Where grounding and causation part ways: comments on Schaffer

Abstract

Metaphysicians have recently found it useful to apply the notion of ground to a wide range of phenomena. Jonathan Schaffer, for example, cites the following cases, among others, as exhibiting genuine grounding connections:1 the relation between true propositions and their truthmakers; the relation between higher-order (e.g., biological) and lower (e.g., physical)properties; the relation between complex truths (e.g., conjunctions) and simpler truths (e.g., their conjuncts); the relation between substances and their qualities or modes (e.g., an apple and its redness); as well as the relation between a non-empty set and its members. When presented with such an apparently heterogeneous collection of cases, however, one may legitimately wonder whether much of anything has been accomplished by subsuming these phenomena, and perhaps others as well, under a single general rubric of grounding. In response to this concern, it is not uncommon for proponents of grounding to respond that, by collecting the data in question together in this way, we have in fact gained a valuable insight, namely that a collection of correlations which might at first strike us as quite disparate in reality presents us with a unified phenomenon ("the Unity Hypothesis").

Constitutive Explanation

“…Schaffer has perhaps done more than anyone to explore the analogue between ground and causation. My point here is not that the analogy is a mistake (though see Koslicki () and Bernstein () for a dissenting view), but that he has drawn the analogy to a very particular model of causation.…”

Grounding and metaphysical explanation: it’s complicated

“…In order for the existence of metaphysical explanation to justify positing grounding-the substantive and 'natural' kind-therefore, there must be some feature(s) all relations belonging to the grounding-kind share. According to Koslicki (2015Koslicki ( , 2016, however, we have reason to think that there is not. Looking at the sorts of relations proponents of grounding have tagged as being 'of the grounding kind', she argues, there is positive proof at most for their being 'objectively similar' in some respects.…”

Grounding and the argument from explanatoriness

“…Set Production S1) [Socrates exists] produces [{Socrates} exists] S2) For any w 1 … w n and u, if w 1 … w n produce u then w 1 … w n metaphysically explain u Footnote 43 continued incoherent or disunified (though see Koslicki 2016), but I don't see why it should move those of us who just think it's superfluous. 44 The first one to mention it was Ted Sider.…”