Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division' and 'On What Grounds What'

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5 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
13748 Grounding is unanalysable and primitive, and is the basic structuring concept in metaphysics [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Grounding should be taken as primitive, as per the neo-Aristotelian approach. Grounding is an unanalyzable but needed notion - it is the primitive structuring conception of metaphysics.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.2)
     A reaction: [he cites K.Fine 1991] I find that this simple claim clarifies the discussions of Kit Fine, where you are not always quite sure what the game is. I agree fully with it. It makes metaphysics interesting, where cataloguing entities is boring.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / a. Nature of supervenience
13747 Supervenience is just modal correlation [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Supervenience is mere modal correlation.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.2)
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
13744 The cosmos is the only fundamental entity, from which all else exists by abstraction [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: My preferred view is that there is only one fundamental entity - the whole concrete cosmos - from which all else exists by abstraction.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.1)
     A reaction: This looks to me like weak anti-realism - that there are no natural 'joints' in nature - but I don't think Schaffer intends that. I take the joints to be fundamentals, which necessitates that the cosmos has parts. His 'abstraction' is clearly a process.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
17436 We talk of snow as what stays the same, when it is a heap or drift or expanse [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Talk of snow concerns what stays the same when some snow changes, as it might be, from a heap of snow to a drift, to an expanse.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997], 2.2)
     A reaction: The whiteness also stays the same, but isn't stuff.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
13739 Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Maybe the categories are determined by the different grounding relations, ..so that categories just are the ways things depend on substances. ...Categories are places in the dependence ordering.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 1.3)