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On metaphysical grounding

Brian Leiter

Interesting review by Ricki Bliss (Lehigh) in Philosophical Review of a recent collection; from the conclusion:

One thing that is clear from the material presented in this volume, however, is that as much as proponents of the notion of ground may disagree with one another over the details, there is no question that an orthodoxy—metaphysical foundationalism—has fast settled upon the research program: reality is hierarchically structured and contains a fundamental level populated by contingent existents. To question these commitments, it has been suggested (although not in this volume), is to ask illegitimate questions, to flout common sense, or to just be so absurd as to not warrant serious consideration. In a research program whose  literature can, at places, appear pedantic, it is somewhat striking to observe just how poor so many of the arguments presented in defense of this view actually are.

Discuss.

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12 responses to “On metaphysical grounding”

  1. Fritz Warfield

    As far as I can tell there is lots of poor quality work on every topic I am competent to judge including work on grounding. Fortunately there is also lots of good work on every such topic too.

    On the topic of metaphysical grounding I have never encountered anything like what this reviewer says "has been suggested (although not in this volume)" — odd to provide no reference to anyone who has at least "suggested" it. In my experience at talks and in other settings, both those exploring issues about grounding and even those seriously committed to grounding as a key notion for metaphysics are open to engaging with criticism. This includes criticism ranging from objections about imprecision in the central notion of grounding to criticisms that challenge assumptions about reality presupposed by some who work on grounding. The reviewer has perhaps had different experiences.

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  2. Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt

    Bliss would do well to note the very many papers over the last few years that question or reject metaphysical foundationalism. These include quite a number of papers by Michael Della Rocca on the PSR (one of which is in the volume Bliss is reviewing); Shamik Dasgupta in "Metaphysical Rationalism"; Jonathan Schaffer in "Is there a Fundamental Level?", and Karen Bennett in her forthcoming book "Making Things Up". Michael Raven in "Fundamentality without Foundations" and Kit Fine in "The Question of Ontology" and "The Question of Realism" both claim that there could be infinitely descending chains of grounding.

    Indeed, if Bliss worries about an unchallenged orthodoxy of metaphysical foundationalism, then he should love the grounding literature. For the explosion of literature on grounding has made questioning metaphysical foundationalism very fashionable, and in fact this is one of the central questions on which the grounding literature has been focused. If anything, metaphysical foundationalism was something of an orthodoxy until the grounding folks stopped taking it for granted.

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  3. anonymous metaphysician

    I also just want to register that I've never encountered this, despite being constantly surrounded by pro-grounders/writing/interacting with their work quite a bit. And I am skeptical that there is a coherent notion here (and also that everyone who is committed to grounding/fundamentality is committed to the "hierarchical levels" picture of reality), and often raise this skepticism. So I am also curious who the charge is meant to apply to. (I'm also not convinced by this "orthodoxy" claim. Yes, a certain powerful circle of metaphysicians buy into something like this, but there are many, many dissenters…)

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  4. Myron

    By the way, Ricki Bliss is the coauthor of the SEP entry on Metaphysical Grounding: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/

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  5. anonymous metaphysician

    Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt: Ricki Bliss is a woman.

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  6. anonymous metaphysician

    (Aside from that, I completely agree with your comment!)

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  7. Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt

    Yes, my apologies for mistaking Bliss' gender! I realized that after I posted.

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  8. Johnny_Thunder

    Bliss thinks the arguments for hierarchical structure *and* metaphysical foundationalism in the volume she reviewed are bad. When she talks about hierarchical structure, I assume she means a grounding relation in the sense of the current literature.

    What I've seen (which is far from everything) of the literature is pretty uncritical about the grounding relation. I don't yet see a pressing theoretical need to posit it in addition to other relations we already have (definitional reduction, token identity of distinct types, mereological composition etc.), and the authors I've read don't seem to think it's important to identify a real theoretical need. It sometimes seems to be enough that "we ordinarily talk that way".

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  9. Anon Grad Student

    Erm… Unless I'm missing something, attempts to provide definitional reductions have almost universally failed except for a few instances in which scientists did a substantial amount of first-order theorizing to get the reduction (as in the case of thermodynamics and the definition of temperature in terms of mean molecular kinetic energy). Getting the sort of ontological free-lunch that definitional reduction was supposed to provide seems to be the primary motivation for the notion of grounding. The notions of composition and constitution are taken to be subsumed under the notion of grounding *because* they are forms of ontological dependence and thus need to be so subsumed if the notion is going to play the needed role elsewhere.

