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Fundamentality
Edited by Alexander Skiles (Rutgers - New Brunswick)
About this topic
| Summary | It is commonplace for philosophers to ask whether a phenomenon of one kind is fundamental. Related questions are whether it is grounded in, or metaphysically dependent upon, or is less basic than a phenomenon of some other kind. Such claims raise a number of deep, unresolved philosophical questions in their own right. How are these notions of fundamentality related? What theoretical pursuits require them, and how can we come to know truths couched in terms of them? How do they relate to notions of mereology, modality, explanation, reduction, realization, substance, truthmaking, essence, provability, and causation? How is discourse about fundamentality to be regimented, and can well-behaved and interesting logical and semantic frameworks for this discourse be developed? What are the ontological commitments of this discourse? Must reality contain a sparsely populated ‘fundamental level’ of entities or facts? And how fundamental are these notions of fundamentality themselves? |
| Key works | Notions of fundamentality have been discussed in philosophy since its inception, and can be found discussed at length by Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bolzano, Husserl, Armstrong, Lewis, and Kim among many others. Interest in these notions has intensified during the first two decades of the 21st century largely (but not solely) due to the influence of Fine 1995, 2001, and 2012; Correia 2005; Schaffer 2003, 2009, and 2010; Rosen 2010; Sider 2009 and 2011; and Wilson 2014. |
| Introductions | For excellent introductions to recent work on metaphysical grounding see Clark & Liggins 2012, Correia & Schnieder 2012, and Trogdon 2013; for recent work on dependence in metaphysics see Correia 2008 and Koslicki 2013. |
Show all references
Related
Siblings
- Conceptual Analysis and A Priori Entailment (101)
- Determinates and Determinables (92)
- Emergence (853 | 551)
- Grounding (892)
- Interlevel Metaphysics, Misc (147)
- Metaphysical Levels (124 | 52)
- Physicalism (750 | 400)
- Realization (705 | 13)
- Reduction (1,069 | 230)
- Supervenience (656 | 39)
- Token Identity (153)
- Truthmakers (813)
Contents
612+ found
Order:
| 1 — 50 / 612 |
- Logics of Metaphysical Definition.Andrew Bacon - manuscript
- A Dilemma for Plenitude.David Builes - manuscriptAccording to modal plenitude, every material object is exactly coincident with infinitely many other material objects, where each of these exactly coincident objects merely differ from one another in their modal properties. Such a position is often taken to be a consequence of the only non-arbitrary generalization of the view that (say) a statue is numerically distinct from the lump of clay from which it is made. The goal of this paper will be to argue against modal plenitude. Usually, modal (...)
- Four Views of the First-Person.David Builes - manuscriptI argue that all experiences are my experiences.
- Indeterminacy, Ambiguity and Historiography.Phil Corkum - manuscriptHere is a commonplace for the ancient philosophy scholar: a key term in an ancient author appears to denote different referents in different passages. For example, Aristotle’s ‘substance’ appears to denote concrete individuals in the Categories, but forms in the Metaphysics. One scholarly response is to view such terms as ambiguous. I will explore an alternative interpretive strategy: to view such terms as univocal, but to view the referents of such terms as varying along with a contextually determined contrast class. (...)
- Are Skeptical Doubts about Ground Warranted?Louis deRosset - manuscriptNo. More carefully: apparently not. [This piece was published in the Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Ground (2020), edited by Michael J. Raven with the title "Anti-Skeptical Rejoinders", pp. 180-193].
- Next Best Thing—What Can Quantum Mechanics Tell Us About the Fundamental Ontology of the World?Bixin Guo - manuscriptMany discussions in the metaphysics and philosophy of physics literature aim to use physics as a guide to elucidate what the world really, fundamentally is like. However, we don’t yet have a confirmed fundamental theory of physics—what’s the next best thing we can possibly say about the fundamental that is properly informed by our best theories of physics? This paper offers a starting point to address this question. It focuses on the literature on the ontology of quantum mechanics, where the (...)
