Time, Grounding, and Esoteric Metaphysics

Abstract

I examine the relation between naturalistically motivated and other critiques of grounding and similar critiques of the contrast between A- and B-theoretic views of time. I argue that even the combined dialectical upshot of nonunity objections in the latter case is not what it is in the former. I sympathetically discuss the objection that the notion of grounding is not intelligible and part of ‘esoteric’ metaphysics; this objection turns out to be just as serious in the case of the A/B contrast. I then consider whether grounding is needed to draw the A/B contrast in the first place and answer this question in the negative. Finally, I comment on the costs of esotericism in both cases.