Ideology in a Desert Landscape

On one influential view, metaphysical fundamentality can be understood in terms of joint-carving. Ted Sider has recently argued that (i) some first or- der quantifier is joint-carving, and (ii) modal notions are not joint-carving. After vindicating the theoretical indispensability of quantification against recent criticism, I will defend a logical result due to Arnold Koslow which implies that (i) and (ii) are incompatible. I will therefore consider an al- ternative understanding of Sider’s metaphysics to the effect that (i) some first order quantifier is joint-carving, and (iii) intensional notions are not joint-carving. Another result due to Koslow entails that (i) and (iii) are also incompatible. I will argue that this second result is inconclusive. Nev- ertheless, (iii) is incompatible with another tenet of Sider’s metaphysics, namely that (iv) ‘being joint-carving’ is itself joint-carving. In order to re- solve the inconsistency, I will tentatively argue that condition (iv) should be renounced.