Ciò che vi è, che cosa è, che cosa viene prima.Tre facce di uno stesso problema

According to van Inwagen, Varzi and others, the account of what there is (sometimes called “ontology”) does neither entail nor presuppose an account of its ultimate nature (sometimes called “metaphysics”). According to Schaffer and others, the account of what there is does neither entail nor presuppose an account of what grounds what, i.e., of what is fundamental and what is derived. I argue against both theses. Inasmuch as ontology is something more than a “chaotic enumeration”, it must require both a metaphysics and a theory of what is fundamental. The questions about what there is, what it is and what grounds what are thus just different aspects of one and the same question. Whatever first philosophy may be, Aristotle was right: it is one science, not the fusion of different components of which at least one is independent from the others.