GroundingYes,‘grounding’ is a serious topic of philosophy—despite the tongue-in-cheek titleof this p

GroundingYes,‘grounding’ is a serious topic of philosophy—despite the tongue-in-cheek titleof this paper by Jon Erling Litland (pictured). Infact, grounding sits at the heart of contemporary metaphysics. For how arefacts connected to each other? Can we go increasingly fundamental, right to thebase of reality, as we confirm deeper and deeper facts? These are profoundquestions.Somemetaphysicians claim that facts metaphysically depend on others via grounding,warranting expressions such as ‘because’, ‘consists in’, and ‘in virtue of’(e.g. ‘The fact of my headache consists in the fact of my partying too hard’). Ingrounding-speak, one fact, A, is grounded in another, B, if A’sexplanation is obtained in virtue of B’s.Wemay claim, for example, that facts about mental properties (e.g. stress)are grounded in facts about physical properties (e.g. body temperature);facts about body temperature, we could go on, are grounded in factsabout mean kinetic energy. And so the grounding chain continues, morefundamental with each step, perhaps all the way down to laws of nature, essenceof matter, mathematics, or God.Grounding,then, is a means to take explanations more fundamental, more-closelyidentifying them with facts about reality.Litland,though, expresses a worry that grounding facts (B < A)themselves require grounding! (Reread the title until you get it.) But, heargues, we can defeat this worry with the union of metaphysics and logic. Simplyput, if B grounds A, B also at least partly grounds B’sgrounding A (proof here). The result is important, determining that it’s valid toform fundamental facts with grounded explanations without going around incircles! Any fact that is left ungrounded, he expands, is fundamental. Theexistence of electrons, for instance, is ungrounded—and that’s fine if it’s afundamental particle.Thatis to say, superficially, all but fundamental facts are combinations of otherfacts. As Ludwig Wittgenstein writes in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:‘Any one can either be the case or notbe the case, and everything else remain the same.’Groundingis a route to take us closer to the base of reality; everything else is observedover and above it.Fascinatingor pointless? You decide. But don’t forget that philosophers can have fun, too. -- source link

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