Existence

Edited by T. Parent (Nazarbayev University)
About this topic
Summary When an ontologist asks "what exists?," a meta-question may soon follow: What is meant here by 'exists'? Quine's influential view is that 'exist' should be regimented as an existential quantifier, so that our ontological commitments are determined by the range of the quantifier, within our best scientific theory. In opposition, Carnap held that some existential statements are not ontologically committing. E.g., the statement 'There is an even prime' (if meaningful at all) is merely true by definition within the "mathematics framework." That is so, even though the sentence may be false in, say, the framework of evolutionary biology. Accordingly, for Carnap to "exist" is a pluralistic affair, relativized to a framework. Beyond the Quine-Carnap debate, other issues regarding existence include the classic question "Why is there anything at all?" as well as the riddle of non-being: "There exist things that do not exist" has the shape of a contradiction, but it also can seem true, thanks to Pegasus, unicorns, etc. Finally, and relatedly, some have suggested that there are different "ways of being," i.e., that there is more than one way to exist. Whether this is tenable is currently receiving much attention in the literature.
Key works The debate between Quine 1953 and Carnap 1950 is essential reading. Also, Sider 2011 is a neo-Quinean who has debated the neo-Carnapian Hirsch 2010. See in addition the neo-Quineanism of van Van Inwagen 1998, and the neo-Carnapianism of Hofweber 2005. A middle way is forged by Azzouni 2004; Azzouni 2007: His view is that (contra Carnap) 'exist' is not framework-relative, but (contra Quine) 'exist' should be regimented as a predicate and that it ordinarily does not express genuine ontological commitment. Post 1987 is excellent on disambiguating "why does the universe exist?;" see also Parfit 1992 for an overview of possible ways to answer the question. On nonexistence, Meinong 1904 and the response in Russell 1905 are must reads--and more recent pieces include Zalta 1988, Thomasson 1998, Sainsbury 2005, and Kripke 2013. On "ways of being," Spencer 2012 provides a nice overview of the current literature. Two other key works on existence are Salmon 1987, and Lewis 1986 on existence vs. actuality.
Introductions Recommended introductions are Nelson 2012, Reicher 2019, and Sorensen 2008.
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History/traditions: Existence

Contents
426 found
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1 — 50 / 426
  1. A Falsifiable Ontological Argument for the Existence of (any) God(s) and Why the Universe Exists.David Angell - manuscript
    Absolute nothing is the absence of our universe and its laws. Without these rules, nothingness has infinite potential. This implies that within the infinite probability of nothing, infinity can emerge. This would be expressed through infinite universes like our own. Infinite of these universes will differ by several particles, appearing and disappearing for no reason other than fulfilling every possibility. This universe is the product of a greater realisation of infinity and we can test this theory via the measurement of (...)
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  2. Reality Realism.Sean M. Carroll - manuscript
    In Morality & Mathematics, Justin Clarke-Doane argues that it is hard to imagine being "a realist about, for example, the standard model of particle physics, but not about mathematics." I try to explain how that seems very possible from the perspective of a physicist. What is real is the physical world; mathematics starts from descriptions of the natural world and extrapolates from there, but that extrapolation does not imply any independent reality. -/- Submitted to an Analysis Reviews symposium on Clarke-Doane's (...)
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  3. What is Conservatism? [REVIEW]Louis deRosset - manuscript
    In Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary, Daniel Z. Korman defends a view he calls conservatism. Conservatives hold that there are ordinary objects, but no extraordinary objects. But Korman never explicitly characterizes what would qualify an object as ordinary in the relevant sense. We have some paradigm cases of ordinary objects, including tables, dogs, and trees; and we have some paradigm cases of extraordinary objects of sorts familiar from the philosophical literature. Here I attempt to fill this gap, surveying a (...)
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  4. How to Speak about a Supreme Being.Jude Arnout Durieux - manuscript
    If the transcendence tree to which our world belongs has a root, and that root is a mind, then what can be known about that mind? It seems there are two sources of knowledge, theology (that mind may have revealed itself to us) and philosophy (we may be able to reason about it from first principles). Here we shall look into that latter aspect.