- A Common-Sense A-Theory: Time’s Passing, Cross-temporal Relationships, Truthmakers.Alexander Jackson - manuscriptI propose a novel A-theory, and show that it attractively articulates our common-sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. This A-theory posits fundamental facts about how things were at a specific past times. It allows fundamental cross-temporal relationships. It treats time’s passing by positing fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. First, I motivate my account of time’s passing. Second, I defend fundamental cross-temporal relationships. Third, I rebut arguments demanding present truth-makers for truths about the past. Author (MS) (...)
- Fundamentality and Rationally Open-Ended Endeavours: Reply to Amijee.Yannic Kappes - manuscriptAmijee ("Inquiry and Metaphysical Rationalism") argues that as long as we have not yet discovered that any fact is ungrounded, we ought to be committed to a version of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), according to which every fact is grounded. In this note I present Amijee’s argument, rebut it, and diagnose where it fails. In a nutshell, the issue with Amijee's argument is that in general, rationally searching for something/seeking something/trying to achieve something does not require believing that (...)
- What is Fundamental in Fundamental Physics?Alexander Niederklapfer - manuscriptMetaphysicians as well as philosophers of science often turn to particle physics for a description of the most fundamental entities in our universe. The common assumption is that physics readily provides a clear account of both what those fundamental building blocks are and how they come together to form more complicated objects, and, conversely, how compound objects can be seen as being composed of those fundamental entities. I argue that this picture contains a major difficulty because quantum theories allow for (...)
- The Ontological Definition of Existence.Yuya Saito - manuscriptThis paper presents a novel axiomatic framework for the definition of existence to address the fundamental Leibnizian question: ``Why is there something rather than nothing?'' Within the broader context of {Universal Ontology, I define existence ($E$) as being synonymous with information-theoretic difference ($D$). By establishing the semantic equivalence between ``Nothingness'' ($N$) and ``Totality'' ($A$) as states of zero-difference, this framework positions existence as an emergent structure arising from the breaking of this symmetry. Furthermore, by defining the boundary conditions of the (...)
- Humeanism Begins in the Middle.Nikita Shchevyev - manuscriptHumean supervenience holds that the world consists of a mosaic of local intrinsic qualities distributed across spacetime, with all truths supervening on that distribution. The thesis is distinguished by its claim to completeness: the mosaic is the entire fundamental base, with nothing fundamental left over. This paper argues that the claim cannot be sustained. For properties to be distributed across spacetime, a spatiotemporal ordering must already be in place. Three routes to grounding this ordering within Humean resources are identified and (...)
- Levels: descriptive, explanatory, and ontological.Christian List - 2017Scientists and philosophers frequently speak about levels of description, levels of explanation, and ontological levels. This paper presents a framework for studying levels. I give a general definition of a system of levels and discuss several applications, some of which refer to descriptive or explanatory levels while others refer to ontological levels. I illustrate the usefulness of this framework by bringing it to bear on some familiar philosophical questions. Is there a hierarchy of levels, with a fundamental level at the (...)
- Explanatory Idealism.Fatema Amijee - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.This paper argues that engaging in a ubiquitous form of rational inquiry commits us to an epistemic form of Explanatory Idealism: the claim that any rational (human) inquirer can access every explanation.
- Ultimate-Humeanism.Samuel John Andrews - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Super-Humeans argue that the most parsimonious ontology of the natural world compatible with our best physical theories consists exclusively of particles and the distance relations between them. This paper argues by contrast that Super-Humean reduction goes insufficiently far, by showing there to be a more parsimonious ontology compatible with physics: Ultimate-Humeanism. This novel view posits an ontology consisting solely of the particles and distance relations required for the existence of a single brain. Super-Humeans impose conditions on what counts as an (...)
- Fundamentality in the Social World.Sara Bernstein - forthcoming - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder, Facets of Reality. Berlin: De Gruyter.This paper suggests that the notions of fundamentality and fundamentalia that are useful for understanding the social world are substantively different than the notions of fundamentality and fundamentalia that are useful for understanding the objects of the natural sciences. I describe these differences. Joints in the social world can be created and destroyed. Simply describing social joints can in some circumstances create them. After arguing for the distinctness of fundamentality in the physical world from fundamentality in the social world, I (...)
