Grounding, Essential Properties and the Unity Problem
A common conception of facts is as worldly entities, complexes made up of non-factual constituents such as properties, relations and property-bearers. Understood in this way facts face the unity problem, the problem of explaining why various constituents are combined to form a fact. In many cases t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Philosophie.ch
2020-04-01
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| Series: | Dialectica |
| Online Access: | https://dialectica.philosophie.ch/dialectica/article/view/6 |
| Summary: | A common conception of facts is as worldly entities, complexes made up
of non-factual constituents such as properties, relations and
property-bearers. Understood in this way facts face the unity
problem, the problem of explaining why various constituents are
combined to form a fact. In many cases the constituents could have
existed without being unified in the fact---so in virtue of what are
they so unified? I shall present a new approach to the unity problem.
First, facts which are grounded are unified by the obtaining of their
grounds. Second, many ungrounded facts are such that they must obtain
if their non-factual constituents exist (e.g. if the property $F$ness
is essential to a particular, $a$, then if $a$ exists the fact that
$a$ is $F$ must obtain). In this way the obtaining of these facts is
explained by the essence of some of their constituents. I also
address the possibility of facts which are brutely unified
(i.e. neither grounded nor essentially unified), and compare the
account I offer with some of the main alternatives.
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| ISSN: | 0012-2017 1746-8361 |