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  5. Transcendent mediocrity is the neutral position.Jude Arnout Durieux - manuscript
    In the light of the principle of mediocrity, naturalism is in fact transcendent exceptionalism - as opposed to transcendent mediocrity. As such, it has the burden of proof - and the "inverse criterion" defeats many of such alleged proofs.
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  6. Über die logische Notwendigkeit des EINEN.Helmut Hansen - manuscript
    1078 schlug Anselm von Cantury ein Argument für die Existenz Gottes vor, welches als ontologischer Beweis bekannt wurde. Es basiert auf der Erkennt-nis, dass die Nicht-Existenz Gottes zu einem Widerspruch führt, weswegen die Existenz Gottes als logisch notwendig erscheint. Obwohl diese Schlussfolgerung heutzutage als bedeutungslos kritisiert wird, ist sie immer noch Gegenstand philosophischer und theologischer Betrachtungen. In diesem Aufsatz wird eine moderne, d.h. wissenschaftliche, Metaphysik vorgestellt, die zu derselben Schlussfolgerung führte wie der ontologische Beweis – freilich aus einem ganz anderen (...)
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  7. Meinongian Merits and Maladies.Samuel Hoadley-Brill - manuscript
    According to what has long been the dominant school of thought in analytic meta-ontology––defended not only by W. V. O. Quine, but also by Bertrand Russell, Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and many others––the meaning of ‘there is’ is identical to the meaning of ‘there exists.’ The most (in)famous aberration from this view is advanced by Alexius Meinong, whose ontological picture has endured extensive criticism (and borderline abuse) from several subscribers to the majority view. Meinong denies the identity of being (...)
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  8. Bare Life.Gavin Keeney - manuscript
    Brief essay on Giorgio Agamben's concept of "bare life" from Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998), with reference to The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (2005).
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  9. Information Monism - and its Concepts of Substance, Attributes, and Emergent Modes.Dan Kurth - manuscript
    In this paper I try to combine the objectology of Meinong with a neutral substance monism of the kind originally proposed by Spinoza (deus sive natura). Yet Spinoza was still stuck in the Cartesian paradigm and therefore rather gave a dual monism (extensio et intellectus) than a proper neutral monism. I propose that there are only two attributes of the one substance: existence and non-existence. Everything else is/are mere modes of them.
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  10. Postscripts.Paul Merriam - manuscript
    Postscripts to McTaggart meets Schrodinger's Cat.
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  11. A Dialogue with I ! حوار مع أنا.Salah Osman - manuscript
    هل يمكن إذن أن أكون أنا لست أنا بانطباعات الزمان على جسدي وفكري؟ أليس لي جوهرٌ ثابتٌ تتبدل عليه الأعراض من حين إلى آخر، ومن ثم لا أفقد هويتي الحقيقية؟ لقد وُلدت منذ سنوات خلت، وتعلمت وعلمت أنني هو أنا، ويعلم المحيطون بي أنني هو أنا، بل يستطيع العلم المعاصر أن يُثبت أن لي تركيبًا جينيًا وراثيًا يميزني عن غيري، وأن لي بصمات أصابع وبصمة صوت لا تتطابق مع بصمات غيري، وسيحاسبني ربي يوم العرض عليه بوصفي شخصًا واحدًا هو أنا؛ (...)
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  12. A Critique of Metaphysical Thinking.T. Parent - manuscript
    Draft of March 2022. This is a draft of the front matter and ch. 1, for a new book manuscript on metametaphysics.
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  13. Ontologia singularităților gravitaționale.Nicolae Sfetcu - manuscript
    Relativitatea generală permite singularități. Trebuie să înțelegem ontologia singularităților gravitaționale dacă vrem să înțelegem natura spațiului și a timpului în universul actual. Deșii unii fizicieni consideră că singularitățile indică un eșec al relativității generale, alții cred că singularitățile deschid în fapt un orizont nou în cosmologie, cu fenomene fizice reale care pot ajuta la un progres profund în înțelegerea noastră a lumii. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31766.50242.
