Chapter 2 of Perfect Existence (for Oxford University Press)

This is the beginning of a draft of the second chapter in my book, Perfect Existence, with Alex Pruss.

Disclaimer: My co-author Alexander Pruss has yet to review this chapter. All deficiencies are mine.

Our aim in this book is to investigate the fundamental nature of reality. The investigation is about a conditional: if reality has a most fundamental nature or layer, what could that foundational reality be? To motivate this inquiry, this chapter develops a case for the antecedent—that reality has such a foundation.

We begin with several clarifications. We shall use the term Foundation Theory for the view that reality has a foundational layer. A foundational reality depends on nothing prior to it, whereas all other realities ultimately depend on the foundation. The relevant notion of priority need not be temporal. One thing may be prior to another causally, metaphysically, or explanatorily without existing at an earlier time. Foundation Theory therefore leaves open whether the foundation is temporally first, eternal, outside time, or related to time in some other way.

Foundation Theory also leaves open the number and nature of foundational realities. The foundation might consist of one entity, many entities, a state, a fact, a law, a field, a realm, or something that does not fit comfortably into any familiar category. Nor does the theory by itself imply that foundational reality exists necessarily. A universe that appeared without a cause or prior ground would count as foundational in the relevant sense, even if its existence were contingent. Foundation Theory says only that some reality lacks a prior cause, ground, or explanation and that other realities ultimately depend upon it.

Why think there is such a foundation? We shall consider three routes. The first appeals to causal finitism, the view that causal chains cannot regress infinitely. The second argues that even an infinite chain of dependent realities would itself depend on something beyond that chain. The third proceeds modally, beginning with the possibility of an explanation of dependent reality and reasoning toward the existence of a non-dependent foundation.