality. In fact, some of these truthmaker-fundamentalists (TF-ists), as I call them, assume that the notion of fundamentality is intelligible in part by citing, as central examples of fundamentals, truthmakers, which they understand necessarily as constituents of fundamental reality. The aim of this paper is first to bring some order and clarity to this discussion, sketching how far TF is compatible with orthodox truthmaking, and then critically to evaluate the limits of TF. It will be argued that truthmaker theory cannot directly help with articulating the nature of fundamental reality and that T-REL does not necessarily relate truths with anything more fundamental, unless what is fundamental is what the truthbearers in question are about. I shall argue that TF faces a rather thorny dilemma and some general problems. I shall present two exhaustive types of fundamentalism on which a version of TF can be based: deflationary and inflationary. It will be argued that each version of TF runs into significant troubles accounting for all truth, specifically ordinary truths and metaphysical truths about the relations between ordinary facts and fundamental facts. I shall not attempt to solve these problems, but rather, at the end, diagnose the issues with TF as lying in the difficulties with reconciling the manifest image with the scientific and metaphysical images of reality.

Link to the article on Synthese's Springerlink website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02266-x

Fundamental truthmakers and non-fundamental truths (Synthese, DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02266-x, 2021, 198:3073-3098) (Open Access) Online First 4 June 2019; 26 pages total

This essay focuses on a recently prominent notion of (metaphysical) 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 to more familiar models of explanation. Nevertheless, its distinctive explanatory and metaphysical aspects guide us on characterizing its explanatory logic and its metaphysical features. Some issues concerning the meta-question of what (if anything) grounds ground are explored, as well as some recent skeptical challenges to ground.

Hegel makes ambitious promises on behalf of his
project in theoretical philosophy: He claims to
argue by an internal engagement with Kant’s critical
philosophy. And yet Hegel also claims to reach by
this means ambitious conclusions about some form
of “absolute idea”, which is supposed to require
transcending the epistemic limits imposed by Kant’s
critical philosophy. I argue that we can better
understand this philosophical project by comparing
the now-familiar idea that metaphysics concerns at
base questions about grounding. Both Kant and
Hegel approach topics in this neighborhood in a
way that is now unfamiliar—and a way that I think
worth considering as a revision to how we think of
metaphysical grounding. Clarifying their approach
then helps, first, to bring into focus how Kant’s
“Transcendental Dialectic” engages metaphysical
questions specifically in order to demonstrate our
epistemic limits. And it helps, second, in clearing
out of the way many of the reasons why Hegel’s
ambitions have often seemed hopeless; we can
understand in these terms why there is real reason
to hope that Kant’s “dialectic” could be of use in
constructing and defending Hegel’s new and
unusual theory of the metaphysics of grounding.

The notion of fundamentality, as it is used in metaphysics, aims to capture the idea that there is something basic or primitive in the world. This metaphysical notion is related to the vernacular use of “fundamental”, but philosophers have also put forward various technical definitions of the notion. Among the most influential of these is the definition of absolute fundamentality in terms of ontological independence or ungroundedness. Accordingly, the notion of fundamentality is often associated with these two other technical notions.

In this chapter, a generic definition of fundamentality as an ontological minimality thesis is sought and its applicability examined. Most discussions of fundamentality are focused on a mereological understanding of the hierarchical structure of reality, which may be combined with an atomistic, object-oriented metaphysics. But recent work in structuralism, for instance, calls for an alternative understanding and it is not immediately clear that the conception of fundamentality at work in structuralism is commensurable with the mereological conception. However, it is proposed that once we understand fundamentality as an ontological minimality thesis, these two as well as further conceptions of fundamentality can all be treated on a par, including metaphysical infinitism of the ‘boring’ type, where the same structure repeats infinitely.

I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer's priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer's priority monism by being identified with the fundamental structure, namely the cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumption, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition.

A belief is valuable when it "gets it right". This "getting it right" is often understood solely as a matter of truth. But there is a second sense of "getting it right" worth exploring. According to this second sense, a belief "gets it right" when its concepts accurately match the way the world is objectively organized -- that is, when its concepts are joint-carving, or have fidelity. In this paper, I explore the relationship between fidelity and epistemic value. While many philosophers (especially metaphysicians) acknowledge fidelity's value, they overlook just how much it might disrupt our understanding of epistemic value. To tease out this disruption, I draw on the Jamesian balance between seeking the truth and avoiding the false. A similar balance must be struck both within the pursuit of fidelity itself ("seeking the joints" and "avoiding the gruesome") as well as between the pursuit of fidelity and the pursuit of truth. I then give an argument against the claim that truth is the higher epistemic good.

