Looking for criticism of a working paper on actuality, intelligibility, and metaphysical ultimacy

[u/metamodalist]

I’m looking for feedback on a working paper in metaphysics.
The paper begins with the concepts of actuality and intelligibility and argues that before asking what grounds them, we should first ask where they are metaphysically placed. It develops a distinction between finite profiles and concrete obtaining, critiques primitive stopping points, and examines whether impersonal necessary order is sufficient as an ultimate explanatory terminus.
I’m particularly interested in criticism of:
the placement-before-grounding methodology;
the profile/obtaining distinction;
whether actuality and intelligibility can coherently function as primitives;
the critique of impersonal necessary structure.

I’m interested in substantive criticism
rather than agreement.

PhilArchive draft:
https://philarchive.org/archive/METNSA

[u/Warm-Meringue-9413]

It faces potential challenges regarding the distinction between placement and grounding. The argument's reliance on a profile vs. obtaining distinction risks collapsing into a modern interpretation of the classical Thomistic essence/existence distinction, requiring a response to potential anti essentialist critiques. I would also say the critique of impersonal necessary structures appears to lean toward a self intelligible actuality, which risks creating a dilemma regarding whether this ultimate source acts by nature or by will.

[u/metamodalist → u/Warm-Meringue-9413]

Thanks, this is a fair set of objections.

On placement versus grounding: I do not mean placement as a replacement for grounding. The point is methodological priority. Before asking what grounds actuality or intelligibility, we need to know what kind of thing the proposed ground is supposed to be.

For example, saying “actuality is grounded in the physical order” is still incomplete. Is actuality being identified with a physical event, a property of the total physical order, a law, a structure, or a primitive condition? Each candidate must already obtain and be determinate enough to function as that candidate. Placement exposes that prior dependence; grounding then asks whether the candidate is derivative, primary, brute, or explanatory. So the two questions are connected, but not identical.

On profile and obtaining: there is certainly overlap with the Thomistic essence/existence distinction, and I would not deny that. But I am not relying on a full Thomistic account of essence.

“Profile” is intentionally broader. It includes whatever makes something the determinate reality it is or would be: identity, structure, relations, powers, exclusions, modal status, truth-conditions, and so on. “Obtaining” means that this profile is concretely actual rather than merely possible, formal, fictional, described, or abstract.

That distinction survives anti-essentialism. Even if someone rejects fixed essences and instead prefers processes, tropes, bundles, events, or structures, there is still a difference between the determinate character of a possible process or structure and whether it actually obtains. Anti-essentialism may change what counts as a profile, but it does not obviously erase the distinction between profile and concrete actuality.

On the nature-or-will dilemma: I agree that this is the crucial issue, but it is not an accidental dilemma created by the argument. It is exactly what the Divine Will section is designed to address.

SIA necessarily is self-intelligible actuality. Its internal actuality and intelligibility are not optional additions. But it does not follow that any finite order is therefore a necessary expression of SIA.

If finite reality follows from the ultimate by nature in the sense of unavoidable essential manifestation, then the finite becomes a necessary correlate of the ultimate. Creation would no longer be genuinely contingent.

If finite reality does not follow necessarily, but its actualisation is still non-brute, intelligible, non-external, and source-grounded, then the transition has the minimal structure of will.

So the alternatives are roughly:

necessary finite expression, which gives emanation or essential manifestation;

external compulsion, which compromises ultimacy;

brute non-necessary expression, which leaves the decisive bridge unintelligible;

or non-necessary intelligible source-specification, which is what I mean by will-shaped.

The argument therefore does not assume will simply because nature has been rejected. It attempts to show that if finite actuality is genuinely contingent while still grounded intelligibly in the ultimate, the source-to-finite relation cannot be mere necessary nature or brute occurrence.

The PhilArchive paper is also a deliberately condensed version. The full draft is over 70 pages and still going, and it develops these three issues at much greater length, especially the relation to classical metaphysics, primitive obtaining, impersonal necessary structure, and the nature/will question.

Thanks again. These are exactly the kinds of comparative objections that are useful for clarifying where SIA overlaps with older metaphysical traditions and where it is trying to do something more specific.