- A recipe for complete non-wellfounded explanations.Alexandre Billon - forthcoming - Dialectica.In a previous article on cosmological arguments, I have put forward a few examples of complete infinite and circular explanations, and argued that complete non-wellfounded explanations such as these might explain the present state of the world better than their well-founded theistic counterparts (Billon, 2021). Although my aim was broader, the examples I gave there implied merely causal explanations. In this article, I would like to do three things: • Specify some general informative conditions for complete and incomplete non-wellfounded causal (...)
- Dölpopa, Shentong Buddhism, and the Three Jewels: An Analytic Friendly Analysis.Joseph E. Blado - forthcoming - Asian Journal of Philosophy.In philosophical Buddhism, a prominent view is that the ‘Buddhist Jewels’ are helpful for achieving nirvana. These jewels include the Buddha, the Dharma (fundamental teaching), and the Sangha (the community of believers). In the medieval Buddhist philosopher Dölpopa’s Jonang-Shentong Buddhism, these jewels though are somehow mysteriously identical to one another – despite each having different features. This paper outlines an analytic-friendly analysis of the Buddhist jewels according to Dölpopa’s Shentong tradition by drawing on recent advancements in plural logic and analytic (...)
- Rationalist Plenitude.David Builes - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.David Lewis’ modal realism has two components. First, there is an ontological thesis that there is a plenitude of all possible island universes. Second, there is a reductionist thesis that modal truths reduce to truths about these island universes. My goal is to argue for the first ontological thesis in a way that does not depend on the second reductionist thesis. In particular, I will argue that there are two plausible theses about fundamentality that entail the ontological thesis. Moreover, I (...)
- Nature’s Complexity Alive: Farewell to Several Unificatory Cosmological Arguments for Monism.Lok-Chi Chan - forthcoming - Noûs.Throughout history, numerous thinkers have claimed that monism – in the form of priority monism, existence monism, monotheistic monism, or versions that posit an extra-cosmic ultimate being – theoretically surpasses pluralism, above all by positing a unified universe. This view re-emerges in recent metaphysics through what I call cosmological arguments from parsimony (CAPs) and cosmological arguments from relations (CARs). According to CAPs, monism is more ontologically parsimonious than pluralism because it posits only one fundamental entity. According to CARs, the single (...)
- What is priority monism? Reply to Kovacs.Damiano Costa - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Priority monism is the view that the cosmos is the basic concrete entity on which each of its parts depend. Kovacs has recently argued that none of the classical notions of dependence could be used to spell out priority monism. I argue that four notions of dependence – namely rigid existential dependence, generic existential dependence, explanatory dependence, and generalised explanatory dependence – can indeed be used to spell out priority monism, and specify the conditions under which this is possible.
- Le teorie contemporanee della dipendenza ontologica.Damiano Costa & Alessandro Giordani - forthcoming - Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica.This paper surveys the main contemporary approaches to ontological dependence. After introducing the notion in general terms, we examine the modal and essentialist accounts, outlining their respective strengths and limi- tations, both old and new. We then discuss the ground-theoretic approach, specifying its relative strengths. Finally, we provide new derivations of classical principles of dependence, such as irreflexivity, transitivity, and necessity, based on this approach.
- Laws and Reasons Why.Julio De Rizzo - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.Laws play some role in explanations: at the very least, they somehow connect what is explained, or the explanandum, to what explains, or the explanans. Thus, thermodynamical laws connect the match's being struck and its lightning, so that the former causes the latter; and laws about set formation connect Socrates' existence with {Socrates}'s existence, so that the former grounds the latter. But is there more to the explanatory role of laws? A natural proposal, which finds considerable support in the literature, (...)
- Emergence from ground.Louis deRosset - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.A strongly emergent entity is both dependent on and determined by certain phenomena, while being fundamental with respect to them. The claim that there are strongly emergent entities encounters two problems. First, the core idea of strong emergence is initially puzzling and so requires clarification. Second, the idea appears not to have application on our best scientific theories. This paper proposes a simple ground-theoretic account of strong emergence, and offers reasons to think that the phenomenon thereby characterized has applications in (...)
