On Armstrong’s Radical Absolutism
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Julien Tricard
Abstract
Within the metaphysics of quantity, the debate rages between Absolutism and Comparativism. In retrospect, Armstrong appears to be an absolutist, for he claims that magnitudes like being 1 kg in mass are intrinsic properties of particulars, in virtue of which relations like being twice as massive as hold. More importantly, his theory is an instance of what I call ‘Radical Absolutism’ (and the only on the market), for he does not merely argue that relations are grounded in magnitudes, but also (and quite admirably) tries to explain how they “flow from” (his words) the intrinsic features of magnitudes. The goal of the paper is not to support his theory, but to better understand why it fails, and why this must be of concern to contemporary absolutists.
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Research funding: No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
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Conflict of interest statement: I have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
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Availability of data and material (data transparency): Not applicable.
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Code availability (software application or custom code): Not applicable.
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Consent for publication: I confirm that this work is original and has not been published elsewhere, nor is it currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. I thus consent for its publication.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Quantum Entanglement Undermines Structural Realism
- A Belief Expressionist Explanation of Divine Conceptualist Mathematics
- A Short Argument against Truthmaker Maximalism
- The Evil That Free Will Does: Plantinga’s Dubious Defense
- The Dead Past Dilemma
- The Role of Logic in Metaphysical Theorizing
- Reducing Constitution to Composition
- On Armstrong’s Radical Absolutism
- Objective Facts