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  14. Singularitățile ca limite ontologice ale relativității generale.Nicolae Sfetcu - manuscript
    Singularitățile la care se ajunge în relativitatea generală prin rezolvarea ecuațiilor lui Einstein au fost și încă mai sunt subiectul a numeroase dezbateri științifice: Există sau nu, singularități? Big Bang a fost o singularitate inițială? Dacă singularitățile există, care este ontologia acestora? Este teoria generală a relativității o teorie care și-a arătat limitele în acest caz? În acest eseu argumentez faptul că există singularități, iar teoria generală a relativității, ca de altfel oricare altă teorie științifică din prezent, nu este valabilă (...)
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  15. The new paradigm: quantum interbeing.Brian Wachter - manuscript
    It is the conclusion advanced in this paper that there is a necessary and sufficient causal relationship between theory of mind and the neurological creation of conscious and unconscious quantum logic existing in superposition in the human brain. It takes two intelligent agents to make one self-aware agent. -/- A key element of my reasoning is the instantiation of superposition by way of a logical device I call the “state-system.” The newly conscious human remains unaware of the inner transformation caused (...)
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  16. Becoming What One Is: Thinking-About Trauma and Authenticity.Ryan Wasser - manuscript
    Ecce Homo, Nietzsche's autobiography, is distinguished it the rest of his oeuvre and discloses, in no uncertain terms, by its profound candor in bringing to question a topic of vital importance that has remained a central concern of the cultural zeitgeist especially as a reaction to various events of the 21st century: trauma. Trauma [τραῦμα], a Grecian term that traditionally refers to "a wound," underpins much of Nietzsche's writing, and is present in observations of his own lived experience, those of (...)
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  17. On the notion of existence.Piotr Witas - manuscript
    I argue that a slight shift in our understanding of the notion of existence is needed in order to cope with the problem of external world and the problem of mind and body. As a consequence of it being taught by "givenness" of the subjective mind, and despite its applicability in objective contexts, it should be considered a "tool" akin to qualia, rather than pertaining to a "true", objective reality. In plain language, one's supposed relation with their surroundings is known (...)
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  18. On Being.Xinyan Zhang - manuscript
    “Being” or “being and beings” might be the meta-notion when philosophy and science were still sharing the same mind or minds in ancient Greek and Europe. To find its meaning and to become a part of the meaning are however more and more vital nowadays, not for philosophy but for science, especially for physics and biology. The author proposes in this essay that this concept may mean to us nothing more or less than the unity or unification of Parmenides’ idea (...)
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  19. What and How is Being.Xinyan Zhang - manuscript
    The main idea of this article is: “Being” might mean nothing more or less than Parmenides’ one in Heraclitus’ flux. He holds that the one and the flux are the same in reality. And we may not experience Heraclitus’ flux if without the one and can also not understand Parmenides’ one if without the flux. -/- 在作者看来,释迦牟尼所说的“涅槃”、赫拉克利特所说的“流变”、巴门尼德所说的“同一”和高尔吉亚所说的“无物”,共同组成着一个抱负“物人同一”信念的概念系统。本文则试图用十四个假设来勾勒这一系统的基本结 构,并间接地道出他们对实体哲学理念和主体哲学理念的反驳。.
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  20. The Absurd. [REVIEW]Bara Zraik - manuscript
    In this paper I explore the absurdity of Camus’s Sisyphus.
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  21. Vernünftige Existenz als Weltbewältigung. Eine Kritik der weltanschaulichen Neutralität säkularer Vernunft bei Jürgen Habermas.Maximilian Runge - 2015
    Since Jürgen Habermas' speech for the Peace Price of the German Book Trade in October 2001, secular reason – personified by one of its main protagonists – has been able to debate with religion anew. For the purpose of an unbiased encounter between philosophy and religion, Habermas introduced the term “postsecular” back then in order to emphasize that this dialogue was inevitably necessary, all the more in the face of religiously motivated terrorism. Nonetheless, this willingness to debate was accompanied by (...)
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  22. Continuité temporelle de soi et pratique de la botanique chez Rousseau.Pierre Landou - unknown - In Pascal Bouvier (ed.), to be published. Université de Savoie.
    Article où l'on propose une lecture égologique de la botanique rousseauiste. La botanique certifierait la continuité temporelle d'un moi menacé de fragmentation.
