Anna-Sofia Maurin

My research

Most of my research is in (meta)metaphysics/ontology, including the epistemology of metaphysics, on the metaphysics of properties, on the structure of reality, on the nature and possibility of complex unity and on the attendant problem with (Bradleyan) infinite regress, on (metaphysical) explanation, and on inheritance arguments and inheritance mechanisms. Lately, I have ventured (tentatively) into social ontology.

HERE is a list of my publications.

Below, I briefly introduce what has turned out to be some central "strands" in my research to date: Inheritance, Explanation, the Metaphysics of Properties, Unity in Complexity and the Status of Metaphysical/Philosophical Theorizing.

Inheritance

It is not uncommon for philosophers to speak loosely of one thing ‘inheriting’ some feature or features from another. We might say, for example, that the truth of a conjunction is inherited from the truth of its conjuncts, or that justification for some questioned belief B is inherited from the beliefs offered in support of B. Though there has been plenty of research into what is happening in these specific examples, the notion of inheritance itself has received very little attention. We think this is both surprising and problematic. Not only do philosophers often talk of one thing ‘inheriting’ its features from another, inheritance-claims also feature prominently in what we may call ‘inheritance arguments’, i.e., arguments where inheritance claims function as a kind of ‘inference-ticket’: because b inherits (some of) its features from a, if Fa then Fb. Without a good understanding of the nature and function of inheritance we lack the resources to properly evaluate arguments of this kind.

I (together with Naomi Thompson (Bristol University)) have a project on this topic, funded by the Swedish Research Council (2024-2026).

So far, this project has resulted in one co-authored paper criticizing the possibility of (metaphysical) explanation inheriting features from grounding ("No Grounds for Inheritance", fc.), one co-authored paper on the nature of inheritance arguments and their attendant inheritance mechanism, arguing that inheritance arguments always come with substantive metaphysical commitments (under review), one (possibly two) coauthored papers on the possibility of there being brute inheritance mechanisms besides or even in place of grounding relations (work in progress), and one coauthored paper critically discussing an idea defended by Kevin Richardson according to which the metaphysical indeterminacy of some parts of social reality can be inherited from the conceptual indeterminacy of our ways of representing those things (work in progress).

Explanation

Our understanding of the world is mediated through explanations. I understand that my foot hurts right now because I just kicked the table leg, or that the artwork is beautiful because the artist is very talented. But these somewhat familiar causal/scientific explanations are not the only kinds of explanation we give. My being in pain is also be explained with reference to my being in a particular brain state, and the artwork's beauty is explained in terms of its composition. These are so-called metaphysical explanations. Explanations which, rather than explaining a certain effect with reference to its cause, take you from what is less to what is more fundamental; to what depends for its existence on something else, to that on which its existence is grounded. It is a kind of explanation you find both in- and outside of philosophy (in fact, as soon as you start looking, it is a kind of explanation that is basically everywhere), yet which has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. As a consequence, it is a kind of explanation whose nature and application are relatively speaking ill-understood (a circumstance which threatens its justified use in both theory evaluation and theory comparison).

Explanation - and then especially metaphysical explanation - has been an important theme in almost all of my research to date. I view theorizing in philosophy as a matter of coming up with explanations and, as a consequence, I judge the value of this-or-that theory (at least in part) in terms of its explanatory power. How we view the nature and function of explanation deeply influences not just what counts as an explanation, but also what counts as a superior explanation to some alternative. This is why in recent years I have been increasingly interested in the nature and function of explanation - in particular metaphysical explanation - per se.

2017-2019 I (together with Naomi Thompson (Bristol University), Alexander Skiles (Rutgers University), Andrew Brenner (Hong Kong Baptist University), and Robin Stenwall (Lund University)) had a project on the nature and function of metaphysical explanation, funded by Riksbankens Jubileums fond. Our work in this project resulted in a large number of papers, including a jointly authored entry on Metaphysical Explanation in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (last revised 2026).

The Metaphysics of Properties

Philosophers have been debating the nature and existence of properties since the birth of philosophy itself. Not surprisingly then, there now exists a plethora of different theories, on whether properties exist, on what properties are like (if they exist), as well as on how we ought to proceed when answering questions about the existence and nature of properties in the first place. Which of these views you end up adopting matters: to how you understand the metaphysics of objects, to how you understand the metaphysics of change, to how you understand the nature of laws of nature. And to much more besides.

My interest in the metaphysics of properties dates back to when I wrote my PhD-thesis on trope-theory (If Tropes, 2002). Since then, I have tended to think that an ontology that includes properties is explanatorily superior than one that does not, and I have tended to favor a theory that does not understand properties as either immanent or transcendent universals, mostly for intra-theoretical reasons. So far, my work on the metaphysics of properties has resulted in several papers and book-chapters, including one monograph (If Tropes 2002) and one "booklet" (Properties 2022), an entry on Tropes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (the latest revision of which is from 2024) and a handbook (edited by myself and Anthony Fisher) on properties (the Routledge Handbook of Properties 2024), comprising 40 original papers by the foremost experts in the field.

Complex Unity

Complex unities seem both ubiquitous and inherently paradoxical. They are ones (one object, one state of affairs, one cosmos) but they are also many (many parts, many constituents, many properties). Complex unities are ones that are the many things that make them up, yet what make them up is not sufficient to yield the relevant whole: the parts of a whole might exist and not make up that whole. At least so it seems. A natural thought is that what makes the difference between a complex unity and a heap of parts, constituents, or properties is that in a complex unity, those parts are somehow bonded together, they are related. The problem is that making sense of this relating seemingly leads to a vicious infinite regress. This was noted already by F.H. Bradley (1893) (and probably before that as well). According to Bradley, the solution is radical: reject the existence of complex unities and accept (radical) monism.

The nature of complex unities, how to solve the regress problem and - in general - the nature of vicious infinite regresses (what, more precisely, makes a regress vicious?) have been important themes in my research every since I started doing philosophy. This has resulted in several papers, defending an account of viciousness in terms of explanatory failure as well as a solution to the regress problem in terms of relata-specific trope-relations.

The Status of Metaphysical Theorizing

I don't believe in the theories I defend. Rather, I view philosophical theories as (hopefully) well-developed and well-motivated guesses. As a consequence, even if I sometimes believe that at most one such guess can be true simultaneously (and in virtue of mind-independent reality), I don't view theory comparison and theory choice as a matter of 'finding the truth'. Rather, theory comparison and theory choice is a purely abductive matter, with explanation (explanatory power) at center stage. Perhaps as a consequence of this, I have throughout my career been more interested in developing theories and less interested in comparing and choosing between theories. If this or that theory is true (or truish), what happens? How can it be made better, more complete? And so on. I call this 'the hypothetical stance'.

My metaphilosophical convictions have not just influenced what I do and how I do it, but also resulted in a couple of papers explicitly discussing and defending my point of departure.