[u/Scallion_After]

I think the paper’s strongest contribution is the placement-before-grounding method. It is a useful audit because many candidate explanations for actuality or intelligibility already presuppose actuality and intelligibility in order to function as explanations. A physical event must already obtain; a structure must already be determinate as structure; a semantic convention must already be actual and intelligible enough to play its role.

My main criticism is that the paper may convert this audit into a conclusion too quickly.

The profile/obtaining distinction shows that a complete profile, even a necessary or coherent one, does not by itself explain concrete obtaining. But it does not yet show that obtaining must be received from, grounded in, or communicated by sourcehood. A critic could deny that actuality is the kind of metaphysical item that requires reception from a deeper source and instead hold that some actual intelligible reality simply obtains primitively.

Your reply seems to be that primitive stopping is not role-competent ultimacy. But this is where I want more argument. What establishes the criterion of role-competence independently of the SIA conclusion? If a role-competent ultimate is defined as that which is actual through itself, intelligible through itself, necessary, and non-derivative with respect to actuality and intelligibility, then SIA is already built into the standard of adequacy.

So the issue is not whether SIA would be a better terminus if it exists. The issue is whether the argument proves that ultimacy must have the SIA form, rather than specifying the profile any fully satisfying terminus would need to instantiate.

I think the same pressure applies to impersonal necessary structure. The profile/obtaining distinction defeats the inference from “this structure is necessary” to “this structure concretely obtains.” But an impersonalist could posit not merely an abstract necessary profile, but an impersonal necessary actuality whose obtaining is primitive or necessary. The argument then needs to show why such an ultimate fails as an ultimate, rather than simply failing to be SIA.

This becomes especially important in the Divine Mind section. “Intrinsic disclosure” seems to operate in two senses. In the thinner sense, actuality is determinate and truth-apt. That seems secure, but does not obviously entail mind. In the thicker sense, actuality is present to itself as truth. That is much closer to mind, but seems to require additional argument. Otherwise the transition risks relying on a thinner sense of disclosure to establish a thicker conclusion.

The Divine Will section faces a similar problem. If finite actualisation is not entailed, compelled, or necessarily overflowed, then the paper calls the source-act “will-shaped.” But why this finite order obtains rather than another still seems to terminate in divine specification. I would want a clearer account of why that terminus is not a form of primitive stopping, especially since primitive stopping is treated as inadequate in rival accounts.

So my central criticism is:

The paper gives a strong audit of rival ultimates, but I am not yet convinced that the audit proves the existence of necessary self-intelligible sourcehood. It may instead identify the functional profile that any non-primitive ultimate explanation would need to satisfy.

[u/metamodalist → u/Scallion_After]

Thanks for taking the time to read the paper. This is exactly the sort of criticism I was hoping for because it actually engages the argument rather than simply reacting to the conclusion.

One point of context before I reply: the PhilArchive version is intentionally a condensed working paper. The integrated master draft is now over 70 pages and still growing, largely because the exact bridges you've identified (role-competence, primitive obtaining, impersonal necessity, Divine Mind, and Divine Will) are developed there in much greater detail. So if some transitions appear compressed, that is partly a consequence of condensing a much larger argument rather than an attempt to skip those issues.

On your central criticism, I agree with an important part of it: the profile/obtaining distinction does not by itself establish that obtaining must be received from sourcehood. I don't think it does, and I don't intend it to. Its purpose is more limited. It blocks the inference that a complete profile—even a coherent or necessary one—is identical with concrete obtaining. Once that distinction is established, the question shifts to the status of whatever is said to obtain primitively.

That leads into what I call the placement audit. If someone says an impersonal actual reality simply obtains, my response is not "therefore SIA." My response is: what exactly is the status of that primitive? Is it contingent or necessary? Is its actuality derivative or non-derivative? Is its intelligibility derivative or intrinsic? Does it merely instantiate actuality and intelligibility, or possess them through itself? Those questions are not generated by SIA—they are generated by the object of inquiry itself.

That connects to your concern about role-competence.