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  23. The sense of existence.Billon Alexandre - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.
    If I see, hear, or touch a sparrow, the sparrow seems real to me. Unlike Bigfoot or Santa Claus, it seems to exist; I will therefore judge that it does indeed exist. The “sense of existence” refers to the kind of awareness that typically grounds such ordinary judgments of existence or “reality.” The sense of existence has been invoked by Humeans, Kantians, Ideologists, and the phenomenological tradition to make substantial philosophical claims. However, it is extremely controversial; its very existence has (...)
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  24. Symmetry and Hybrid Contingentism.Maegan Fairchild - forthcoming - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious whether and (...)
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  25. Formal Ontology.Jani Hakkarainen & Markku Keinänen - forthcoming - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Formal ontology as a main branch of metaphysics investigates categories of being. In the formal ontological approach to metaphysics, these ontological categories are analysed by ontological forms. This analysis, which we illustrate by some category systems, provides a tool to assess the clarity, exactness and intelligibility of different category systems or formal ontologies. We discuss critically different accounts of ontological form in the literature. Of ontological form, we propose a character- neutral relational account. In this metatheory, ontological forms of entities (...)
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  26. Existence hedges, neutral free logic and truth.Jan Heylen - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Semantic externalism in the style of McDowell and Evans faces a puzzle formulated by Pryor: to explain that a sentence such as 'Jack exists' is only a posteriori knowable, despite being logically entailed by the seemingly logical truth 'Jack is self-identical', and hence being itself a logical truth and therefore a priori knowable. Free logics can dissolve the puzzle. Moreover, Pryor has argued that the existentially hedged 'If Jack exists, then Jack is self-identical', when properly formalised, is a logical truth (...)
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  27. Theoretical Underpinnings of Wiredu’s Empiricalism.Richmond Kwesi - forthcoming - UTAFITI Journal of African Perspectives.
    Wiredu uses the term ‘empiricalism’ to characterize a mode of thinking that is essentially empirical in orientation but admits non-transcendental metaphysical categories and existents into its systems of thought. Wiredu finds evidence of this mode of thinking in the Akan language. The central question I engage with in this paper is this: what makes empiricalism a plausible system of thought that has universal validity and intelligibility? I argue that the plausibility and universality of empiricalism is evident in Wiredu’s logical and (...)
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  28. The B-Theory in the 20th Century.M. Joshua Mozersky - forthcoming - In Adrian Bardon & Heather Dyke (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Wiley-Blackwell.
  29. Dwa typy abstrakcjonizmu w ontologii fikcji.Maciej Sendłak - forthcoming - Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki.
    "The main aim of the paper is to compare two types of abstractionistic accounts of fictional objects, and to analyze their consequences for interpretation of existential quantification. According to a proponent of general abstractionistic theory, fictional objects have abstract nature in a way similar to contracts, marriages, and the likes. This view is an alternative to strongly realistic accounts of fictional objects, defended by Terence Parsons or David Lewis. Within abstractionistic theories, as in all philosophical areas, one can find divergences (...)
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  30. Engineering Existence?Lukas Skiba - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    This paper investigates the connection between two recent trends in philosophy: higher-orderism and conceptual engineering. Higher-orderists use higher-order quantifiers (in particular quantifiers binding variables that occupy the syntactic positions of predicates) to express certain key metaphysical doctrines, such as the claim that there are properties. I argue that, on a natural construal, the higher-orderist approach involves an engineering project concerning, among others, the concept of existence. I distinguish between a modest construal of this project, on which it aims at engineering (...)
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  31. The Truth about Social Entities.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2023 - In Andrés Garcia, Mattias Gunnemyr & Jakob Werkmäster (eds.), Value, Morality & Social Reality. Lund, Sweden: Media-Tryck, Lund University. pp. 483-497.
  32. Ontological Pluralism and Ontological Category.Ataollah Hashemi & Davood Hosseini - 2023 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 19 (1):page A1-16.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different ways of being. Historically, ways of being are aligned with the ontological categories. This paper is about to investigate why there is such a connection, and how it should be understood. Ontological pluralism suffers from an objection, according to which ontological pluralism collapses into ontological monism, i.e., there is only one way to be. Admitting to ontological categories can save ontological pluralism from this objection if ways of being ground ontological categories. (...)
