Tarun Thapar
University of Delhi
Metaphysical Foundationalism is the view that chains of grounding must ultimately bottom out in something fundamental. Among the arguments that have been put forth for Foundationalism, the most developed argument is the externality argument in Bliss (2019) which states that there is an explanatory demand that any successful metaphysic should meet that the anti-foundationalist view like Infinitism (that allows for infinite grounding descent) is not able to and as a result, exhibit an explanatory failure. Recently, the externality argument has been challenged by Oberle (2022) who claims that the foundationalist has failed to offer a convincing justification for their externality argument and this explanatory demand can be successfully met by the infinitist. In this paper, I resist this infinitist’s challenge to the externality argument. I try to show that even if we grant the controversial assumptions to the infinitist, then also, on at least some infinitist chain, we don’t get a complete explanation of the existence of non-fundamental entities. I tease out a further assumption that is crucial for the success of the infinitist’s argument and I show that the foundationalist can deny this assumption in a motivated way.
Chair: Annica Vieser
Time: September 11th, 16:20 – 16:50
Location: HS E.002 (online)
SOPhiA 2026 