Essence and the Grounding Problem

In Reality Making. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 99-120 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Pluralists about coincident entities say that distinct entities may be spatially coincident throughout their entire existence. The most pressing issue they face is the grounding problem. They say that coincident entities may differ in their persistence conditions and in the sortals they fall under. But how can they differ in these ways, given that they share all their microphysical properties? What grounds those differences, if not their microphysical properties? Do those differences depend only on the way we conceptualise those objects? Are they primitive facts about reality? Neither option is pleasant for the pluralist, but what else can she say? To respond to the grounding problem, the pluralist should first tell a story about what material objects are. If that story explains how the modal and sortal properties of objects are grounded, in a way that allows for differences between coincident objects, then she has a response to the problem. That is precisely my aim in this paper.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Coincident Objects and The Grounding Problem.Ataollah Hashemi - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz 16 (41):164-173.
How to deal with the puzzle of coincident objects.Ataollah Hashemi - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Alberta
Biological-mereological coincidence.Judith K. Crane - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 161 (2):309-325.
Spatio-temporal coincidence and the grounding problem.Karen Bennett - 2004 - Philosophical Studies 118 (3):339-371.
Material Objects and Essential Bundle Theory.Stephen Barker & Mark Jago - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (12):2969-2986.
Towards a Hylomorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem.Kathrin Koslicki - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements to Philosophy 82:333-364.
What is the Grounding Problem?Louis deRosset - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 156 (2):173-197.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-12-19

Downloads
1,870 (#7,713)

6 months
171 (#23,922)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Mark Jago
Nottingham University

Citations of this work

Ordinary objects.Daniel Z. Korman & Jonathan Barker - 2025 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Material Objects and Essential Bundle Theory.Stephen Barker & Mark Jago - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (12):2969-2986.
Essential bundle theory and modality.Mark Jago - 2018 - Synthese 198 (S6):1439-1454.
Three Concerns for Structural Hylomorphism.Jeremy Skrzypek - 2017 - Analytic Philosophy 58 (4):360-408.

View all 14 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
The identity of indiscernibles.Max Black - 1952 - Mind 61 (242):153-164.

View all 20 references / Add more references