Abstract
The Aristotelian view of universals, according to which each universal generically
depends for its existence on its instantiations, has recently come under attack by a series
of ground-theoretic arguments. The last such arguments, presented by Raven, promises
to offer several significant improvements over its predecessors, such as avoiding commitment
to the transitivity of ground and offering new reasons for the metaphysical
priority of universals over their instantiations. In this paper, we argue that Raven’s
argument does not effectively avoid said commitment and that Raven’s new reasons
fail. Moreover, we present a novel ground-theoretic interpretation of the Aristotelian
view, referred to as strong immanence, and introduce a new argument against the
Aristotelian view, intended to sidestep any commitment to the transitivity of ground.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Synthese |
Volume | 203 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Keywords
- Dependence
- Grounding
- Immanence
- States of affairs
- Universals