Bradley's Regress and Ungrounded Dependence Chains: A Reply to Cameron

Abstract

A version of Bradley's regress can be endorsed in an effort to address the problem of the unity of states of affairs or facts, thereby arriving at a doctrine that I have called fact infinitism. A consequence of it is the denial of the thesis, WF, that all chains of ontological dependence are well‐founded or grounded. Cameron has recently rejected fact infinitism by arguing that WF, albeit not necessarily true, is however contingently true. Here fact infinitism is supported by showing that Cameron's argument for the contingent truth of WF is unsuccessful.

Estados de cosas y relaciones de fundación

“…Otros han sostenido que el regreso de Bradley no es realmente vicioso, pues una secuencia infinita de aplicaciones recursivas de la relación de instanciación I, o bien una secuencia de infinitas relaciones de instanciación diferentes, de diferentes tipos lógicos, permite efectuar un 'análisis' o 'explicación' adecuado (cf. Gaskin, 2008, 354-355;Orilia, 2009). Algunos han sostenido, en fin, que los estados de cosas requieren de algo que funcione como unificador 'externo' del estado de cosas (cf.…”

“…Si 12 A pesar de lo extraño que pueda parecer, en la discusión reciente acerca del regreso de Bradley se ha sostenido que la lección que cabe sacar de él es que hay estructuras infinitas de 'análisis' o 'explicación' que resultan satisfactorias (cf. Gaskin, 2008, 354-355;Orilia, 2009). Aquí, tal como para otras discusiones, será clarificador transponer estas formulaciones en términos de relaciones de fundación.…”

Metaphysical Infinitism and the Regress of Being

“…Third, scenarios are conceivable in which it is simply false that we have at our disposal both an infinitist explanation and a more or less equivalent foundationalist explanation to choose from. That metaphysical infinitism provides the only genuine explanation of a certain philosophical issue has been argued to be the case, among other things, for the ontological constitution of facts and Bradley's regress (see Orilia ) and for the notion of literal contact between extended objects (see Zimmerman ). Indeed, I think that an important source of support for metaphysical infinitism is constituted by the fact that, in some cases at least, allowing for infinitist analyses and explanations might open up a possibility space that would simply be unavailable otherwise.…”

Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

“…An analogous argument has been recently formulated with respect to another issue. In a response to Cameron's abovementioned argument for the contingent truth of metaphysical foundationalism, Orilia (2009) argues that, in view of Bradley's regress, we should abandon the requirement of well‐foundedness for chains of ontological dependence, and account for the unity of states of affairs by embracing metaphysical infinitism (Orilia speaks of ‘fact infinitism’). That is, we should acknowledge that any fact F of the form ‘ x is y ’ must be analysed in terms of another fact F′ of the form ‘F consists of x 's exemplifying y ’, and so on ad infinitum .…”