““The resulting view is “structuralist” or “holistic” in two respects. First, one can only state something fundamental by characterizing the world as a whole. And second, the derivative individualistic facts then flow from that fundamental fact only as a group, not one-by-one. So there is no making sense of either the fundamental or the derivative without making sense of everything at once. As a result, this is what might be called a “many-from-one” metaphysics, on which many elements (the individualistic facts) flow together from one source (the World Fact). I am not aware of other many-from-one views in recent metaphysics, but Spinoza arguably endorsed one when he argued that the finite modes flow together, but not individually, from the essence of God.28 If I am right, we have good reason to revisit many-from-one views today.””
![“I never knew any man who had once tasted the sweetness of experimental knowledge, that ever afterward fasted after ye Vapour garlick and onions of phantasmatical seeming philosophy." [William Petty]” quote by Carl Zimmer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e5a/carl-zimmer-16331_knowledge_i-never-knew-any-man-who-had-once-tasted_1770.jpg)
