Abstract

I will consider two views: metaphysical foundationalism (there are fundamental entities) and metaphysical infinitism (there are infinite chains of ontological dependence). I will talk about two arguments for the existence of a fundamental level. First, there is a foundationalist intuition that there must be a source of reality (Schaffer, 2009, 2010, 2016) or causal capacity (Trogdon, 2017) because a grounded entity inherits its reality or causal capacity from its ground. If infinitism was true, “[b]eing would be infinitely deferred, never achieved” (Schaffer, 2010, p.62).  Second, Cameron (2008) argued that the methodological principle concerning unified explanations favours foundationalism. I find the first argument unpersuasive as the source of reality or causal capacity of an infinite chain can be outside of it. It can be the cause of it. I consider the second argument better and argue that it still holds despite recent objections against it.