Should explanation be a guide to ground?

Abstract

Grounding and explanation are said to be intimately connected. Some even maintain that grounding just is a form of explanation. But grounding and explanation also seem importantly different-on the face of it, the former is 'worldy' or 'objective' while the latter isn't. In this paper, we develop and respond to an argument to the effect that there is no way to fruitfully address this tension that retains orthodox views about grounding and explanation but doesn't undermine a central piece of methodology, namely that explanation is a guide to ground.

How to be an antirealist about metaphysical explanation

“…It's worth mentioning a recent objection to the kinds of moves I have made here. Skiles and Trogdon (2021) argue that we can reconcile the subjective character of explanation with the objectivity of what is represented without giving up on the objectivity of metaphysical explanation. Very briefly, the idea is that we can view the 20 The details of Trogdon's view need not concern us here, but roughly he thinks of metaphysical explanations as representations of grounding relations as being instances of grounding mechanisms (see 2018, p. 1296), where a grounding mechanism is a determination relation that holds between the constituents of grounding facts and the constituents of the facts that they ground (2018, p. 1290).…”

“…It's worth mentioning a recent objection to the kinds of moves I have made here. Skiles and Trogdon (2021) argue that we can reconcile the subjective character of explanation with the objectivity of what is represented without giving up on the objectivity of metaphysical explanation. Very briefly, the idea is that we can view the subjective constraints on explanation as constraining either something's counting as an explanation, or counting as a good or successful explanation, or both.…”

“…Skiles and Trogdon think that one counts as an explanatory realist so long as “explanation itself is thought to be fully objective” (2021, p. 4091). We can imagine the hybrid separatist when she mentions subjective constraints on explanation to be providing an account of good or successful explanation, but not on explanation itself.…”

“…One problem with this strategy is that it just is not clear why we should think that the relevant constraints are constraints on successful explanation rather than on something's counting as an explanation at all. Skiles and Trogdon (2021, p. 4092) say that the strategy is to start with a conception of what it is for something to count as an explanation and to

…revise it so that the subject condition doesn't figure into the nature of explanation but rather something else near at hand, and then point out that the resulting conception of explanation doesn't render explanation obscure.

…”

Overdetermination and Causal Closure: A Defense of the Causal Argument for Physicalism

“…CC: Every physical event that has a cause at t has a physical cause at t. But while it is straightforward, assuming that only events can be causes of other events, that P* logically entails CC, it is not at all straightforward that P* provides a metaphysical explanation for CC. When we say that some fact provides a metaphysical explanation for another, we are thereby taking the former to explain in virtue of what the latter fact obtains (Rosen 2010, see also Skiles and Trogdon 2021). The obtaining of the former fact is makes the latter fact obtain.…”