Monism, Emergence, and Plural Logic

Erkenntnis 76 (2):211-223 (2012)
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Abstract

In this paper I argue that we need to take irreducibly plural logic more seriously in metaphysical debates due to the fact that the verdict of many metaphysical debates hangs on it. I give two examples. The main example I focus on is the debate recently revived by Jonathan Schaffer over the fundamental cardinality of the world. I show how the three main arguments provided by Schaffer are unsound in virtue of an employment of plural logic. The second example I give is a more general issue about the possibility of emergent properties of mereological wholes. Employing plural logic there is a new way to understand such cases. The upshot is that plural logic greatly matters to metaphysics and hence can no longer be ignored the way it has in this area

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Author's Profile

Einar Duenger Bohn
University Of Agder

Citations of this work

Mereology.Achille C. Varzi - 2016 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Fundamentality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Monism.Jonathan Schaffer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Priority monism.Kelly Trogdon - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (11):1-10.

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References found in this work

Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
Is there a fundamental level?Jonathan Schaffer - 2003 - Noûs 37 (3):498–517.

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