Fundamental Things by deRosset Louis;

Author:deRosset, Louis; [deRosset, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

The collapse is avoided if every grounding truth involving an erstwhile non-fundamental entity turns out to be identity reducible to some purely physical fact.

Identity reduction can help in at least some cases. It can surely avoid the application of the collapse to the case of the average American family. Even if a true instance of

(5.7) F0, F1, …, Fn are exactly the American families, F0 has a0 children, F1 has a1 children, …, Fn has an children < the average American family has m children

turns out to be fundamental, we should not conclude that the average American family is a fundamental entity. (5.7) is identity reducible to a truth of the form

(5.8) F0, F1, …, Fn are exactly the American families, F0 has a0 children, F1 has a1 children, …, Fn has an children < the quotient of the number of children of American families to the number of American families is m

which expresses a fact which has an analysis on which it does not involve the average American family. So corr′ and analogs of d1, d2, fund, and facts′ are consistent in this case. More generally, collapse is avoided so long as we have the relevant identity reductions in place.

Sider argues (2011, §7.3.1) that a version of the collapse afflicts identity reductions. The alleged problem is that, e.g., if the sentence stating the identity reduction

(5.9) [the average American family has m children] = [the quotient of the number of children of American families to the number of American families is m]

turns out to be fundamental, then purity entails that the notion of the average American family is fundamental. As the foregoing discussion suggests, I think the powerful motivations Sider offers for purity actually support a weaker principle:

PURITY′ fundamental truths are identity reducible to truths involving only fundamental notions (Sider, 2011, §7.2).

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