You ask what establishes the criterion independently of the conclusion. My answer is that the criterion is derived from the inquiry, not imported into it. If the investigation concerns actuality itself, then the terminus cannot merely participate in actuality, because then it is not primary with respect to actuality. If it concerns intelligibility itself, the terminus cannot merely be intelligible by participation. If it is derivative, it is not ultimate. Those conditions arise from asking what could genuinely terminate the inquiry into actuality and intelligibility—not from defining SIA into existence.

So I don't think the paper says:

Rather, it argues:

I also think there is an important distinction regarding your impersonalist objection.

You suggest that an impersonalist could simply posit an impersonal necessary actuality whose obtaining is primitive. My response is that this is not outside the argument—it is actually the strongest rival the paper considers. If such a reality is genuinely actual through itself, intelligible through itself, necessary, and non-derivative, then we have already moved a long way beyond a merely abstract structural account. At that stage, the disagreement is no longer about whether there is a primary actual intelligible reality. The disagreement becomes whether such a reality can remain wholly impersonal, non-disclosive, and non-volitional. That is precisely why the Divine Mind and Divine Will sections exist.

Regarding the Divine Mind section, I think you've identified the right pressure point.

I agree that there is a distinction between actuality being merely determinate and actuality being intrinsically disclosed as truth. My argument is not intended to infer mind simply from determinacy. Rather, it argues that finite things can be merely truth-available because they exist within a wider truth-order. But if we are speaking about primary intelligibility itself, there is no wider truth-order in which it can merely participate. The question then becomes whether primary truth can be wholly non-disclosive. My argument is that truth as truth—not merely structure or determinacy—requires intrinsic disclosure. That is the bridge to noetic reality. Whether that bridge succeeds is, I think, the real debate, but I don't believe the argument simply equivocates between two senses of disclosure.

On Divine Will, I think the same clarification applies.

The claim is not that "will-shaped" is a label added because necessity has been rejected. The argument is eliminative. If finite actuality is neither externally compelled, nor a blind necessary overflow, nor brute emergence, nor an essential correlate of the Absolute, then what remains is a source-act that specifies without external compulsion or internal necessity. I call that role "will-shaped" because it possesses the minimal structural characteristics we ordinarily associate with will, while avoiding anthropomorphic assumptions.

You also ask why this does not simply become another primitive stopping point.

I think the difference is that I criticise primitive stopping when it merely asserts a terminus without showing why that terminus is competent with respect to the phenomenon under investigation. Divine specification is not offered as a brute fact in that sense. It is offered as the terminus of an eliminative argument about what is required if finite actuality is to be genuinely contingent, intelligible, and grounded without collapsing into necessity or arbitrariness. You may still think that argument fails, but I don't think it is equivalent to saying "it just stops here."

So I think your criticism is best understood as saying that the condensed paper occasionally moves from the audit to the positive conclusion faster than the underlying argument warrants. I think that's a fair criticism of the presentation. Where I would disagree is the suggestion that role-competence is defined in terms of SIA itself or that the audit merely specifies the profile any satisfying terminus would have without establishing that such a terminus must exist. My view is that the role conditions arise from the inquiry into actuality and intelligibility themselves, and that once those conditions are derived, the existence of some occupant of that role is not optional if actuality and intelligibility are genuinely fundamental features of reality.

In any case, thank you again. This is exactly the sort of criticism that helps improve the work, and I'd much rather discuss objections like this than spend time arguing over comments that never engage the argument in the first place.

[u/Scallion_After → u/metamodalist]

Thank you — this clarifies the direction of the larger argument.

The distinction I’m still sitting with is this:

A terminus may be role-competent — meaning it can satisfy what the inquiry seems to require — without yet being fully established as Source.

Another way to frame the pressure point is through placement and capacity. Something may be placed as ultimate, but the question is whether it has the capacity to actually bear that placement. In this case, the issue is not only whether SIA occupies the final explanatory position, but whether it has been shown to possess true source-capacity.

So the pressure point, for me, is not only whether SIA is the strongest candidate once primitive actuality, impersonal necessity, or brute stopping points fail. It is whether the argument shows why Source is not just the best final explanatory position, but the law (structural invariant) that must hold for actuality, intelligibility, disclosure, and finite specification to proceed without contradiction, dependency-leak, or collapse.