    Of course, if one were feeling uncharitable one might think that the notion of grounding is simply an attempt to give philosophers a way to say something deep-sounding without getting involved in a substantial amount of science and applied mathematics.

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  10. Another anonymous metaphysician

    I'm an active participant in the grounding literature, and I must say that I completely agree with comments #1 and #2.

    Since it hasn't been brought up yet, I'll just add that it is also not an orthodoxy that the fundamental level (if such there be) must be populated with **contingent** existents. Many–indeed, the vast majority of–metaphysical foundationalists are happy to grant that mathematics and/or theology delivers all sorts of fundamental entities that necessarily exist.

    Perhaps Bliss's claim here, though, is that it's an orthodoxy that the fundamental level (if such there be) must be populated with **at least some** contingent existents. I guess I'd agree that this is the received view. But here's a fairly straightforward argument in support of it. It relies on two premises: (i) if there is a fundamental level of entities, then at least some of them will fall within the domain of physics; and (ii) the sorts of entities that the physicist talks about don't necessarily exist. Now, (i) and (ii) are items of orthodoxy in their own right. But their purchase runs far, far deeper than what goes on in the grounding literature per se. And if someone had a good argument against either (i) and (ii), then I for one would be quite happy to see it disseminated far and wide!

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  11. Johnny_Thunder

    There has been a lot of successful definitional reduction in logic and mathematics. Look at real analysis. But even if there hadn't been, that wouldn't entail that a primitive grounding relation would be useful.

    You say it's useful because positing it implies that there are ontological free lunches. But it seems to me that we can get these free lunches without a primitive grounding relation. We just assume things like that if x is composed of y and z, then adding x to our ontology doesn't make our theory less parsimonious; or if a is the class whose members are b and c, then adding a to our ontology doesn't decrease parsimony.

    You say that if we don't subsume composition and constitution under the primitive notion of grounding, then the notion of grounding can't deliver free lunches elsewhere. Right, but why should we want it to? If there's some other relation in place (constitution, say), then just let that do the same work. If there is no such relation, why say there's a free lunch? I suppose we could say that if there's no other relation (like composition) that's responsible for the grounding, we get more free lunches than if we restrict free lunches to cases where other relations obtain. And then we could claim that our theories are more parsimonious. But then I don't see how the concept of grounding is constrained. Why not just stipulate that my left big toe grounds everything? That would give us lots of free lunches.

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  12. Anon Grad Student

    Johnny, I was just giving you what I take to be the motivation for the notion given what I've read. I don't necessarily endorse it myself. I'm ambivalent. As far as your point about successful definitional reduction in logic and mathematics, that's more or less in line with my last point. But the metaphysicians who work on grounding are more concerned about reducing things like biological kinds, mental kinds, etc. to physical kinds. People have attempted to do that with mereological composition, constitution, definitional reduction, and identity claims, but it hasn't worked out so well. So I take it that the idea is to say that all of these notions are species of a more general notion, and that you can recapture the relevant ontological free-lunch in the problematic cases by just using the general notion. The attempt to give a logical analysis of grounding that matches the specific cases functions as an attempt to legitimize the claim that there is, in fact, some more general notion at play. So it's not merely a stipulation.

    Of course, it is reasonable to be skeptical that there *IS* such a worthwhile general notion. A logical analysis doesn't show a whole lot in this regard. Jessica Wilson has argued that it doesn't really serve much of a theoretical purpose http://philpapers.org/rec/WILTMO-16. In the other direction, Schaffer has argued that it's needed to fill explanatory gaps and should be treated like causation http://philpapers.org/rec/SCHGIT-2. In motivating his view in "The Question of Realism" Kit Fine argued that definitional reduction isn't enough. The first half of "Writing the Book of the World" is Sider's attempt to outline the theoretical role of the notion of fundamentality (which he somewhat misleadingly labels 'structure'). So people *are* attempting to engage with your question.

    Personally, I think if we need any primitive notion it would be a notion of naturalness or structure (in something closer to the structuralists' sense than Sider's) rather than a primitive notion of grounding or fundamentality.

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