- Accessibility and Relative Fundamentality.Scott Dixon - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.Fabrice Correia has recently provided reason to think that transcendent entities—entities that are grounded but have no immediate grounds—may exist. I point out that, if they do, grounding fails to have a more general property; it is not accessible, i.e., it is not the case that if x grounds y, there is a chain of finitely many steps of immediate grounding between x and y. I then show that the possibility that grounding is not accessible has two important consequences. First, (...)
- Against Metaphysical Egalitarianism.Peter W. Finocchiaro - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.Many philosophers think that a metaphysical theory should be evaluated by the degree to which its ideology accurately represents the fundamental structure of reality. But that position pushes them to make seemingly invidious metaphysical distinctions. For instance: is a metaphysical theory that employs logical conjunction better than one that employs logical disjunction? In this paper, I evaluate a prominent solution to this problem: metaphysical egalitarianism. According to metaphysical egalitarianism, the best theory is the theory that avoids making seemingly invidious metaphysical (...)
- Priority, Existence and Fact Constituency.Guido Imaguire - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.This article deals with a very simple question: Can an entity (object, property, or relation) e constitute a fact p, which is more fundamental than the very fact that e exists? Some metaphysicians, based on the ‘existence precedes constituency’ dogma have been defending a negative answer for this question. My main aim in this article is to argue against this dogma. I will, firstly, show why this question is important, and then, secondly, present some plausible counterexamples, that is, cases in (...)
- Escape the Presentism–Eternalism Dilemma: Towards A Common-Sense A-Theory.Alexander Jackson - forthcoming - Philosophers' Imprint.I propose a novel A-theory that attractively articulates our common-sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. This A-theory posits fundamental facts about how things were at a specific past times. It treats time’s passing by positing fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. It allows fundamental cross-temporal relationships. Here, I show that the presentism–eternalism dilemma does not embarrass the proposed A-theory. There are two notions of existence in play: existence at a time and ‘-existence’. Neither features in the (...)
- Opacity in the Book of the World?Nicholas K. Jones - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-28.This paper explores the view that the vocabulary of metaphysical fundamentality is opaque, using Sider’s theory of structure as a motivating case study throughout. Two conceptions of fundamentality are distinguished, only one of which can explain why the vocabulary of fundamentality is opaque.
- Metaphysics of String Theory.Baptiste Le Bihan - forthcoming - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- String Theory for Metaphysicians.Baptiste Le Bihan - forthcoming - In Metaphysics of String Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.String theory is a minefield for philosophers in terms of conceptual difficulty and mathematical technicality. Presentations aimed at philosophers generally focus on providing precise and technical mathematical descriptions of toy models and inter-theoretical toy derivations to give an idea of what is at play in the field. This presentation takes the opposite approach, filtering out most mathematical considerations to provide an overview of the field, eyes on the ontology. The aim is to provide a compass for metaphysicians to find their (...)
- Against Zero-Grounding.Tien-Chun Lo, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra & Alexander Skiles - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.
- Plural Grounding and Redundancy Elimination: A Defence of the Modal Collapse Argument.Jasper Lohmar - forthcoming - Analysis.Van Inwagen argued that the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) implies necessitarianism, i.e., that all truths are necessary truths. Schnieder and Steinberg showed that van Inwagen’s argument fails if we apply a notion of plural grounding to the discussion of the PSR: the conjunction of all contingent truths is fully grounded in the plurality of all contingent truths. I argue that this manoeuvre fails if we accept a principle I call Redundancy Elimination. This principle follows naturally from the transitivity of (...)
- Brute Fact Parsimony.James McIntyre - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.This paper argues that two of the theoretical virtues—ontological and ideological parsimony—reduce to a more foundational and familiar theoretical imperative to avoid positing brute facts. Following recent developments in metaphysics, I characterize ontological and ideological parsimony as principles that impose theoretical costs on fundamental ontology and primitive ideology respectively. I subsequently argue that both sorts of theoretical commitment entail costly brute (i.e., ungrounded) commitments. We can thus understand ontological and ideological parsimony as reducing to brute fact parsimony. After defending this (...)
