•  282
    Cardinal Composition
    with Lisa Vogt
    Erkenntnis 1-23. forthcoming.
    The thesis of Weak Unrestricted Composition says that every pair of objects has a fusion. This thesis has been argued by Contessa and Smith to be compatible with the world being junky and hence to evade an argument against the necessity of Strong Unrestricted Composition proposed by Bohn. However, neither Weak Unrestricted Composition alone nor the different variants of it that have been proposed in the literature can provide us with a satisfying answer to the special composition question, or so…Read more
  •  264
    This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logica…Read more
  •  236
    Arbitrary grounding
    Philosophical Studies 179 (3): 911-931. 2021.
    The aim of this paper is to introduce, elucidate and defend the usefulness of a variant of grounding, or metaphysical explanation, that has the feature that the grounds explain of some states of affairs that one of them obtains without explaining which one obtains. I will dub this variant arbitrary grounding. After informally elucidating the basic idea in the first section, I will provide three metaphysical hypotheses that are best formulated in terms of arbitrary grounding in the second section…Read more
  •  234
    Extended Dispositionalism and Determinism
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (n/a). 2022.
    Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-lo…Read more
  •  170
    Trevor Teitel (2017) has recently argued that combining the assumption that modality reduces to essence with the assumption that possibly some objects contingently exist leads to problems if one wishes to uphold that the logic of metaphysical modality is S5. In this paper I will argue that there is a way for the essentialist to evade the problem described by Teitel. The proposed solution crucially involves the assumption that some propositions possibly fail to exist. I will show how this assumpt…Read more
  •  141
    This paper contributes to answering the question how physicalism can be defined for a world without fundamental physical phenomena. In a recent paper in this journal, Torin Alter, Sam Coleman, and Robert J. Howell propose a necessary condition on physicalism. They argue that physicalism is true only if there is no infinitely descending chain of mentally constituted phenomena. I argue that this alleged necessary condition faces counterexamples. An infinitely descending chain of mentally constitut…Read more
  •  124
    In a recent article published in this journal, Kris McDaniel proposes a variant of Peter van Inwagen’s argument against the principle of sufficient reason that makes crucial use of plural grounding. In this response paper I object to McDaniel’s argument. I argue that there is no notion of plural grounding available that is both irreflexive in the sense required for the argument to go through and general enough to formulate the principle of sufficient reason as proposed by McDaniel.
  •  113
    A grounding-based measure of relative fundamentality
    Synthese 198 (10): 9721-9737. 2020.
    Reality is hierarchically structured, or so proponents of the metaphysical posit of grounding argue. The less fundamental facts obtain in virtue of, or are grounded in, the more fundamental facts. But what exactly is it for one fact to be more fundamental than another? The aim of this paper is to provide a measure of relative fundamentality. I develop and defend an account of the metaphysical hierarchy that assigns to each fact a set of ordinals representing the levels on which it occurs. The ac…Read more
  •  93
    A Minimality Constraint on Grounding
    Erkenntnis 85 (5): 1153-1168. 2020.
    It is widely acknowledged that some truths or facts don’t have a minimal full ground [see e.g. Fine ]. Every full ground of them contains a smaller full ground. In this paper I’ll propose a minimality constraint on immediate grounding and I’ll show that it doesn’t fall prey to the arguments that tell against an unqualified minimality constraint. Furthermore, the assumption that all cases of grounding can be understood in terms of immediate grounding will be defended. This assumption guarantees t…Read more
  •  80
    Plenitude and necessarily unmanifested dispositions
    Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (3): 169-177. 2021.
    The principle of plenitude says that every material object coincides with abundantly many further objects that differ in their modal profiles. A necessarily unmanifested disposition is a disposition that necessarily does not manifest. This paper argues that if the principle of plenitude holds, then there are some necessarily unmanifested dispositions. These necessarily unmanifested dispositions will be argued to evade some objections against the cases of necessarily unmanifested dispositions put…Read more
  •  79
    Contingentism and paraphrase
    Philosophical Studies 181 (2): 565-582. 2024.
    One important challenge for contingentists is that they seem to be unable to account for the meaning of some apparently meaningful modal discourse that is perfectly intelligible for necessitists. This worry is particularly pressing for higher-order contingentists, contingentists who hold that it is not only contingent which objects there are, but also contingent which semantic values there are for higher-order variables to quantify over. Objections against higher-order contingentism along these …Read more
  •  77
    Potentialism and S5
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (6): 622-635. 2022.
    Modal potentialism as proposed by Barbara Vetter (2015) is the view that every possibility is grounded in something having a potentiality. Drawing from work by Jessica Leech (2017), Samuel Kimpton-Nye (2021) argues that potentialists can have an S5 modal logic. I present a novel argument to the conclusion that the most straightforward way of spelling out modal potentialism cannot validate an S5 modal logic. Then I will propose a slightly tweaked version of modal potentialism that can validate an…Read more
  •  66
    Solving a puzzle of definition
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    This paper concerns the question of which logical principles hold for real definitions. Recently, Samuel Elgin has presented five principles concerning real definitions that seem initially plausible. He has shown them to be jointly inconsistent. This gives rise to a puzzle that can only be solved by denying one of the principles. In this paper, I argue against Elgin's principle of expansion, which concerns substituting a definiens for its definiendum within the definiens of a further definition.…Read more
  •  55
    The Modalities of Essence and Ground
    Vittorio Klostermann. 2022.
    It is not a coincidence that every red rose is coloured. No rose can be red without being coloured. A red rose is coloured in virtue of its being red, its being coloured is metaphysically explained by its being red. This is, at least in part, underwritten by what it is for the rose to be coloured, by the nature – or essence – of its being coloured. If this is right, then questions concerning possibility and necessity, questions concerning metaphysical explanation, and questions concerning essenc…Read more
  •  46
    A Defence of Ontological Innocence: Response to Barker
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    In a recent paper in this journal, Jonathan Barker argues against the claim that grounded entities are ontologically innocent. In this paper I defend the ontological innocence of grounded entities against Barker's argument. I tease out an assumption that is crucial for the success of Barker's argument and I show that the defender of ontological innocence can deny this assumption in a motivated way.
  •  31
    A Note on von Neumann Ordinals and Dependence
    Philosophia Mathematica 31 (2). 2023.
    This note defends the reduction of ordinals to pure sets against an argument put forward by Beau Madison Mount. In the first part I will defend the claim that dependence simpliciter can be reduced to immediate dependence and define a notion of predecessor dependence. In the second part I will provide and defend a way to model the dependence profile of ordinals akin to Mount’s proposal in terms of immediate dependence and predecessor dependence. I furthermore show that my alternative dependence p…Read more
  •  17
    Partial grounding, identity, and nothing-over-and-aboveness
    Philosophical Studies 180 (12): 3489-3509. 2023.
    A number of philosophers have recently argued for acknowledging non-augmented partial grounds, partial grounds that are not parts of full grounds. This paper shows how non-augmented partial grounds can be straightforwardly modelled within the framework of generalised identity. I argue that my proposal answers questions concerning the connections between partial grounding, full grounding, and nothing-over-and-aboveness in a motivated way. In this context, I propose and discuss a way to spell out …Read more
  •  7
    It is a central tenet of (neo-)Aristotelian metaphysics that reality is structured by relations of existential priority or, conversely put, existential dependence: some entities depend for their existence on other entities that help to bring about their existence. After briefly looking at the origins of this idea in Aristotle’s Categories, the chapter examines some contemporary definitions of existential dependence. A notion of existential dependence defined in terms of metaphysical explanation …Read more