The Fragmentation of Being

answers to them are highly complex. I have done my best to show this, at least with
respect to the question of whether being fragments.
Here is the plan for the rest of the book. In chapter 1, I carefully explicate
ontological pluralism, the doctrine that there are ways of being. In this chapter,
I aim to get clearer on what one is committed to when one believes in modes of being
instead of presenting my preferred metaphysical system. It is hard to assess this
question in the abstract, so I begin with a lengthy discussion of a particular philo-
sopher’s system, namely Heidegger’s (around the time ofBeing and Time). In chapter 2,
I address some popular arguments against ontological pluralism, as well as discuss
some plausible versions of ontological pluralism. In chapter 3, I turn to the philoso-
phy of time. In this chapter, I explore a version of ontological pluralism according to
which present entities (such as you and I) and past entities (such as Abe Lincoln and
dinosaurs) enjoy different ways of existing. Levels of being are discussed in chapter 3,
in the context of exploring in what ways present existence might be ontologically
superior to past existence. The phenomenological motivation for a kind of onto-
logical pluralism is discussed as well. In chapter 4, I address the questions of whether
and in what ways the notion of a way of being connects up with the notion of an
ontological category. In chapter 5, the status of various“absences,”such as holes,
cracks, and shadows is investigated. There, the notion of a degree of being is explored,
and a distinction is drawn between existing to the fullest extent and existing in a
merely degenerate way. In chapter 6, the question of whether persons exist to the
fullest extent is investigated. In chapter 7, the notion of a degree of existence, which
played a prominent role in the previous two chapters, receives an in-depth examin-
ation of its own. There it is argued that the notion of a degree of being is a crucial
metaphysical notion, one that metaphysicians ought to employ in their theorizing,
but also one that might already be employed in contemporary metaphysical debates,
albeit under a different guise. I’ll also investigate whether degrees of being can be used
to characterize modes of being, orders of being, and levels of being. In chapter 8,
I explore whether we can understand some notion of grounding in terms of some
ontological notion, such as degree of being. Finally, in chapter 9, I assay the
connections between being, essence, and ground.
Although the question of whether being is unitary or fragmentary is an ancient
question, and a very important one in the history of philosophy, this is a book whose
genre, if I may use that term, is contemporary analytic metaphysics. So permit me a
brief digression about the role that the history of philosophy plays in what follows.
My primary interest is in discovering the ways in which ontological pluralism has
ramifications for metaphysical issues that Ifind fascinating, rather than tracing out
the ramifications the doctrine was taken to have for various issues of importance to
historicalfigures long dead. However, in the course of this book, the views and
arguments of various long-dead historicalfigures will be critically discussed, and the
fact that the focus of this book is on contemporary issues should not serve as an
excuse for misrepresenting their views and arguments. Moreover, insofar as the

INTRODUCTION 