Contingent negative existentials give rise to a notorious paradox. I formulate a version in terms of metaphysical grounding: nonexistence can’t be fundamental, but nothing can ground it. I then argue for a new solution, expanding on work by Kit Fine. The key idea is that negative existentials are contingently zero-grounded—that is to say, they are grounded, but not by anything, and only in the right conditions. If this is correct, it follows that grounding cannot be an internal relation, and that no complete account of reality can be purely fundamental.

This paper is concerned with the relation between two important metaphysical notions, ‘truthmaking’ and ‘grounding’. I begin by considering various ways in which truthmaking could be explicated in terms of grounding, noting both strengths and weaknesses of these analyses. I go on to articulate a problem for any attempt to analyze truthmaking in terms of a generic and primitive notion of grounding based on differences we find among examples of grounding. Finally, I outline a more complex view of how truthmaking and grounding could relate. On the view explored, truthmaking is a species of grounding differentiated from other species of grounding by the unique form of dependence it involves.

The aim of this paper is to address the ‘Grounding Grounding Problem’, that is, the question as to what, if anything, grounds facts about grounding. I aim to show that, if a seemingly plausible principle of modal recombination between fundamental facts and the principle customarily called  ‘Entailment’ are assumed, it is possible to prove not only that  grounding facts featuring fundamental, contingent grounds are derivative but also that either they are (at least) partially grounded in the grounds they feature or they are ‘abysses’ (that is, derivative facts without fundamental grounds and lying at the top of an infinitely descending chain of ground).​

Open access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-022-03583-4

I present an argument for causal fundamentality, understood as the thesis that the causal history of every being, whose existence has a causal explanation, includes some uncaused beings. I argue that this thesis is a consequence of an actualist account of metaphysical modality whose novelty lies in its hybrid dispositional-essentialist foundation. I argue that my modal theory is extensionally correct and minimalistic. Its range of metaphysical necessities and possibilities is just as wide as needed to capture the pre-theoretical notion of modality. Moreover, my theory is immune from the necessitism of standard essentialist accounts of modality and addresses the challenge of global possibilities facing dispositionalist modal theories thanks to its essentialist component.

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.

This aim of this paper is to defend Theodore Sider’s project in Writing the Book of the World. I attempt to accomplish this by presenting a novel notion of structurality that avoids the complications that face Sider’s account. The paper is divided into three main parts. §1 outlines the problems with Sider’s account. The primary issue that Sider’s account faces is that his notion of structure does not successfully play the theoretical role that he outlines for it. §1.1 argues that this problem arises because Sider takes the relevant notion of structure to be a sort of absolute notion of fundamentality. §2 develops a position called Metasemantic Structural Realism (MSR) that utilizes a notion of structurality that applies to entire theories, and shows how this notion is better suited to Sider’s goals. §2.1 draws a distinction between the notion of factual structurality (the idea that particular sentences of a theory accurately represent particular states of affairs), and the notion of inferential structurality (the idea that the laws or axioms of a theory accurately represent relations between particular states of affairs), and argues that this distinction allows MSR to avoid several of the problems that face Sider’s account. §2.2 develops a notion of fundamentality that applies directly to theories, which complements the notion of structurality of MSR without positing any new hyperintensional notions. §2.3 outlines the various things that count as evidence for the structurality of a theory. §3 outlines the implications of MSR for metaphysical methodology. §3.1 shows how MSR can be used to develop a specific approach to metaphysics, metaphysical model theory, which can be used both to resolve particular disputes in the philosophy of science and to relate different levels of reality to each other.

I provide and defend two natural accounts of (both relative and absolute) fundamentality for facts that do justice to the idea that the "degree of fundamentality" enjoyed by a fact is a matter of how far, from a ground-theoretic perspective, the fact is from the ungrounded facts.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the sense in which laws of physics are contingent. It argues, first, that contemporary Humean accounts cannot adequately explain the contingency of physical laws; and second, that Hume's own arguments against the metaphysical necessity of causal connections are not applicable in this context. The paper concludes by arguing that contingency is an essentially emergent, macroscopic phenomenon: we can understand the contingency of fundamental physical laws only through their relation to the distribution of macroscopic modal properties in the manifest world.

It is argued that if we take grounding to be univocal, then there is a serious tension between truth-grounding and one commonly assumed structural principle for grounding, namely transitivity. The primary claim of the paper is that truth-grounding cannot be transitive. Accordingly, it is either the case that grounding is not transitive or that truth-grounding is not grounding, or both.

In this paper, I argue that philosophers, while developing ontologies, can be classed as misers or profligates. I develop the categories of ontological miserliness and ontological profligacy and supply explanatory examples. I explore the theoretical motivation of both misers and profligates in terms of thought-time and inquiry scope. In brief, misers prioritize thought-time over inquiry scope; vice-versa for profligates. I examine the extent to which conservation of thought-time is an active concern for misers and provide a miserly taxonomy for ontologies; ontologies may be cheap, expensive or impossible. I argue that profligates countenance the generative character of the ontological enterprise at the expense of exclusion and limitation. The works of Willard Van Orman Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein provide canonic examples of miserly and profligate ontologies. I argue that Quine is an ontological miser par excellence, and that Wittgenstein is profligate in his later period and evinc...

