| Whether the origin of the world is "many" or "one" has always been a core debate in philosophy.Monists believe that the world has only one fundamental origin.Jonathan Schaffer revives and defends the position of monism in contemporary analytical metaphysics,and puts forward priority monism.This view holds that the inquiry into the problem of ontology should not be Quine’s "on what there is",but Aristotelian "on what grounds what".Based on the metametaphysical approach of "grounding",priority monism holds that the correct form of monism is one in which the whole is prior to its parts,with the cosmos grounds for all its proper parts.This paper is devoted to the study and defense of Jonathan Schaffer’s priority monism.The main work of this paper is as follows: First,the theoretical connotation and concrete demonstration of Schaffer’s priority monism are introduced,focusing on the analysis of Schaffer’s arguments from the perspectives of common sense,quantum emergence,mereology,nomic integrity and so on.Secondly,it responds to the rebuttal of different viewpoints to the first monism.Nowadays,the rebuttals to priority monism mainly come from three ontological positions: ontological nihilism,ontological pluralism and existence monism.Ontological nihilism can be divided into existence nihilism and priority nihilism.The former holds that there are no concrete objects in the world,while the latter holds that "nothing" is more fundamental than "something".Ontological pluralism can be divided into existence pluralism and priority pluralism.The former holds that the concrete objects in the world are "many",while the latter holds that the fundamental origin of the world is "many".Existence monism believe that there is and only one big object,the cosmos.This paper introduces these views one by one,responds to their rebuttals to the priority monism,and holds that the priority monism is the ontological position worth defending. |
