Why the debate about composition is factually empty (or why there's no fact of the matter whether anything exists)

Mark Balaguer

pp. 3975-4008

in: Benjamin Bewersdorf, Jeanne Peijnenburg (eds), Epistemic justification, Synthese 195 (9), 2018.

Abstract

I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in other words, I argue that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any composite objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain how my argument is suggestive of a much more general (and much more radical) conclusion, namely, that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any material objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that (a) if there were a fact of the matter about whether composite objects exist, then it would be either a necessary fact or a contingent fact, and (b) both of these alternatives are implausible.