Grounding

Grounding is a relation posited in contemporary Metaphysics to capture the idea that some facts, entities, or truths are more fundamental than others — that the latter exist or obtain in virtue of the former. Where causation relates events in time, grounding is typically held to be a non-causal, synchronic relation: the mental is grounded in the physical not because the physical produces the mental over time but because, at any moment, the mental obtains in virtue of the physical.

The grounding relation has been deployed to give content to claims that were previously gestured at with phrases like 'nothing over and above,' 'reducible to,' or 'supervenes on.' Ontological dependence, truthmaking, the relationship between Consciousness and neural states, and the composition of wholes from parts have all been analyzed using grounding.

Its critics argue that grounding is either a placeholder for explanations we do not yet have, or that it multiplies metaphysical structure without illuminating anything. Kit Fine, who did much to revive the concept, insists grounding captures something genuine that modal notions like supervenience miss; his opponents insist grounding is supervenience in formal dress, with added obscurity. The debate is likely to persist as long as fundamentality remains philosophically central — which, given the unresolved structure of Quantum Field Theory and Consciousness, appears to be indefinitely.