Chains of Being Infinite Regress, Circularity, and Metaphysical Explanation

In Chains of Being, Ross P. Cameron argues for both Metaphysical Infinitism, the view that there can be infinitely descending chains of ontological dependence or grounding, with no bottom level of fundamental things or facts, and Metaphysical Holism, the view that there can be circles of ontological dependence or grounding. Cameron argues against the widespread orthodoxy of Metaphysical Foundationalism: that everything in reality is ultimately accounted for by a base class of fundamental phenomena. In doing so, he makes the case against another widespread orthodoxy: that relations like grounding and ontological dependence are explanatory relations. Cameron provides an alternative account of metaphysical explanation that does not tie explanation to determination relations like grounding and ontological dependence, and he shows how explanation works in infinitist and holistic metaphysics. Embracing the possibility of infinite regress and circularity can be theoretically fruitful, as is shown by applying it to a number of cases across a wide range of philosophical areas, including: non-well-founded set theory, mathematical structuralism, the metaphysics of persons, the metaphysics of gender and sexuality, the semantic paradoxes, and others. In the course of exploring these applications, Cameron defends distinctive views concerning when an infinite regress is vicious, the nature of truth, non-classical logic and dialetheism, social construction, and more.

Ross P. Cameron, University of Virginia

Ross P. Cameron is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Moving Spotlight (OUP, 2015), and numerous papers in the philosophy of time, modality, ontology and truth, the philosophy of logic, mereology, the metaphysics of properties, and other areas.