Grounding
from 350 BCE Aristotle's priority relations; the modern grounding literature dates from about 2009
Some things hold in virtue of others; trace the chain of because-of until it stops, and what it stops at is what the rest is standing on.
- Active
- from 350 BCE
- Where
- Athens, later New York
- Status
- In use
- Tradition
- Analytic tools
What it is
Grounding is the relation expressed by *in virtue of*. The party is illegal in virtue of the noise ordinance; the sentence is true in virtue of the arrangement of the furniture. It is not causation and it is not logical entailment — it is a relation of dependence between facts, where one holds because another does.
As an argument form it is the constructive counterpart to the infinite regress. Where that argument shows a chain cannot go on forever, this one traces the chain down to what it rests on and says what the foundation is.
How it works
State the fact in question. Ask what it holds in virtue of. Ask the same of the answer. Continue until you reach something that does not hold in virtue of anything further. Name that as the ground.
The test at each step is asymmetry. If A grounds B, then B does not ground A, and a supposed chain that runs both ways has not been traced properly.
The form of the inference
- Fact F obtains
- F obtains in virtue of G
- G obtains in virtue of H
- The chain terminates: H does not obtain in virtue of anything further
- Therefore H is what F ultimately rests on
The argument
Proposition The roster is fair in virtue of the swap register, not the allocation rule.
- The claim is that the roster is fair. Asked in virtue of what, the manager cites the allocation rule, which distributes weekend shifts evenly across the year.
- But the rule distributes evenly only over a full year, and staff turn over every seven months on average, so at any given time the distribution among those actually present is uneven.
- Asked what makes it fair for the people actually present, the answer is the swap register: anyone allocated a weekend may post it and any colleague may take it, and the register shows this happening about forty times a year.
- Asked what makes the swap register fair, the answer is that posting is free and taking is voluntary, and this does not hold in virtue of anything further in the roster system — it is a feature of the arrangement itself.
- The chain is asymmetric throughout: the register does not work because the roster is fair, the roster is fair because the register works.
Therefore The fairness rests on the swap register, so a change that made posting costly would remove the ground of the fairness even though the allocation rule was untouched.
The practical payoff is in the last sentence. Knowing what a thing rests on tells you what you can change without breaking it, which a list of correlated features never does.
What it is good for
Finding out what an institutional or explanatory structure actually depends on, as distinct from what merely accompanies it. It is the constructive move where the infinite regress argument is the destructive one.
Where it fails
Grounding is taken as primitive by most of its users — explained by examples and by the phrase *in virtue of*, not defined. Critics, Wilson most forcefully, argue that there is no single relation there at all, only a family of different dependence relations that have been given one name.
And the termination is asserted rather than shown. Deciding that a chain stops here is exactly the move a foundationalist makes and an infinitist denies, and grounding talk supplies no independent test for when a chain has genuinely bottomed out rather than when the arguer has stopped asking.
Common misconceptions
That it is causation. Causation relates events across time; grounding relates facts at a time, and the party's illegality does not come after the ordinance in any temporal sense.
Also that it is the same as supervenience. Supervenience says the levels covary; grounding says one holds because of the other, which is the explanatory claim supervenience conspicuously fails to make.
Where it came from
Aristotle's priority relations and the medieval discussion of what is prior in nature. The modern literature dates from around 2009 with Fine, Schaffer and Rosen reviving it as a distinct topic.
What became of it
One of the fastest-growing areas of metaphysics in the last two decades, and one of the most contested.
Lasting influence
It reframed physicalism, truthmaking and metaphysical explanation as questions about grounding rather than supervenience, on the basis that supervenience never explained anything.
Why it still matters
Very current in philosophy; the underlying question is ancient and practical.
Put another way
Asking what a building stands on rather than what stands beside it.
Texts
Kit Fine, Guide to Ground
The paper that set the terms of the modern discussion, including the argument that grounding cannot be reduced to anything else.
Where to start
Ask in virtue of what about something in your own working life and follow it down four steps. It usually stops somewhere unexpected.
The surprising bit
The relation now doing the heaviest work in metaphysics is one nobody has defined, and its defenders regard the lack of a definition as a sign it is fundamental rather than a defect.
In their own words
Ground is an explanatory relation: if the truth that P is grounded in other truths, then they account for its truth
Who held it
Jessica Wilson
Connections
- Set against
- The infinite regress
- Parallel to
- Supervenience
The verdict
The right question, asked in a vocabulary that may name several different things at once.