- Infinite regresses: The confusion between stopping problems and starting problems.Guido Melchior - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.The established view about regress problems has it that they, roughly speaking, come in only one variety. This view is mistaken. Two types of problems are typically subsumed under the label of regress problems – stopping problems and starting problems. Both problem types share the same surface structure in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but their deeper founding structure reveals some key differences. Stopping problems rely on a regress clause, raise the question whether infinite chains are possible, and present (...)
- Ontology without hierarchy.Kristie Miller, Michael J. Duncan & James Norton - forthcoming - In Javier Cumpa, The Question of Ontology: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford University Press.It has recently become popular to suggest that questions of ontology ought be settled by determining, first, which fundamental things exist, and second, which derivative things depend on, or are grounded by, those fundamental things. This methodology typically leads to a hierarchical view of ontology according to which there are chains of entities, each dependent on the next, all the way down to a fundamental base. In this paper we defend an alternative ontological picture according to which there is no (...)
- Type-R Physicalism.Will Moorfoot - forthcoming - Philosophical Psychology.In this paper, I argue for an often-neglected solution to the conceivability argument: the reconciliatory response. Its advocates state that, even if zombies are metaphysically possible, it does not follow that all versions of physicalism are false. To make the reconciliatory response, we must construct a theory that counts as a version of physicalism (because it makes higher-level facts count as physical) but also allows for the metaphysical possibility of zombies. Call any physicalist theory that can make the reconciliatory response (...)
- Generalism Without Generation.Ezra Rubenstein - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.According to generalism, the world is fundamentally general –– ultimately, there are no individuals. I distinguish two versions of this view. ‘Permissive generalism’ holds that facts involving individuals are non-basic: they are generated by purely general basic facts. I argue that permissive generalists will struggle to provide suitably systematic and non-arbitrary explanations for facts involving individuals. These problems are avoided by switching to ‘strict generalism’: the view that truths about individuals are non-perspicuous, and reduce to purely general perspicuous truths. I (...)
- Against Grounding Physicalism.Ezra Rubenstein - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.It is well-known that naturalistic dualism faces the ‘T-shirt problem’: it seems to require that the connections between physical and phenomenal truths are somehow covered by compact physical-phenomenal laws. This paper is a detailed exploration of a parallel issue that arises for grounding physicalism –– the view that phenomenal truths are grounded in, but not reducible to, physical truths. It presents four possible responses on behalf of grounding physicalists, and argues that none is satisfactory.
- Normativity, Ideology, and Joint-Carving.Reuben Sass - forthcoming - Mind.Much recent metaphysics points to certain features as being natural, or carving at nature’s joints. There are now various accounts, both primitivist and reductive, of what joint-carving is. But there has been comparatively little discussion of accounts which define joint-carvingness in normative terms. Several motivations have been suggested for such normative accounts, including parsimony and an explanation of the epistemic value of joint-carving. But I argue that normative accounts are especially useful for non-ontic joint-carving or structure. As introduced by Sider, (...)
- Collective Allism.Raul Saucedo - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.I sketch a new picture of fundamental reality, an alternative to monism and pluralism that I call collective allism. On this view, what's fundamental is neither the universal whole nor some of its parts, but all things taken collectively, i.e., the plurality of all entities. I articulate the view, defend its tenability, and argue that it deserves to be taken seriously--it's a worthy rival to monism and pluralism in current discussions about fundamental reality.
- Collective Allism: The Universal Plurality as Fundamental Reality.Raul Saucedo - forthcoming - Springer.In this book I articulate a new view about fundamental reality, an alternative to the familiar opposition between monism and pluralism. On this view, what’s metaphysically fundamental is neither the universal whole nor certain subcosmic entities, but the plurality of all entities, i.e. all entities taken collectively. I call it collective allism. Using higher-order resources, I systematically develop the view and give shape to the robust realism about plurals and the unorthodox ideology of fundamentality upon which it rests. I argue (...)
