Abstract: Redundancy is typically treated as a theoretical vice. This assumption plays an important role in discussions of metaphysical fundamentality, where it is commonly held that the fundamental base of reality ought not to be redundant (Lewis 1986; Sider 2011). In this paper, I set out to do three things: I offer a systematic way of talking about redundancy, I identify the main lines of argument for treating redundancy as a theoretical vice, and I argue that none of them is satisfactory. The first line of argument against redundancy stems from the idea that the basic elements of reality should be independent of one another. I examine the history of this independence requirement and show that there is no satisfactory motivation for the independence principle. This result undermines the argument against redundancy from independence. The second line of argument against redundancy comes from parsimony. I show that this argument loses force under a formulation of the principle of parsimony that is independently preferable: the principle of qualitative ideological parsimony. Qualitative ideological parsimony demands that we prefer theories that posit fewer kinds of concepts. Thus, if redundancy occurs among expressions of the same ideological kind, parsimony gives us no reason to eliminate it.
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Metaphysics and Epistemology Group Convenors: Nick Jones, Bernhard Salow and Alex Kaiserman
