1st Edition

Ground and Fundamentality in Plato and Aristotle

Edited By Richard Neels Copyright 2026
368 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

368 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This is the first edited volume dedicated to the issues of ground and fundamentality in Plato and Aristotle. It offers new insights pertaining to certain features of ground and fundamentality that will engage with and spark debates in contemporary metaphysics. Grounding and fundamentality are established issues in contemporary metaphysics. Ground is, roughly, a non-causal, explanatory relation... Read more

Introduction 

Richard Neels  

Part 1: Plato  

1. Plato’s Forms as Grounds 

Colin C. Smith  

2. Is Plato a Priority Monist? 

Christine J. Thomas  

3. Plato’s Ontological Egalitarianism 

Scott Berman  

4. Fundamentality and Forms in Plato’s Parmenides

Richard Neels 

5. Elemental Properties and Context-Sensitive Explanation in Plato’s Timaeus

Lea Aurelia Schroeder  

Part 2: Aristotle  

6. The Priority of Particular Substances in Aristotle’s Categories

Michail Peramatzis  

7. The Unity of Aristotle’s Priority Relation 

Katherine Meadows  

8. Two Notions of Fundamentality in Aristotle 

Phil Corkum  

9. Aristotle’s Grounding Cause in Posterior Analytics II 11 

Mary Katrina Krizan 

10. Aristotle on Household Hierarchy and Metaphysical Explanation 

Riin Sirkel  

Part 3: Plato and Aristotle  

11. Plato and Aristotle on the Aims and Value of Division 

Nathanael Stein  

12. No Work for a Theory of Grounding in Ancient Philosophy 

Sosseh Assaturian and Rachel O’Keefe  

13. Grounding and the Work of Philosophy 

Bryan Reece

Biography

Richard Neels is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oklahoma State University, USA. His research is focused primarily on metaphysics in ancient philosophy and its connection to contemporary issues in metaphysics. His published work has appeared in Ancient Philosophy, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, History of Philosophy Quarterly, and Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.