Category: Bradley and His Regress

Is Bradley’s Regress Already in Aristotle?

At Metaphysics Zeta (Book VII, Chapter 17, Bekker 1041b10-30), there is a clear anticipation of Bradley’s Regress and an interesting formulation of what may well count as the fundamental problem of metaphysics, the problem of unity. What follows is the W. D. Ross translation of the passage. It is a mess presumably because the underlying Greek text is a mess. The Montgomery Furth and Richard Hope translations are not much better. But the meaning is to me quite clear, and I will explain it after I cite the passage:

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Francesco Orilia on Facts and Bradley’s Regress Part II

In Part I of this series I provided a preliminary description of the problem that exercises Orilia and me and a partial list of assumptions we share. One of these assumptions is that there are truth-making facts. We also both appreciate that Bradley’s Regress (‘the Regress’) threatens the existence of facts. Why should this be so? Well, the existence of a fact is the unity of its constitutents: when they are unified in the peculiar fact-constituting manner, then the fact exists. But this unity needs an explanation, which cannot be empirical-causal, but must be ontological. The existence of facts cannot be taken as a brute ontological fact. But when we cast about for an explanation, we bang into the Regress. Let me now try to clarify this a bit further. We distinguish between an internal Regress and an external Regress, and in both cases we must investigate whether it is vicious or benign.

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Francesco Orilia on Facts and Bradley’s Regress Part I

I was invited to attend a workshop on Bradley’s Regress at the University of Geneva this December. Francesco Orilia will also be in attendance. He and I corresponded about Bradley and facts four or so years ago. He has read some of my work and I have read some of his. This series of posts is a new attempt at understanding his position and differentiating it from mine. It is based on his “States of Affairs: Bradley vs. Meinong” in Venanzio Raspa, ed., Meinongian Issues in Contemporary Italian Philosophy, Ontos Verlag, 2006, pp. 213-238.

1. The Problem in a First Rough Formulation

A fact or state of affairs (STOA) is a contingent unity of certain ontological constituents, for example, a (thin) particular and a universal. It is this unity that is responsible for a fact’s being a truth-maker, as opposed to a mere collection of entities. Obviously, it is Al’s being fat, rather than the mere collection of Al and fatness, that makes true the proposition that Al is fat. We take as given the difference between a fact and its constituents, between a’s being F, on the one hand, and the set or sum consisting of a and F-ness, on the other. The difference is clear if one notes that, for example, Al and fatness can exist without it being the case that Al is fat. (The converse of course does not hold.) There is more to Al’s being fat than Al and fatness. The problem is to give an account of this ‘more.’ What is it that makes a fact more than its constituents?

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