My dissertation, Fragmentation of the World: A Realist Guide to Metaphysical Pluralism, develops a metametaphysical position I call fragmentalism: the view that the world admits of multiple privileged languages that carve the world at different sets of joints, and these languages are incommensurable in the sense that they are not translatable into one another. Each fragment provides a complete determination of reality from its own metaphysical standpoint, even when the structures disclosed by different fragments are mutually incompatible. The world, on this account, is ontologically posterior to its fragments.
Chapter 1: An Invitation to The Fragmented World
In Chapter 1, I argue that fragmentalism offers a middle path between Neo-Carnapian anti-realism (Hirsch 2002; Dasgupta 2018; Thomasson 2015) and Siderean realism (Sider 2011). Siderean realism holds that the world possesses one privileged fundamental structure, expressed in what Sider calls “Ontologese”. Neo-Carnapian approaches permit multiple true frameworks but deny that these frameworks correspond to privileged divisions within reality. The former preserves realism at the cost of pluralism, while the latter preserves pluralism by weakening realism. Fragmentalism rejects this trade-off. Pace Neo-Carnapian anti-realism, fragmentalism is realist in the sense that metaphysical theories can genuinely carve the world at its joints; pace Siderean Realism, fragmentalism is pluralist in the sense that the world has multiple incompatible sets of joints.
Chapter 2: From Epistemic Pluralism to Metaphysical Pluralism
In Chapter 2, I offer my main argument for fragmentalism, rooted in epistemic pluralism (Harding 1992, Medina 2013, Kukla 2021). My central argument is this: The Lewisian methodology of building metaphysical theories leads to a persistent tie between the best theories (Lewis 1983, Segal 2020, Bennett 2009); rather than treating this epistemic impasse as an obstacle to realism, I argue that it invites a form of realism that is compatible with epistemic pluralism about metaphysics, that is, theory choice in metaphysics is governed by internally consistent yet often incompatible sets of justificatory norms, such that we have no reason to privilege one metaphysical theory over another under theory tie. I argue that fragmentalism fits this role better than the two existing solutions: Siderean realism and skeptical realism (Segal 2020), the latter respecting the impasse but suspending belief in which theory is true. Instead, fragmentalism holds that competing theories may each track a different metaphysical fragment of the world.
Chapter 3: Towards a Queer Metametaphysics
In Chapter 3 “Towards a Queer Metametaphysics”, I argue that fragmentalism offers a unified metametaphysical foundation for both fundamental and social metaphysics by reconciling realism and pluralism. While fundamental metaphysicians are often realist monists, committed to a mind-independent reality described by our best theory (Schaffer 2009, Sider 2011, McDaniel 2017), some social metaphysicians are anti-realist pluralists who hold that reality is mind-dependent, shaped by a plurality of linguistic frameworks and social standpoints (Goodman 1978, Putnam 1992, Thomasson 2016, Díaz-León 2018). I argue that fragmentalism offers a middle path between the two metametaphysical positions within fundamental and social metaphysics, Siderean realism and Lugonesian pluralism (Lugones 1987, Bettcher 2026), the latter holding that although reality possesses no primitive joints, different theories are nevertheless incommensurable.
This framework creates space for what I call queer metametaphysics. Philosophical theories emerging from marginalized traditions need not be treated merely as local descriptions of socially constructed meanings, but as candidate metaphysical theories that describe genuine fragments of reality, including accounts on which social categories, processes, or middle-level entities are fundamental (Bernstein 2020, Bey 2022, Smilges 2026). Fragmentalism thereby allows metaphysics to be descriptive and emancipatory at once. Its emancipatory role does not consist in replacing description with conceptual engineering, but in bearing witness to fragments of reality that dominant metaphysical standpoints have systematically failed to register.
Categories: Metametaphysics, Social Metaphysics, Queer Philosophy