Identity criteria: an epistemic path to conceptual grounding

Abstract

Are identity criteria grounding principles? A prima facie answer to this question is positive. Specifically, two-level identity criteria can be taken as principles related to issues of identity among objects of a given kind compared with objects of a more basic kind. Moreover, they are grounding metaphysical principles of some objects with regard to others. In the first part of the paper we criticise this prima facie natural reading of identity criteria. This result does not mean that identity criteria could not be taken as grounding principles. In the second part, we propose some basic steps towards a conceptual reading of grounding. Such a way of understanding it goes along with an epistemic reading of identity criteria.

From thin objects to thin concepts?

“…Let us take, as an example, the thick object corresponding to the thick fact that a and b are parallel, and, as a thin object, the fact that a and b have the same direction; then one might be willing to claim that the thick object of two lines being parallel grounds the thin object of two lines having the same direction (see Linnebo, 2018, p. 18). 2 Although this might sound as a natural and interesting connection, as has been discussed at length by (Carrara & De Florio, 2020), several problems arise when the (AP) are interpreted in terms of metaphysical grounding and thus, as it stands, it is not a viable road. Let us briefly resume why.…”

“…Quite recently, the so‐called conceptual grounding has started attracting philosophers' attention. Conceptual grounding is a relation among truths, which is objective, non‐causal and explanatory in nature (as it is the case with metaphysical grounding), but which holds in virtue of the concepts these truths contains (see, e.g., Carrara & De Florio, 2020). Typical examples of conceptual grounding are the following: that animal is a vixen because it is a fox and it is a female, Tobias is European because he is German, the area of the square is bigger than the area of the square , because the side is bigger than the side . …”

The Grounding of Identities

“…relating the two classes of entities (e.g., directions of lines ontologically depend on lines, numbers of concepts ontologically depend on concepts, and so forth…). Although we have no clear account of this relation of ontological dependence between entities, and its relation with metaphysical grounding as discussed so far, this at least paves the way for thinking that some identities can be grounded; to deploy a standard metaphor in grounding literature, after determining that lines a and b were parallel, God didn't need to add anything to the world to make it so that their directions are identical; and similarly, after deciding that forks and knives on a table are in a bijection, God didn't need to add anything else to make it so that the number of forks is identical to the number of knives (for a discussion see Carrara & De Florio, 2018).…”

Mereology and Identity

“…2-is in general reflexive, and this might in turn depend on the nature of identity itself; no explanation or ground specific to a certain self-identical entity is needed. If the single instances of identity need no explanation, then perhaps the single instances of distinctness (i.e., of non-identity) also do not need any explanation, and the problem of whether the explanation has to be exclusively mereological or not becomes moot (Fine (2016) and Carrara and De Florio (2018) are two recent works on grounding and identity criteria).…”