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  33. Edenic Idealism.Robert Smithson - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (1):16-33.
    ABSTRACT According to edenic idealism, our ordinary object terms refer to items in the manifest world—the world of primitive objects and properties presented in experience. I motivate edenic idealism as a response to scenarios where it is difficult to match the objects in experience with corresponding items in the external world. I argue that edenic idealism has important semantic advantages over realism: it is the most intuitive view of what we are actually talking about when we use terms for objects.
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  34. Existence and Modality in Kant: Lessons from Barcan.Andrew Stephenson - 2023 - Philosophical Review 132 (1):1-41.
    This essay considers Kant’s theory of modality in light of a debate in contemporary modal metaphysics and modal logic concerning the Barcan formulas. The comparison provides a new and fruitful perspective on Kant’s complex and sometimes confusing claims about possibility and necessity. Two central Kantian principles provide the starting point for the comparison: that the possible must be grounded in the actual and that existence is not a real predicate. Both are shown to be intimately connected to the Barcan formulas, (...)
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  35. The Cogito, Dreamt Characters, and Unreal Existence.Michael-John Turp - 2023 - Acta Analytica (X):1-8.
    Borges’ The Circular Ruins tells the story of a magician who turns out to be a character in a dream. Leibowitz (2021) argues that this scenario undermines the rational indubitability of Descartes’ Cogito. The magician, he argues, is an unreal appearance and therefore does not exist. I argue that Borges drew a distinction between reality and existence and that he was right to do so. There are various senses of reality and the sense in which a dreamt character is unreal (...)
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  36. The Ethnographic Quest in the Midst of COVID-19.Luis Gregorio Abad Espinoza - 2022 - International Journal of Qualitative Methods 21:1-12.
    The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has threatened ethnographic inquiry, undermining its quintessential characteristic. Participant observation, then, has been thoroughly dismembered by the radical measures implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. This phenomenon, in short, has dragged anthropologists to a liminal state within which ethnography is paradoxically caught in an onto-epistemological unstable vortex. The question of being here and not there, during the pandemic, is epitomised in the instability of different spatio-temporal contexts that overlap through technological mediations. Reflecting on previous (...)
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  37. Entities and their genera: Slicing up the world the medieval way--and does it matter to formal ontology?Luis M. Augusto - 2022 - Journal of Knowledge Structures and Systems 3 (2):4-47.
    Genera, typically hand-in-hand with their branching species, are essential elements of vocabulary-based information constructs, in particular scientific taxonomies. Should they also feature in formal ontologies, the highest of such constructs? I argue in this article that the answer is “Yes” and that the question posed in its title also has a Yes-answer: The way medieval ontologists sliced up the world into genera does matter to formal ontology. More specifically, the way Dietrich of Freiberg, a Latin scholastic, conceived and applied strictly (...)
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  38. To be or not to be informed, that is the question of O/ontology.Luis M. Augusto - 2022 - Journal of Knowledge Structures and Systems 3 (3):3-49.
    The relations between ontology and information are many and fundamental, and they help us to understand the present gulf between (formal) ontology and (philosophical) Ontology: We can speak of respectively ontology-driven information and information-driven ontology as the focus on being informed vs. informed being. The question of whether these two (can) coincide is relevant to both fields, and in this article I elaborate on what needs to be addressed first of all to provide us with an answer: The form. This (...)
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  39. Explaining Why There is Something Rather than Nothing.Andrew Brenner - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (4):1831-1847.
    It is sometimes supposed that, in principle, we cannot offer an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. I argue that this supposition is a mistake, and stems from a needlessly myopic conception of the form explanations can legitimately take. After making this more general point, I proceed to offer a speculative suggestion regarding one sort of explanation which can in principle serve as an answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” The suggestion is (...)
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  40. Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space.Sean M. Carroll - 2022 - In Valia Allori (ed.), Quantum Mechanics and Fundamentality: Naturalizing Quantum Theory between Scientific Realism and Ontological Indeterminacy. Copenhagen: Springer Cham. pp. 211-224.
