Intrinsicality, Independence and Grounding

Intrinsicality and grounding

A number of philosophers have recently claimed that intrinsicality can be analysed in terms of the metaphysical notion of grounding. Since grounding is a hyperintensional notion, accounts of intrinsicality in terms of grounding, unlike most other accounts, promise to be able to discriminate between necessarily coextensive properties that differ in whether they are intrinsic. They therefore prom...

Girth, minimum degree, independence, and broadcast independence

An independent broadcast on a connected graph $G$is a function $f:V(G)to mathbb{N}_0$such that, for every vertex $x$ of $G$, the value $f(x)$ is at most the eccentricity of $x$ in $G$,and $f(x)>0$ implies that $f(y)=0$ for every vertex $y$ of $G$ within distance at most $f(x)$ from $x$.The broadcast independence number $alpha_b(G)$ of $G$is the largest weight $sumlimits_{xin V(G)}f(x)$of an ind...

Analyses of intrinsicality in terms of naturalness

Over the last thirty years there have been a number of attempts to analyse the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties in terms of the facts about naturalness. This article discusses the three most influential of these attempts, each of which involve David Lewis. These are Lewis’s 1983 analysis, his 1986 analysis, and his joint 1998 analysis with Rae Langton.

Grounding and Omniscience

I’m going to argue that omniscience is impossible and therefore that there is no God. The argument turns on the notion of grounding. After illustrating and clarifying that notion, I’ll start the argument in earnest. The first step will be to lay out five claims, one of which is the claim that there is an omniscient being, and the other four of which are claims about grounding. I’ll prove that t...

Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity