Abstract
Wilson’s “No Work for a Theory of Grounding” (2014) offers an insightful critique of grounding-based approaches to metaphysical inquiry. She argues that the notion of grounding is uninformative, disunified, and in the end unhelpful. I think that Wilson is right to criticize many extant grounding-based approaches for not being sufficiently informative, but reply that the grounding theorist can learn her lesson by using structural equation models, in ways that reveal the unity and informativeness of grounding. (I also argue that Wilson’s own alternative approach is open to serious criticisms, including every one of the criticisms she levels at the grounding theorist.)
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Notes
- 1.
Of course I cannot prove the negative existential that there is no reductive analysis of the concept of grounding to be found (though when has reductive conceptual analysis ever succeeded?); I only mean to say that it is legitimate to use the concept regardless, without any such analysis to hand.
- 2.
According to Salmon (1984), the lesson to be drawn from the failure of deductive-nomological accounts of explanation is that explanation must be backed by causation, to make sense of the connections behind and the ordering of explanation. For metaphysical explanation then one also needs a connecting and ordering relation, running not from cause to effect but from more basic to less basic. This is grounding.
- 3.
Two puzzling passages: Wilson (2014: 544–5) says that it “is not just that Grounding (failure of Grounding) claims leave some interesting questions open; rather, it is that such claims leave open questions that must be answered to gain even basic illumination about or allow even basic assessment of claims of metaphysical dependence, or associated theses such as naturalism.” But I find this puzzling since she does not say what she means by distinguishing merely “interesting questions” from those that “must be answered,” or relatedly what she means by “basic illumination.” And I think she is just wrong that bare grounding claims cannot be assessed. Natalie’s claim, for instance, rules out alternatives such as divine command theory. So if divine command theory could be shown to be true, Natalie’s claim would thereby be shown to be false.
Wilson (2014: 553; also 575) also takes up the analogy with bare causal claims. She allows that bare causal claims are informative for entailing that their relata exist as distinct and causally connected events, but admits no comparable value to bare grounding claims. But I find this puzzling as well since, at least by my lights, grounding claims are informationally comparable: they entail that their relata exist as non-distinct and grounding-connected entities.
- 4.
I have switched from generics (“smoking causes cancer,” “pain grounds wrongness”) to episodics, since at least some types of generics can hold without episodes (“this machine crushes oranges” can be true even if it never gets turned on). This matter has nothing to do with causation or grounding, but purely with the semantics of generic constructions.
- 5.
Caveat: Wilson herself may be understanding her own “how exactly” question in a weaker way, since she (2014: 546–7) only asks the grounding theories to choose between options such as the following:
[A] naturalist might be a “role functionalist”, maintaining that normative state types are characterized by functional or causal roles played by naturalistic state types. Or a naturalist might maintain that normative state types and/or tokens stand in something like the determinable/determinate relation to naturalistic goings-on. Or a naturalist might maintain that normative state types and/or tokens are appropriately seen as proper parts of naturalistic state types and/or tokens.
Now when one specifies a function, one may specify the function in extension as a list of ordered pairs, or specify it in intension as a rule which maps input to output. I think of Wilson’s options as coarse-grained types of rules, and am saying that one should ultimately want the specific rule involved.
- 6.
Here I am simplifying Wilson’s argument considerably. As I read her, the “grounding is inevitably superseded” claim comes on p. 553, and much of the rest of her paper rebuts various reasons one might give for saying that grounding is still worth positing. In Wilson’s terms, I am probably best classified as defending what she (2014: 567) calls the “general unifier of the specific grounding relations” rationale, though—as comes out in section “Wilson’s Pluralistic Framework”—I also endorse what she (2014: 558) calls the “fix the direction of priority” rationale. (My thanks to Jessica Wilson for helpful clarifications.)
- 7.
In the grounding literature, Fine, Rosen, and I are paradigm monists (though Fine is hard to classify since he also distinguishes metaphysical, natural, and normative ground), Hofweber (2009) and Daly (2012) are nihilists, and Wilson (2014) and Koslicki (2015) are pluralists. In the causation literature, monism has been the dominant view, but the early Russell (1912; though not 1948) is a nihilist, and Anscombe (1975), Cartwright (2007), and Hall (2004) are pluralists.
- 8.
Some may wish to add the requirement that there is a single guiding idea behind the formalism. For instance, there is an ongoing debate about set theory, as to the extent to which the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms (ZFC) can be seen as guided by the iterative conception of sets (cf. Boolos 1971). The structural equations model approach I advocate (section “Structural Equation Models to the Rescue”) comes out very well on this score, as it has a strong claim to be guided by the idea of directed dependency. (My thanks to Jon Litland on this point.)
- 9.
Wilson (2014: 568) offers determinable properties as a potential case where the formalism attributes more unity than “philosophers commonly assume.” But first, Wilson herself thinks that this is the wrong view of determinables (cf. Wilson 2012). Second, I do not think it is clear what the best formalism for determinate–determinable structure is. (I would be content to let the best formalism decide in this case as well.) Third, I do not claim the test to be perfect anyway, but just a decent guide. I do not know if Wilson would contest this more modest claim.
- 10.
Both grounding and causation are notions of a directed linkage, which is why they are both apt to back explanation (section “A Brief Introduction to Grounding”). Note that the “and-linked-too” bit is needed. This H atom on Earth is relatively more fundamental than that H2O molecule on Mars just because atoms are generally more fundamental than molecules, even though this atom is not linked to that molecule (cf. Bennett forthcoming: Chap. 5). Likewise this event on Earth yesterday is relatively causally earlier than that event on Mars today just because of the overall causal–temporal order, even though these two events are not linked. (My thanks to Ross Cameron for insightful comments which prompted these clarifications.)
- 11.
I myself have wavered over whether such a scenario is metaphysically possible. If parts are always more fundamental than wholes, and if “gunky” structures with limitless descending chains of parthood are possible, then one seems to get scenarios with no fundamental entities at all (Schaffer 2003). But if one does not assume that parts are always more fundamental than wholes, then no such argument looms, and one may be able to respect the intuition that there needs to be an ultimate ground of being (Schaffer 2010: Sect. 2.4).
- 12.
Wilson herself (2014: 564–6) takes up a similar example, but I am afraid that I do not understand her reply. I read her as saying that the answer turns on whether one treats the entities involved as fusions or as functionally defined entities. But I do not see how either treatment makes a difference within Wilson’s framework, unless one also has some general principle of relative fundamentality for fusions or for functionally defined entities (etc.) For suppose that my whole body, my whole body minus my left shoulder, and my heart are all understood as fusions, and that particles are fundamental. I see no way to extract any conclusion as to relative fundamentality for these fusions, without some general principle connecting parthood to relative fundamentality.
- 13.
Indeed my main criticism of these views (Schaffer forthcoming: Sects. 4.1–4.3) is that they conflate grounding with metaphysical explanation, which is tantamount to conflating causation with causal explanation.
- 14.
See Koslicki forthcoming for criticism of my use of structural equation models for understanding grounding. Wilson (2014: 570–5) claims that self-grounding and other grounding loops are possible, which would also constitute a line of criticism to structural equation models (at least in the form I present them). I am not convinced but I lack the space to engage with the examples here.
- 15.
There is dispute as to how best to treat causal explanation within the structural equation model formalism. See, for instance, Woodward and Hitchcock 2003, and also Halpern & Pearl 2005. This dispute concerns how to use the resources of the formalism to best capture the idea of causal explanation. But what is not in dispute is that the resources needed to make sense of causal explanation are in place.
- 16.
- 17.
Thanks especially to Jessica Wilson, and also to Kenneth Aizawa, Ross Cameron, Janelle Derstine, Kit Fine, Kathrin Koslicki, Jon Litland, Meghan Sullivan, and audiences at the 2014 Eastern APA, Fordham, and the Composition and Ground Workshop (2015) at Rutgers-Newark.
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Schaffer, J. (2016). Ground Rules: Lessons from Wilson. In: Aizawa, K., Gillett, C. (eds) Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground. New Directions in the Philosophy of Science. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56216-6_6
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