Constitutive Explanation

Dasgupta, Shamik

doi:10.1111/phis.12102

Cited by 63 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The former presentation of the view seems to build in some assumptions about the nature of grounding that are lacking in the latter. The latter is clearly consistent with a deflationary account of grounding such as the one presented by Dasgupta (2017), who takes the word ‘grounding’ to be a label for constitutive or metaphysical explanation, which does useful work in limning issues of metaphysical interest.…”

Section: Grounding and Explanationsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Theorizing about grounding is in constant flux, and theorizing about an independent notion of metaphysical explanation might be more stable. Moreover, it seems we do have an independent grip on metaphysical explanation, and so we should be capable of theorizing about it (Dasgupta 2017: 75).…”

Section: Grounding and Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Certainly, these dependence relations provide reality with plenty of structure. What they do not provide is the kind of generic structure that often seems to be at issue in metaphysics, the structure that limns issues of metaphysical interest (see Dasgupta 2017: 76).…”

Section: The Structure Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is, of course, not an argument against grounding-based formulations of structure, but it should be enough to permit us to proceed with describing some details of an alternative. (Resisting realism about grounding might provide further motivation to give an alternative account of structure; see Miller and Norton [2017], Dasgupta [2017], and Thompson [2018] for arguments against realism about grounding).…”

Section: The Structure Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Questions and Answers: Metaphysical Explanation and the Structure of Reality

Thompson¹

2019

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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This paper develops an account of metaphysical explanation according to which metaphysical explanations are answers to what-makes-it-the-case-that questions. On this view, metaphysical explanations are not to be considered entirely objective, but are subject to epistemic constraints imposed by the context in which a relevant question is asked. The resultant account of metaphysical explanation is developed independently of any particular views about grounding. Toward the end of the paper an application of the view is proposed that takes metaphysical explanations conceived in this way to characterize reality's structure. According to this proposal, reality's structure is partly constituted by a projection of our explanatory practices onto reality.

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Section: Grounding and Explanationsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Grounding and Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Structure Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Structure Of Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Questions and Answers: Metaphysical Explanation and the Structure of Reality

Thompson¹

2019

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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“…More problematically, even unionists are free to believe in production so long as they reserve 'grounding' for metaphysical explanation. In what follows, I will primarily focus on the distinction between production and metaphysical explanation, 12 Proponents of this conception include Fine (2001Fine ( , 2012, Raven (2012), deRosset (2013), Dasgupta (2014aDasgupta ( , 2014bDasgupta ( , 2017, and Litland (2017), among others. 13 This conception of grounding has been endorsed, for example, by Schaffer (2009Schaffer ( , 2016Schaffer ( , 2017aSchaffer ( , 2017b, Audi (2012aAudi ( , 2012b, Leuenberger (2014), Skiles (2015) and A. .…”

Section: What Question Of Iterated Grounding?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Four Questions of Iterated Grounding

Kovacs

2019

Philos Phenomenol Research

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The Question of Iterated Grounding (QIG) asks what grounds the grounding facts. Although the question received a lot of attention in the past few years, it is usually discussed independently of another important issue: the connection between metaphysical explanation and the relation or relations that supposedly "back" it. I will show that once we get clear on the distinction between metaphysical explanation and the relation(s) backing it, we can distinguish no fewer than four questions lumped under QIG. I will also argue that given some plausible assumptions about what it would take for a relation to back metaphysical explanation, many salient views about grounding allow us to give "easy" answers to these questions-easy in the sense that we can straightforwardly derive them from the respective conception of grounding without getting into the sorts of complexities that typically inform answers to QIG. The paper's main upshot is that we cannot expect to make much progress on QIG without first addressing the difficult issue of how exactly grounding is related to metaphysical explanation.

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Grounding interventionism: Conceptual and epistemological challenges

Bryant¹

2023

Examining Philosophy Itself

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Philosophers have recently highlighted substantial affinities between causation and grounding, which has inclined some to import the conceptual and formal resources of causal interventionism into the metaphysics of grounding. The prospect of grounding interventionism raises two important questions: exactly what are grounding interventions, and why should we think they enable knowledge of grounding? This paper will approach these questions by examining how causal interventionists have addressed (or might address) analogous questions and then comparing the available options for grounding interventionism. I argue that grounding interventions must be understood in worldly terms, as adding something to or deleting something from the roster of entities, or making some fact obtain or fail to obtain. I consider three bases for counterfactual assessment: imagination, structural equation models, and background theory. I conclude that grounding interventionism requires firmer epistemological foundations, without which the interventionist's epistemology of grounding is incomplete and ineffectually rationalist.

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Constitutive Explanation

Cited by 63 publications

References 33 publications

Questions and Answers: Metaphysical Explanation and the Structure of Reality

Questions and Answers: Metaphysical Explanation and the Structure of Reality

Four Questions of Iterated Grounding

Grounding interventionism: Conceptual and epistemological challenges

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