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Full and Partial Grounding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2021

KELLY TROGDON  and
D. GENE WITMER
KELLY TROGDON
Affiliation:
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE [email protected]
D. GENE WITMER
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]
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Abstract

While controversy about the nature of grounding abounds, our focus is on a question for which a particular answer has attracted something like a consensus. The question concerns the relation between partial grounding and full grounding. The apparent consensus is that the former is to be defined in terms of the latter. In this article, we argue that the standard way of doing this faces a significant problem and that we ought to pursue the reverse project of defining full grounding in terms of partial grounding. The guiding idea behind the definition we propose is that full grounding is what happens when partial grounding works in a way that ensures that the grounded is nothing over and above the grounds. We ultimately understand this idea in terms of iterated ‘nothing over and above’ claims.

Keywords

groundingexplanationnothing over and abovefundamentality
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Summer 2021 , pp. 252 - 271
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Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2021

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Footnotes

We presented parts of this article at Lund University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Geneva, and University of Gothenburg. Thanks to our audience members for the helpful feedback. We wish to thank Ricki Bliss, Darragh Byrne, Claudio Calosi, Fabrice Correia, Scott Dixon, Jeff Dunn, Kit Fine, Dan Gibberman, David Kovacs, Jon Litland, Anna-Sofia Maurin, Neil Mehta, Chris Meacham, Kevin Mulligan, Donnchadh O'Connaill, Sven Rosenkranz, Maria Scarpati, Ted Sider, Alex Skiles, Robin Stenwall, Naomi Thompson, and Nathan Wildman. Finally, thanks are due to two anonymous referees at this journal.

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