ABSTRACT
It’s not uncommon to hear philosophers speak about how things fundamentally are: that the world is fundamentally physical, or fundamentally just, or even that it exists fundamentally. Sometimes, the expression ‘fundamental’ is just synonymous with terms like ‘basically’, ‘really’ or ‘objectively’. What we mean to say in claiming that the world is fundamentally just, for example, is that the world is just, in and of itself, and not, somehow, as the result of human imagination. Sometimes, though, the term ‘fundamental’ is actually used as a technical term, where although it is importantly conceptually connected to ideas about how things basically, objectively or in and of themselves actually are, it takes on a nuanced and sophisticated life of its own. This entry is about what metaphysicians of a certain stripe mean when they use ‘fundamental’ in this technical sense.
