Abstract
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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Ontological fundamentalism is made especially vivid in Schaffer (2003, 2009), and Barnes (2012). Other proponents include Audi (2012), Bennett Unpublished, Bennett (2011a), deRosset (2013), Fine (2001), Raven (2012, 2015), Schaffer (2010a, b). Examples of work arguing against the hierarchical view include Markosian (2005), Raven (2015), and Wilson (2014).
This Humean account of fundamentality is made especially clear in Bennett Unpublished. I take it, though, that this account is closely related to the traditional understanding of what it means to be fundamental, on which absolute fundamentality is understood in terms of independence. This view can also be found in e.g. Paul (2012), and Cameron (2008). However, it is importantly distinct from the account employed by Schaffer (2010a).
Building relations seem to share a common set of core features: they are relations of directed dependence whose relata always differ from each other with respect to fundamentality. There is a substantial amount of diversity beyond this core. Some building relations unify, for example, while others are determinative. (For more on this see Bennett 2011a).
It is worth emphasizing that the hierarchical view has its critics (see note 1 for examples). Also, though not my target here, it seems to me that my argument can be modified to impact priority monists like Schaffer (2009) as well. This is because, on Schaffer’s view, there is a priority hierarchy beginning at the cosmos, which is ultimately prior. Dependent, and so less fundamental, entities are produced by way of abstraction or un-building. As a result, the hierarchy posited by the monist is importantly similar to the one that the pluralist is committed to.
Though its endorsement is largely implicit, building pluralism dominates overwhelmingly in the literature. This is seen most clearly in the willingness of many to treat only parts of the building structure while ignoring others. This is done most commonly by restricting the domain under consideration. For example, Schaffer’s (2009) discussion of the building hierarchy is restricted only to actually existing concrete objects while Kim’s (1997, 1998), 80–87; (2003, 2005), 57–60 discussions of microbasing are restricted only to properties. This is so even though both Kim and Schaffer endorse the existence of both properties and objects. See Bennett (2011a) for a more detailed discussion of this point.
The hierarchical view I am concerned with here rejects the analysis of absolute fundamentality in terms of perfect naturalness, advocated by Sider (2012) and prefigured by David Lewis. Though I think that naturalness has a significant role to play in ontology, it seems to me that independence is far better suited to account for fundamentality. See Bennett’s forthcoming manuscript for detailed discussion.
As Shoemaker claims in another context, “it is perfectly possible for a ‘circular’ analysis to illuminate a network of internal relationships and have philosophically interesting consequences” (2003, 222).
It might be objected that this way of understanding absolute fundamentality will, on some accounts of them, render entire classes of entities necessarily derivative. If facts ontologically depend on their constituents or if properties ontologically depend on their bearers, for example, then no fact or property can be fundamental. Though it is perhaps surprising, I am willing to accept this implication because I am inclined to deny that there can be entities that are both ontologically fundamental and ontologically dependent. The reader need not agree. However, it is important to note that the fact that some things are necessarily derivative seems to fall out of the hierarchical view itself, which I have assumed here for the sake of argument. It does not result, for example, from the account of absolute fundamentality that I have offered or the ranking procedure that I will soon propose. A central tenant of the hierarchical view is the claim that the fundamentality structure of the world is nothing over and above the world’s pattern of ontological dependence. I fail to see how proponents of this view can count some ontologically dependent entities, like elite properties and facts, as fundamental while counting other ontologically dependent entities as derivative, all while restricting themselves to the resources provided by ontological dependence. There seems to be nothing special about the way in which elite properties and facts depend on other entities and it is impermissible, for example, for a proponent of the hierarchical view to make fundamentality ascriptions rest in part on ontological categories. The categorical structure of the world is distinct from its dependence structure. Thanks to an astute reviewer at Philosophical Studies for pressing this objection.
Reasons why the constituents of world might not form a set include the worry that the number of the constituents of world might exceed the cardinality of the ordinal numbers. In this case, we might replace ordered sets with ordered classes in our discussion.
Suppose that the well-ordering assumption is denied. Then building relations cannot form ordered sets and so their behavior seems not to be approximated by the model that I will propose. Suppose, however, that we instead reject the set membership assumption or metaphysical foundationalism. Rejecting either of these simplifying assumptions is not enough to suggest that my model fails to approximate the building hierarchy. We can abandon either (or both) of these assumptions in exchange for a more complex model in terms of ordered classes and, as I describe in footnote 11, idealized foundations.
