Monism: the islands of plurality

Baron, Sam; Tallant, Jonathan

Abstract

Priority monism (hereafter, ‘monism’) is the view that there exists one fundamental entity—the world—and that all other objects that exist (a set of objects typically taken to include tables, chairs, and the whole menagerie of everyday items) are merely derivative. Jonathan Schaffer has defended monism in its current guise, across a range of papers. Each paper looks to add something to the monistic picture of the world. In this paper we argue that monism—as Schaffer describes it—is false. To do so we develop an ‘island universe’ argument against Schaffer’s monistic theory.

Citation

Baron, S., & Tallant, J. (2016). Monism: the islands of plurality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 93(3), 583-606. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12270

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 21, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Mar 16, 2016
• Publication Date: 2016-11
• Deposit Date: Jul 9, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 9, 2016
• Journal: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
• Print ISSN: 0031-8205
• Electronic ISSN: 1933-1592
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 93
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 583-606
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12270
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/780121
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12270/abstract
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Baron, S. and Tallant, J. (2016), Monism: The Islands of Plurality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. doi: 10.1111/phpr.12270, which has been published in final form at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12270/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.