Abstract
In his recent The Parmenidean Ascent, Michael Della Rocca develops a regress-theoretic case, reminiscent of F. H. Bradley’s famous argument in Appearance and Reality, against the intelligibility of relations and in favor of a monistic conception of reality. I argue that Della Rocca illicitly supposes that “internal” relations — in one sense of that word — lead to a “chain” regress, a regress of relations relating relations and relata. In contrast, I contend that if “internal” or grounded relations lead to a regress at all, it is a kind of “fission” regress within the relata themselves, and that a chain regress for relations only arises, if at all, for so-called “external” relations, relations not grounded in their relata. In this way, I contend that Della Rocca pursues a regress for so-called “internal” or grounded relations that only arise, if at all, for so-called “external” relations, relations not grounded in their relata. I compare Della Rocca’s case against relations with Bradley’s reasoning in Appearance and Reality and suggest in this context that Bradley may, perhaps, have the upper hand.
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Notes
In the jargon popularized by Jonathan Schaffer in his “Monism: the Priority of the Whole” (2010) and elsewhere, Della Rocca favors a form of “existence monism” — that there is only one thing — as opposed to the weaker “priority monism” — that the cosmos has parts, but that they are grounded in and derivative from the whole. Indeed, as Della Rocca recognizes, his monism may be more extreme than even existence monism, since existence monism supposes that there is one thing, but the very notion of one thing may involve relations, since numbers involve relations. It should also be marked, as Bradley seemed to recognize, that a case for monism premised on a rejection of relations cannot accept a distinction between the fundamental and the derivative: this would require relations between the fundamental and the derivative, and thus would seem unable to embrace Schaffer’s so-called “priority monism”, which takes the cosmos to be fundamental vis-à-vis its myriad derivative parts.
Here and elsewhere, I have made some changes to the notation for consistency with my discussions.
See Heil (2021).
See, for example, Audi (2020). In my view, two central questions here concern, first, the extent to which superinternal relations are properly regarded as relations at all and, second, the implications that putative superinternal relations have regarding the nature of the grounds. For example, regarding the second issue, one may wonder whether a physicalist can really hold that physical properties are superinternally related to mental properties or rather, on the hand, whether such a putative relation undermines the character of the physical as purely physical. Further discussion of these issues, however, must here be set aside.
Della Rocca argues that such a position is inherently unstable — that one ought to either embrace a fully general Principle of Sufficient Reason or no such principle at all. His reasoning for this conclusion is dense, and I cannot go into the details here. I will simply note that, in my view at least, there is room to maneuver, and that there may very well be coherent conceptual space for one to maintain, in effect, that there are limits to when and where it is appropriate to ask “why?” and that facts about natures or identities may well be such a case.
As in Candlish (2007).
On the present strategy, relations are treated as attributes or aspects of terms in relation, akin to what Russell would later refer to as the “monadistic” theory of relations. While Russell develops his own critique of the monadistic view premised on its inability to account for asymmetrical relations such that if A stands in a relation R to B, B does not stand in R to A, he endorses Bradley’s critique from the point of view of “general philosophy” (Russell, 1903, 224).
For critical discussion of Bradley’s “fission” argument, as well as his general case against relations, see Perovic (2014); for more sympathetic discussions, see Candlish (2007) and Vallicella (2002). The central issue with the “fission” regress is whether Bradley’s claim that “qualities must be, and must also be related” mandates thinking of qualities in relations as having inner constituents or distinct parts that must then be related; one might hold, on the contrary, that a quality or term might be simple and without inner constituents, despite being what it is and also being related, internally, to other qualities. This issue warrants further discussion. It may be noted that even if Bradley’s overall case against relations as such falls short in this respect, it may still be possible to develop a fission-based case against at least some proposals involving relations. For example, physicalists have often held that basic physical properties have both an intrinsic physical character but also necessary dispositions to ground putative “higher-level” properties, including mentality. However, there is reason to think that this leads to an inner division within the physical properties, with such properties “polluted” by mentality-directed dispositions, and that attempts to partition off a purely physical component of such properties leads to something like a fission-based inner regress. I explore this issue further in [redacted]. I am thankful to an anonymous referee for raising this important issue.
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Morris, K. Della Rocca’s Relations Regress and Bradley’s Relations Regresses. Acta Anal (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-023-00578-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-023-00578-9