I am here assuming that there are no more degrees of comparative fundamentality than there are ordinal numbers. Perhaps this is controversial as well, but consider the alternative according to which chains of ontological dependence are continuous and dense. This would mean that between e.g. any whole and any collection of its parts, there are always more parts to be found so to speak between them. I see no reason to suspect that reality is dense in this way. Rather, this possibility seems to have the status of a skeptical hypothesis: it can’t be ruled out given our evidence but entails that we are vastly mistaken about the number of objects, including ordinary material objects like table legs and table tops, that there are in the world.
Suppose that metaphysical foundationalism is false so that metaphysical infinitism is true. Then there are in fact no minimal elements in W so that our recursive procedure fails to get off the ground. We need not reject the model I have proposed, however. We need only change the initial step so as to define an idealized set of minimal elements by hand. Begin by arbitrarily (but strategically) choosing a collection of elements and assigning their ranks to 0. We might, for example, set the atoms and atomic properties like atomic weight or nuclear charge as fundamental. The model then proceeds as recommended, generating a structure of comparative fundamentality that approximates the actual one. Approximations of the comparative fundamentality ordering are better insofar as our arbitrarily chosen minimal elements are in fact more fundamental. For example, a choice of subatomic particles and their properties will yield better results then our choice of atoms and their properties. Though approximations can always be better, a perfect approximation is not possible because there is no absolutely fundamental level.
Looking forward to Sect. 5, it might be worried that this strategy can be turned against the singularist as well. However, if singularism is true then there is a single most fundamental building relation, R, such that the ordering imposed by R is the only ordering that determines assignments of comparative fundamentality. In order to turn this strategy against the singularist, it must be shown that R itself provides contradictory assignments. However, because R is irreflexive and asymmetric by hypothesis, nothing can be R-related to itself and so no such assignments are possible. Importantly, it is not enough for non-fundamental building relations, like those that give rise to the problem for pluralism, to generate orderings in which the same entity appears and is ranked twice. See Sect. 6 for more discussion of this point.
Importantly, the pluralist cannot avoid this issue by offering a re-description of the case that refers to the power to scratch glass in a way that avoids mention of glass. Though such a re-description might be necessarily coextensive with the one that I have given, the relationships at issue here are hyperintentional. As a result, any such re-description, even a necessarily coextensive one, refers to a relationship that is distinct from that of the original case. I owe this point to a helpful reviewer from Philosophical Studies.
However, other roles characteristic of natural properties are better performed by determinables so that the argument from naturalness is inconclusive on its own (Hawthorne 2006).
Wilson attributes this response to Benj Hellie, though the considerations that I offer are different from those that Willson attributes to Benj Hellie.
It is further unclear that the pattern of instantiation of Grounding relations really are brute after all. Schaffer, for example, has claimed that there is an explanatory gap between entities and their grounds that ought to be bridged with laws of metaphysics. Just as natural laws govern the temporal evolution of the world over time, laws of metaphysics might be thought of as governing the constitutive evolution of the world across levels of fundamentality (See Schaffer Unpublished, Wilsch 2015). This is compatible with singularism provided that the laws do not ‘build’ the Grounding relations.
In what follows, I will suppress the capital G in grounding when context allows it with the understanding that I intend to refer to Grounding rather than particular small-g grounding relations.
I continue to use Grounding singularism as a sample singularist account. However, the advantages of singularism more generally are not dependent on the success of Grounding singularism. I suspect that other forms of singularism will have similar advantages over pluralism.
For a strategy in this spirit see Paul (2010).
Though I think that this is generally true, it might not be universally true. It is at least epistemically possible, for example, for Statue to be constituted by Simple, a mereologically simple object. That being said, I am not sure whether such a case describes a genuine metaphysical possibility. For one thing, such a case would introduce an additional puzzle about mereological constitution. Presumably, Statue need not be mereologically simple and so can have parts itself e.g. a hand, a head, a left side, or a right side (if Statue must be simple, then Statue and Simple share a part, though not a proper one). However, these parts are based in precisely the same object as Statue itself: Simple. How can this be? More generally, how is it that Statue is mereologically complex given that its material base is mereological simple? For another thing, it might be thought that the unlovely exception introduced by cases of simple constitution to an otherwise exception-less generalization is itself grounds for doubting that such cases are metaphysically possible: it provides a defeasible reason for thinking that we’ve overlooked some feature that renders these cases metaphysically impossible. Thanks to a helpful reviewer at Philosophical Studies for pressing this worry.
Paul (2006), for example, gives an argument along these lines.
See especially Wilson (2014).
For more on metaphysical laws see Schaffer Unpublished and Wilsch (2015).
