Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence

Barker, Jonathan

doi:10.1080/00048402.2020.1752746

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…More generally, I think you should regard as false any completely unmotivated philosophical thesis whose truth implies the existence of infinitely many fundamental facts (see Barker 2021). That is, I endorse the following principle:…”

Section: Grounding Ungroundedmentioning

confidence: 97%

Against Purity

Barker

2023

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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A fundamental fact is “pure” just in case it has no grounded entities—ex. Tokyo, President Biden, the River Nile, {Socrates}, etc.—among its constituents. Purity is the thesis that every fundamental fact is pure. I argue that Purity is false. My argument begins with a familiar conditional: if Purity is true, then there are no fundamental “grounding facts” or facts about what grounds what. This conditional is accepted by virtually all of Purity’s defenders. However, I argue that it is also the first step toward Purity’s undoing. For, if every grounding fact has a ground, then some grounded entities have “groundmates” or distinct grounded entities that share their full grounds. But, if there are groundmates, then Purity is false. So Purity leads to a contradiction. Therefore, it is false. I close by noting that my argument against Purity also gives us a powerful reason to think that some grounding facts are fundamental.

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Section: Grounding Ungroundedmentioning

confidence: 97%

Against Purity

Barker

2023

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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“…20 Here is another principle that Fix should be contrasted with. Where 'F' and 'G' are predicates that correspond to qualitative properties (the latter corresponding to the conjunction of all of y's qualitive properties), Barker (2021) has put forward the following thesis:…”

Section: B Similar Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Taming of the Grounds

Saenz

2022

Can. J. of Philosophy

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“…55–56). Because Barker (2021) gives an argument that it is not possible to have two entities that are both fully grounded by a single entity, however, we will also consider cases that do not appeal to a common ground as well.…”

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confidence: 99%

Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

Siscoe

2021

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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Starting with the slogan that understanding is a 'knowledge of causes,'Stephen Grimm and John Greco have argued that understanding comes from a knowledge of dependence relations. Grounding is the trendiest dependence relation on the market, and if Grimm and Greco are correct, then instances of grounding should also give rise to understanding. In this paper, I will show that this prediction is correct -grounding does indeed generate understanding in just the way that Grimm and Greco anticipate. However, grounding examples of understanding also show that Grimm and Greco are not telling the full story when it comes to understanding. Understanding can only be generated by a particular subset of dependence relations -those dependence relations that are also explanatory. Grimm and Greco should thus appeal to a privileged class of dependence relations, relations like grounding that can give rise to explanation as well.

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Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

Against Purity

Against Purity

The Taming of the Grounds

Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

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