Carregant...
Fitxers
Tipus de document
TesiVersió
Versió publicadaData de publicació
Si us plau utilitzeu sempre aquest identificador per citar o enllaçar aquest document: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/223871
Searching for Structure: An Inquiry Into Metaphysical Grounding
Títol de la revista
Autors
ISSN de la revista
Títol del volum
Resum
[eng] That reality is metaphysically structured is an idea debated by few. Many of the things that constitute it, understood in a broad sense, seem to metaphysically depend upon other things. This suggests an order of fundamentality—a hierarchy of ontological priority—according to which the obtaining of certain facts is metaphysically explained by the obtaining of other, more fundamental facts. In recent years, several philosophers have become sympathetic to the idea that there exists a relationship of metaphysical determination governing this structure. Metaphysical grounding is a non-causal relation of constitutive determination with explanatory import among facts. According to these philosophers, it is the relation at stake in many philosophical debates of both ancient and contemporary interest. It is what metaphysicians ought to investigate.
This dissertation sides with those who hold that metaphysical grounding deserves serious philosophical attention. It is an investigation both into the nature and the usefulness of grounding in contemporary metaphysics. The work is structured into an introduction and four chapters. Chapter One addresses a prominent sceptical objection against grounding: the claim that, although intelligible, grounding lacks a substantive theoretical role in metaphysical theorizing. This chapter argues that the various objections underlying this criticism fail to demonstrate that grounding does not serve some useful theoretical role. Chapter Two presents both a problem for the justification of grounding and a solution. It argues that the common explanatory route to the justification of grounding is lacking insofar as it leaves grounding without a place in naturalistic metaphysics. Against this view, it is argued that grounding has a role to play in scientific metaphysics and motivates a new justificatory strategy. Chapter Three inquires into the nature of grounding as a structuring relation. In particular, it analyzes what is, for many, the main argumentative strategy for the existence of fundamental facts: the argument from vicious infinite regress. The chapter argues that this argument is unmotivated. By clarifying and disambiguating the regress into two distinct explanatory targets, it demonstrates that neither interpretation successfully supports the argument. Chapter Four defends the applicability of grounding in a central debate in metaphysics: the hard problem of consciousness. It does so by offering two solutions to a new challenge to physicalism, according to which physicalism is incompatible with the idea that our phenomenal concepts are essence-revealing.
Descripció
Matèries
Matèries (anglès)
Citació
Col·leccions
Citació
KORTABARRIA AREITIO, Markel. Searching for Structure: An Inquiry Into Metaphysical Grounding. [consulta: 2 de desembre de 2025]. [Disponible a: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/223871]