Accepting the strategy that I have offered does commit the singularist to cases in which grounding takes itself as one of its relata. This has struck many as a problematic commitment. However, problems of iterated ground like this one are not special problems for the singularist: they are problems for most views of grounding and afflict the singularist because of her appeal to it. Though resolving this issue is an important task, I don’t think that being subject to it counts against singularism. For discussion, see Bennett (2011b), Bliss (2013, 2014), and deRosset (2013).
References
Audi, P. (2012). Grounding: Toward a theory of the In-Virtue-of Relation. The Journal of Philosophy., 109(12), 685–711.
Barnes, E. (2012). Emergence and fundamentality. Mind., 121(48), 873–901.
Bennett, K. (2011a). Construction area (no hard hat required). Philosophical Studies, 154(1), 79–104.
Bennett, K. (2011b). By our bootstraps. Philosophical Perspectives, 25(1), 27–41.
Bennett, K. (Forthcoming). “Making Things Up.” Oxford University Press.
Bliss, R. (2013). Viciousness and the structure of reality. Philosophical Studies, 166(2), 399–418.
Bliss, R. (2014). Viciousness and circles of ground. Metaphilosophy, 45(2), 245–256.
Cameron, R. P. (2008). Turtles all the way down: Regress, priority, and fundamentality. The Philosophical Quarterly, 58(230), 1–14.
Denby, D. A. (2001). Determinable nominalism. Philosophical Studies, 102, 297–327.
deRosset, L. (2013). Grounding explanations. Philosopher’s Imprint, 13, 1–26.
Dixon, T. S. (Forthcoming). What is the well-foundedness of grounding. Mind
Fine, K. (2001). The question of realism. Philosopher’s Imprint., 1, 1–30.
Fine, K. (2012). Guide to ground. In F. Correia & B. Schnieder (Eds.), Metaphysical Grounding (pp. 37–80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gillett, C. (2002). The dimensions of realization: A critique of the standard view. Analysis, 62(4), 316–323.
Hawthorne, J. (2006). “Quantity in Lewisian Metaphysics.” In Metaphysical Essays. Oxford University Press. 229 – 237.
Jech, T. J. (2006). Set Theory. New York: Springer.
Jenkins, C. S. (2011). Is metaphysical dependence irreflexive? The Monist., 94(2), 267–276.
Kim, J. (1997). Does the problem of mental causation generalize? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 97, 281–297.
Kim, J. (1998). Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Kim, J. (2003). Blocking causal drainage and other maintenance chores with mental causation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67, 151–176.
Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Litland, J. E. (2013). On some counterexamples to the transitivity of Grounding. Essays in Philosophy, 14, 1.
Markosian, N. (2005). Against Ontological Fundamentalism. Facta Philosophica. 69 - 84
Oppenheim, P., & Putnam, H. (1958). The unity of science as a working hypothesis. In H. Feigl, et al. (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Vol. 2). Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
Paul, L. A. (2006). Coincidence as overlapp. Nous, 40(4), 623–659.
Paul, L. A. (2010). The puzzles of material constitution. Philosophy Compass, 5(7), 579–590.
Paul, L. A. (2012b). “Building the World from its Fundamental Constituents”
Raven, M. (2012). In defense of ground. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 90, 687–701.
Raven, M. (2013). Is ground a strict partial order? American Philosophical Quarterly, 50(2), 191–199.
Raven, M. (2015). Fundamentality without foundations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 90, 3.
Rosen, G. (2010). “Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction,” Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, Bob Hale and Aviv Hoffmann. 109–135. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Schaffer, J. (2003). Is there a fundamental level? Nous, 37(3), 498–517.
Schaffer, J. (2009). On What Grounds What. In D. Chalmers, D. Manley, & R. Wasserman (Eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology (pp. 347–383). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Schaffer, J. (2010a). Monism: The priority of the whole. Philosophical Review, 119(1), 31–76.
Schaffer, J. (2010b). The internal relatedness of all things. Mind, 119, 341–376.
Schroder, B. S. W. (2003). Ordered Sets: An Introduction. Boston: Birkhauser.
Shoemaker, S. (2003). Identity, Cause, and Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shoemaker, S. (2007). Physical Realization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sider, T. (2012). Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilsch, T. (2015). The nomological account of ground. Philosophical Studies, 172(12), 3293–3312.
Wilson, J. (2010). Fundamental determinables. Philosophical Imprint, 12(4), 1–17.
Wilson, J. (2014). No work for a theory of grounding. Inquiry, 57(5–6), 535–579.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bertrand, M. Fundamental ontological structure: an argument against pluralism. Philos Stud 174, 1277–1297 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0760-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0760-x