Correia Fabrice
Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, Rue De-Candolle 5, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
Erkenntnis. 2023;88(4):1577-1592. doi: 10.1007/s10670-021-00416-7. Epub 2021 Jun 8.
Many philosophers have recently been impressed by an argument to the effect that all grounding facts about "derivative entities"-e.g. the facts expressed by the (let us suppose) true sentences 'the fact that Beijing is a concrete entity is grounded in the fact that its parts are concrete' and 'the fact that there are cities is grounded in the fact that p', where 'p' is a suitable sentence couched in the language of particle physics-must themselves be grounded. This argument relies on a principle, , which states that facts about derivative entities are non-fundamental. Purity is questionable. In this paper, I introduce a new argument-the argument from -for a similar conclusion but which does not rely on Purity. The conclusion of the new argument is that every "thick" grounding fact is grounded, where a grounding fact [F is grounded in G, H, …] is said to be thick when at least one of F, G, H, … is a fact-a condition that is automatically satisfied if grounding is factive. After introducing the argument, I compare it with the argument from Purity, and I assess its cogency relative to the relevant accounts of the connections between grounding and fundamentality that are available in the literature.
最近,许多哲学家对这样一个论点印象深刻,大意是所有关于“衍生实体”的奠基事实——例如(假设)由真句子“北京是一个具体实体这一事实奠基于其部分是具体的这一事实”以及“存在城市这一事实奠基于p这一事实”所表达的事实,其中“p”是用粒子物理学语言表述的一个合适句子——其自身必然也是有奠基的。这个论点依赖于一个原则,即关于衍生实体的事实是非基本的。纯洁性原则是有问题的。在本文中,我引入一个新的论点——来自[此处缺失具体名称]的论点——以得出一个类似的结论,但该论点不依赖于纯洁性原则。新论点的结论是,每一个“厚实的”奠基事实都是有奠基的,其中当F、G、H……中至少有一个是事实时,奠基事实[F奠基于G、H……]就被称为厚实的——如果奠基是事实性的,那么这个条件会自动得到满足。在引入这个论点之后,我将它与来自纯洁性原则的论点进行比较,并根据文献中关于奠基与基础性之间联系的相关解释来评估其说服力。