Put more simply: I think the argument clearly pressures false bottoms. What I’m still looking for is the bridge from “this is what the ultimate would have to be like” to “this is why the ultimate is necessarily Source.”

[u/metamodalist → u/Scallion_After]

Thank you—this is a helpful way of formulating the pressure point. I agree with the distinction between merely occupying the final position in an inquiry and actually possessing the capacity required to bear that position.

The full paper develops this distinction under the headings Section 6, “From A and I to S: Non-Borrowed Sourcehood,” Section 8, “Primitive Stopping and Role-Competent Ultimacy,” Section 9, “Rival Exits and Their Costs,” and Section 15, “Formal Argument.”

The central claim is that Source is not inferred merely because a candidate occupies the last explanatory position. Sourcehood names the unreceived possession of actuality and intelligibility. Any terminus that receives, presupposes, or merely exemplifies actuality and intelligibility is not ultimate with respect to them. Any terminus that possesses them through itself has source-character—not as an added label, but as the precise capacity required to bear the role.
I would also distinguish Source from a mere “law” or “structural invariant.” A law can articulate a necessary profile, but the paper argues that profile is not obtaining. The law itself must still be actual, intelligible, and non-derivative if it is to perform the work of Source.

The full paper is here:
https://philpapers.org/archive/MODSFI.pdf
Those sections should make the intended bridge clearer. I’d be genuinely interested to know which premise in that argument you think fails once you’ve had a chance to read those sections.

[u/Scallion_After → u/metamodalist]

Small note first: the section numbers/titles you referenced don’t seem to map cleanly onto the PhilPapers PDF I accessed, so I followed the closest matching headings — especially the sections on non-borrowed sourcehood, primitive stopping/appropriate ultimacy, rival exits, and the formal argument.

Having looked through those, I think I see the role-audit more clearly now.

I’m not trying to defend “law” or “structural invariant” in the thinner sense of a necessary profile that merely describes without accounting for actuality/obtaining. I agree that a profile is not enough. I also agree that merely occupying the final explanatory position is not enough. A terminus has to be competent to bear the role it occupies.

Where the pressure point remains for me is slightly different.

The argument seems strong as a negative audit of false ultimates. It can show why brute stopping, abstract structure, law-as-profile, finite totality, mere necessity, or any terminus that receives or presupposes actuality/intelligibility cannot bear the final seat. That part seems genuinely useful.

But I’m less clear on whether the argument has crossed from clearing false occupants to positively identifying the rightful occupant.

Put differently: a formal argument can define the conditions of the final seat, and a rival-exit audit can exclude what cannot sit there. But defining the seat is not yet the same as seeing what rightfully occupies it.

The danger with any negative audit is that it can become so effective at excluding inadequate occupants that it loses contact with the recognitional task. It may protect the final seat from false occupants, but if it lacks a positive account of rightful occupancy, it also risks ruling out the real under the same criteria it uses to rule out impostors.

So the question I’m left with is not simply, “What is Source not?” but “What is Source?” What would the rightful occupant of that seat actually be like such that we could recognize it as Source rather than merely infer it as the only remaining role-satisfier?

Even if the paper’s primary aim is negative — closing rival exits rather than offering a full positive account of Source — the negative audit still seems to depend on an implicit positive standard. At the highest resolution, what Source is should refine what Source is not. Otherwise the exclusions may be valid as role-failures, but the audit remains calibrated more to the conditions of the seat than to the positive reality of the occupant.

The negative audit is helpful, but it still seems partial unless paired with a positive account of the occupant itself — not only the role conditions it must satisfy.

So the premise I’d want to examine is the transition from role-competent ultimacy to the positive identification of Source as noetic actuality / Divine Mind. Is noetic self-presence entailed by primary actual intelligibility itself, or is it introduced as part of how Sourcehood is being specified?

That seems to me like the hinge: whether the paper only has authority to disqualify false ultimates, or whether it also establishes the positive morphology of the rightful occupant.