b. 1970
Jonathan Schaffer is a contemporary analytic philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, specializing in metaphysics and epistemology. He is best known for defending priority monism—the view that the cosmos is the one fundamental entity and all else is grounded in it. His work on grounding, fundamentality, and contrastivism has been highly influential in shaping contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics.
Defended priority monism, arguing the whole cosmos is ontologically prior to its parts
Developed a systematic theory of grounding and ontological dependence
Introduced contrastivism in epistemology, analyzing knowledge as a three-place relation
Contributed to the metaphysics of causation via contrastive causal claims
Authored the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on monism
Both the existence monist and existence nihilist must establish that the premises of the exclusion argument (or any alternative they provide) have sufficient plausibility to override considerations from intuition and perception.
claimThe lack of informativeness is not a good objection to the optimalist account of negative truths