Richard,
a few thoughts and questions:
what other people and papers did you look at?
IMO, Schaffer is the most interesting philosopher working in metaphysics today. He has a lot of interesting papers on questions of ontological priority and fundamentality. Well worth exploring, and too complicated to discuss in detail here (here’s a link to all of his papers:)
In the end, he says, these are largely empirical questions, and that seems just about right. Many of his own argumets are of this sort (i.e., scientists finding ever deeper levels on the one hand, and entanglement on the other).
And to me, his positions in the two papers seem largely consistent. There might be no fundamental level AND nonetheless a priority of the whole.
Richard, a few thoughts and questions: what other people and papers did you look at?
IMO, Schaffer is the most interesting philosopher working in metaphysics today. He has a lot of interesting papers on questions of ontological priority and fundamentality. Well worth exploring, and too complicated to discuss in detail here (here’s a link to all of his papers:)
In the end, he says, these are largely empirical questions, and that seems just about right. Many of his own argumets are of this sort (i.e., scientists finding ever deeper levels on the one hand, and entanglement on the other). And to me, his positions in the two papers seem largely consistent. There might be no fundamental level AND nonetheless a priority of the whole.