- Identity and the Epistemology of Grounding.Alexander Skiles - forthcoming - In Damian Aleksiev & Yannic Kappes, The Epistemology of Grounding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Find it on Amazon.com (collection)Remove from this list Direct downloadExport citationBookmark 1 citation
- Natural Kind Fundamentalism.Tuomas E. Tahko - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.This paper defends Natural Kind Fundamentalism (NKF), the view that the ontological category of natural kind is fundamental. I develop a primitivist account of categorial fundamentality based on the Complete Categorial Basis (CCB) criterion, which requires that fundamental categories form a complete and minimal system irreducible to other categories through ontological dependence relations. I argue against bundle-theoretic reductions and in favour of the view that natural kinds are substantial universals serving as principles of unity for property clusters. This framework distinguishes (...)
- The Role of Explanation in the Epistemology of Grounding.Michael Wallner - forthcoming - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder, Facets of Reality. Berlin: De Gruyter.Despite the tight connection between grounding and explanation, Thompson (2016) and Maurin (2019) have recently argued that explanation cannot be an epistemic guide to ground. Skiles & Trogdon (2021) disagree. Reconstructing Thompson’s and Maurin’s worry about grounding and explanation as a dilemma, they argue that one of the horns of this dilemma can be resisted, such that explanation can be an epistemic guide to ground. In this paper, I offer a different solution by showing that the other horn of the (...)Find it on Amazon.com (collection)Remove from this list Direct downloadExport citationBookmark 1 citation
- Metaphysical infinitism and theoretical virtue.Evan Welchance - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.Call metaphysicians who think that chains of ontological dependence must terminate in a collection of fundamental entities "foundationalists". Call metaphysicians who think that chains of being can proceed ad infinitum "infinitists". Foundationalists claim that foundationalism displays certain theoretical advantages over infinitism. First, some maintain that infinitism has a special explanatory problem that foundationalism doesn’t. Second, others maintain that foundationalism exhibits greater theoretical unity than infinitism. I argue that these considerations give us no reason to prefer foundationalism to infinitism. Against the (...)
- Śrīgupta.Allison Aitken - 2026 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Nāgārjuna, PSR, and Madhyamaka anti-foundationalism.Ricki Bliss - 2026 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):23.The recent literature has witnessed a somewhat surprising development in the Western understanding of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka Buddhism: it has been argued that the full-blown PSR — the principle according to which everything has a reason for its existence — is at work in Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK). This is surprising because the PSR is commonly taken to be the hallmark of rationalism, whereas Nāgārjuna is not typically associated with a rationalist tradition. Indeed, it is not uncommon even to take Nāgārjuna as (...)
- Non-Humeanism and Determinism.David Builes - 2026 - Philosophical Studies.According to Non-Humean theories of natural necessity, there is some sort of fundamental natural necessity in the world, which is supposed to guarantee the regularity of the universe. The goal of this paper is to explore a potential tension between Non-Humean theories and the empirical possibility that the laws of physics are deterministic. In particular, combining Non-Humeanism with deterministic laws threatens to make the fundamental facts either metaphysically redundant or arbitrary. In response to this tension, I present and discuss four (...)
- Two Notions of Fundamentality in Aristotle.Phil Corkum - 2026 - In Richard Neels, Ground and Fundamentality in Plato and Aristotle. New York: Routledge.Aristotle speaks of the fundamental as what is ungrounded or, in his own terminology, separate; and he also speaks of the fundamental as what grounds all else, or as what is absolutely prior. Karen Bennett notes that these two notions of fundamentality are extensionally equivalent, provided grounding is well-founded and transitive. Does Aristotle view separation and priority as extensionally equivalent? That is a difficult question to answer, in part because there are a variety of grounding relations in Aristotle, and in (...)
- Between Substances and Processes: Bridging Metaphysical Divides on Fundamentality, Persistence, and Individuation.Benazir Flores Valdivia, Laura Nuño De la Rosa & Vanessa Triviño - 2026 - Análisis Filosófico 1.Since the early 21st century, processualist approaches have gained prominence in analytic metaphysics and the philosophy of science, prompting diverse responses from advocates of substantialism. However, the polarization of the debate between process and substance metaphysics has often led to oversimplifications that obscure the potential for constructive dialogue. This paper argues that these frameworks should not be treated as monolithic systems, but rather analyzed through the lens of specific metaphysical problems—namely, fundamentality, persistence, and individuation. Focusing primarily on process metaphysics, we (...)
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