    I defend the extremist position that the fundamental ontology of the world consists of a vector in Hilbert space evolving according to the Schrödinger equation. The laws of physics are determined solely by the energy eigenspectrum of the Hamiltonian. The structure of our observed world, including space and fields living within it, should arise as a higher-level emergent description. I sketch how this might come about, although much work remains to be done.
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  41. The Witching Body: Ontology and Physicality of the Witch.Katherine R. Devereux - 2022 - Open Philosophy 5 (1):464-473.
    These considerations illuminate an ontology of the witch by first disclosing how “witch,” as a linguistic gesture, carries a world of meaning, ethics, and a culture of being originating in the body. Witches and witchcraft speak to a communal situatedness of being by acknowledging the power we have over ourselves, others, and that singular lack of control we often experience in everyday life. In dialogue with Ada Agada, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I offer an interpretation of the body schema (...)
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  42. David Benatarʼs Argument from Asymmetry: A Qualified Defence.Oliver Hallich - 2022 - Journal of Value Inquiry 56 (1):5-19.
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  43. Introduction.Oliver Hallich & Michael Hauskeller - 2022 - Journal of Value Inquiry 56 (1):1-4.
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  44. An Account of Suhrawardī’s Allegories in Light of the Illuminationist Philosophy.Mahdi Homazadeh - 2022 - International Journal of Platonic Tradition 16:1-20.
    In this paper, I seek to explain Suhrawardī’s method of writing his allegories – how he draws upon his philosophical principles to construct forms and plots of his stories. To do so, I begin by delineating two key doctrines of his Illuminationist (Ishrāqī) ontology: the world of Forms (‘ālam al-muthul) and the discontinuous imaginal world (‘ālam al-mithāl al-munfaṣil). I provide an account of the history of these two doctrines and the nature of these two worlds, and then consider some of (...)
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  45. Can Non-Causal Explanations Answer the Leibniz Question?Jens Lemanski - 2022 - Metaphysica 23 (2):427-443.
    Leibniz is often cited as an authority when it comes to the formulation and answer strategy of the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Yet much current research assumes that Leibniz advocates an unambiguous question and strategy for the answer. In this respect, one repeatedly finds the argument in the literature that alternative explanatory approaches to this question violate Leibniz’s intention, since he derives the question from the principle of sufficient reason and also demands a causal explanation to (...)
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  46. There are no uninstantiated words.James Miller - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Kaplan (1990; 2011) argues that there are no unspoken words. Hawthorne and Lepore (2011) put forward examples that purport to show that there can be such words. Here, I argue that Kaplan is correct, if we grant him a minor variation. While Hawthorne and Lepore might be right that there can be unspoken words, I will argue that they fail to show that there can be uninstantiated words.
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  47. Jean-Luc nancy’s ethics of finitude.Marie-Eve Morin - 2022 - Angelaki 27 (1):35-46.
    Against a certain contemporary style of thinking that wishes to go beyond finitude entirely, I propose a finite praxis modeled after Jean-Luc Nancy’s finite thinking. I argue that the desire to imm...
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  48. Should an Ontological Pluralist Be a Quantificational Pluralist?Byron Simmons - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (6):324-346.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Recent defenders of this view—such as Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner—have taken these ways of being to be best captured by semantically primitive quantifier expressions ranging over different domains. They have thus endorsed, what I shall call, quantificational pluralism. I argue that this focus on quantification is a mistake. For, on this view, a quantificational structure—or a quantifier for short—will be whatever part or aspect of reality’s structure (...)
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  49. Possibility Precedes Actuality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2022 - Erkenntnis:1-21.
    This paper is inspired by and develops on E. J. Lowe’s work, who writes in his book The Possibility of Metaphysics that ‘metaphysical possibility is an inescapable determinant of actuality’ (1998: 9). Metaphysics deals with possibilities – metaphysical possibilities – but is not able to determine what is actual without the help of empirical research. Accordingly, a delimitation of the space of possibilities is required. The resulting – controversial – picture is that we generally need to know whether something is (...)
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  50. Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence.Jonathan Barker - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):303-318.
    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 (...)
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