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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that David Armstrong's own account of structural universals generates infinite regress: methane requires a universal BONDED-TO that is itself structural.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Structural universals need not themselves be structural; BONDED-TO can be a simple, non-decomposable universal relating atomic properties.
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    • 2.Infinite regress is benign if each level is determinate and explains facts at lower levels, avoiding vicious circularity or explanatory failure.
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    • 3.The objection conflates having internal structure with requiring structural universals to account for that structure at every level of analysis.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Structural universals like BONDED-TO are defined by internal relations between their constituents, requiring those relations to themselves be universals.
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    • 2.If BONDED-TO is a universal, its instantiation requires some account of what binds its relata, generating a new structural property needing explanation.
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    • 3.Armstrong's theory lacks a principled stopping point: any structural universal can be analyzed into further structural components requiring universals.
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