Grounding and necessity

Leuenberger, S. (2014) Grounding and necessity. Inquiry, 57(2), pp. 151-174. (doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2013.855654)

Abstract

The elucidations and regimentations of grounding offered in the literature standardly take it to be a necessary connection. In particular, authors often assert, or at least assume, that if some facts ground another fact, then the obtaining of the former necessitates the latter; and moreover, that grounding is an internal relation, in the sense of being necessitated by the existence of the relata. In this article, I challenge the necessitarian orthodoxy about grounding by offering two prima facie counterexamples. First, some physical facts may ground a certain phenomenal fact without necessitating it; and they may co-exist with the latter without grounding it. Second, some instantiations of categorical properties may ground the instantiation of a dispositional one without necessitating it; and they may co-exist without grounding it. After arguing that these may be genuine counterexamples, I ask whether there are modal constraints on grounding that are not threatened by them. I propose two: that grounding supervenes on what facts there are, and that every grounded fact supervenes on what grounds there are. Finally, I attempt to provide a rigorous formulation of the latter supervenience claim and discuss some technical questions that arise if we allow descending grounding chains of transfinite length.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Leuenberger, Professor Stephan
• Authors: Leuenberger, S.
• College/School: College of Arts > School of Humanities > Philosophy
• Journal Name: Inquiry
• ISSN: 0020-174X
• ISSN (Online): 1502-3923
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2013 The Author
• First Published: First published in Inquiry 57 (2):151-174
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
57255	1	The Contingency of Contingency	Stephan Leuenberger	Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)	AH/J004189/1	HU - PHILOSOPHY