Visiting speaker seminar

Speaker: Ralf Bader (Oxford)

Title: Fundamentality and non-symmetric relations

Abstract: Non-symmetric relations appear to have distinct converses. This gives rise to a number of difficulties: 1. referential indeterminacy (Williamson; van Inwagen), 2. brute necessities (Armstrong; Dorr), and 3. an over-abundance of states of affairs (Fine). The first part of the paper argues that there are no fundamental non-symmetric relations. In particular, it identifies a central role that the notion of fundamentality is meant to fulfil and that it can only fulfil if no fundamental relations are non-symmetric. The second part identifies three ways in which asymmetry and order can be introduced into a world that only contains symmetric but no non-symmetric fundamental relations. One important upshot of this discussion is that it leads to a reconceptualisation of grounding as an operation (where this is not understood in terms of the idea of grounding being a sentential operator) rather than as a relation. The third and final part develops an account of derivative relations, in particular it provides identity criteria for derivative relations. These identity criteria allow us to establish that derivative non-symmetric relations do not have distinct converses. Instead of a plurality of relations, we only have a plurality of different ways of picking out the same relation.