Many philosophers have recently been impressed by an argument to the effect that all grounding facts about “derivative entities”—e.g. the facts expressed by the (let us suppose) true sentences ‘the fact that Beijing is a concrete entity is grounded in the fact that its parts are concrete’ and ‘the fact that there are cities is grounded in the fact that p’, where ‘p’ is a suitable sentence couched in the language of particle physics—must themselves be grounded. This argument relies on a principle, Purity, which states that facts about derivative entities are non-fundamental. Purity is questionable. In this paper, I introduce a new argument—the argument from Settledness—for a similar conclusion but which does not rely on Purity. The conclusion of the new argument is that every “thick” grounding fact is grounded, where a grounding fact [F is grounded in G, H, …] is said to be thick when at least one of F, G, H, … is a fact—a condition that is automatically satisfied if grounding is factive. After introducing the argument, I compare it with the argument from Purity, and I assess its cogency relative to the relevant accounts of the  connections between grounding and fundamentality that are available in the literature.

Рассмотрены негативные эффекты растущей бюрократизации университетского образования. Построена модель взаимосвязи
переменных, объясняющая парадоксальный эффект: стагнацию и даже деградацию качества образования при наращивании контр-
оля и отчетности, призванных повышать показатели для рейтингов. Для каждого основного компонента качества современного
университетского образования намечены необходимые практики и структуры. Средствами той же модели взаимосвязи переменных
показаны требуемые связи между интересами администрации, преподавателей университетов и качеством образования, которые
в настоящее время отсутствуют в большинстве российских университетов. Показано, почему и через какие механизмы здоровая
конкуренция в сфере качества образования эффективней, нежели наращивание централизованного бюрократического контроля.

There has been much recent interest in a distinctively metaphysical kind of determinative explanation: ground. This paper concerns various skeptical challenges to ground's relevance to metaphysics, such as that it is an empty posit, that the work it is supposed to do is appropriated by other notions, and that it is inapt for specific issues it should serve. I argue against these challenges. My strategy is both critical and constructive. Critical because I argue that versions of these challenges raised by Elizabeth Barnes, Kathrin Koslicki, Mari Mikkola, and Jessica Wilson are not persuasive. Constructive because we may nevertheless learn from them new work for ground.

Grounding contingentism is the doctrine according to which grounds are not guaranteed to necessitate what they ground. In this paper I will argue that the most plausible version of contingentism (which I will label ‘serious contingentism’) is incompatible with the idea that the grounding relation is transitive, unless either ‘priority monism’ or ‘contrastivism’ are assumed.

I raise a puzzle in the metaphysics of fundamentality and propose a solution which relies on distinguishing between the fundamental and the foundational. This turns out to have applications for some live metaphysical issues, including Jonathan Schaffer's recent defense of priority monism.

An exploration of ground’s connections to structure (joint-carving, naturalness). The notion of structure is often invoked in connection to ground, because grounding is understood to impose constraints on the ‘structure of reality’. There is another, technical sense of structure, sometimes captured with reference to the notion of ‘joint-carving’. Both of these senses of structure as well as their potential connections are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to bring recent work on metaphysical grounding to bear on the phenomenon of social construction. It is argued that grounding can be used to analyze social construction and that the grounding framework is helpful for articulating various claims and commitments of social constructionists, especially about social identities, e.g., gender and race. The paper also responds to a number of objections that have been (or could be) leveled against the application of grounding to social construction from Elizabeth Barnes (2014), Mari Mikkola (2015), and Jessica Wilson (2014).

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 will be assessed, with the conclusion that such infinite chains may not always be vicious. Indeed, there may even be room for a type of fundamentalism combined with infinite descent as long as this descent is ‘boring’, i.e., the same structure repeats ad infinitum. In this paper, a start will be made towards a systematic account of this type of infinite descent. The philosophical prospects and scientific tenability of the account are briefly evaluated using an example from physics.

This paper defends the idea that there must be some joints in reality, some correct way to classify or categorize it. This may seem obvious, but we will see that there are at least three conventionalist arguments against this idea, as well as philosophers who have found them convincing. The thrust of these arguments is that the manner in which we structure, divide or carve up the world is not grounded in any natural, genuine boundaries in the world. Ultimately they are supposed to pose a serious threat to realism. The first argument that will be examined concerns the claim that there are no natural boundaries in reality, the second one focuses on the basis of our classificatory schemes, which the conventionalist claims to be merely psychological, and the third considers the significance of our particular features in carving up the world, such as physical size and perceptual capabilities. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that none of these objections succeed in undermining the existence of genuine joints in reality.