Grounding, Quantifiers, and Paradoxes

The notion of grounding is usually conceived as an objective and explanatory relation. It connects two relata if one—the ground—determines or explains the other—the consequence. In the contemporary literature on grounding, much effort has been devoted to logically characterize the formal aspects of grounding, but a major hard problem remains: defining suitable grounding principles for universal and existential formulae. Indeed, several grounding principles for quantified formulae have been proposed, but all of them are exposed to paradoxes in some very natural contexts of application. We introduce in this paper a first-order formal system that captures the notion of grounding and avoids the paradoxes in a novel and non-trivial way. The system we present formally develops Bolzano’s ideas on grounding by employing Hilbert’s ε-terms and an adapted version of Fine’s theory of arbitrary objects.

Essence, Propria and Essentialist Explanation

In this paper I propose a notion of propria inspired by Aristotle, on which propria are non-essential, necessary properties explained by the essence of a thing. My proposal differs from the characterization of propria by Kit Fine and Kathrin Koslicki: unlike Fine, the relation of explanation on my account can’t be assimilated to a notion of logical entailment. In disagreement with Koslicki, I suggest that the explanatory relation at issue needs not be necessary. My account of essence is conceptually parsimonious: it illuminates the contribution of essence to explanation without relying on obscure notions such as Aristotelian form or identity.

Metaphysical Interdependence, Epistemic Coherentism, and Holistic Explanation

This paper argues for an alternative to orthodox foundationalist accounts of metaphysical structure as characterized by grounding relations. There are good reasons to take grounding to be a non-symmetric (rather than an asymmetric) relation, and to take facts to be related in complex networks of ground. These networks are closely analogous to the networks of justified beliefs characteristic of coherentism about justification. This position is called metaphysical interdependence. The chapter argues that grounding is an explanatory relation (rather than merely a relation which backs explanations), and that there are good reasons to resist the contention that explanation is asymmetric, including cases seemingly best described as cases of holistic metaphysical explanation. Metaphysical interdependence is a promising account of the metaphysical structure of reality.

Explaining (Away) the Epistemic Condition on Moral Responsibility

This chapter combines the familiar Strawsonian idea that moral blame and credit depend on the agent’s quality of will with an independently motivated account of responsibility as grounded in a normal explanatory relation between agential qualities and objects of responsibility. The resulting “explanatory quality of will condition” on moral responsibility is then further motivated by being shown to account for the effects on moral blame and credit of justifications, excuses, and undermined control in cases where agents are fully aware of what they are doing. Having been independently motivated, the explanatory quality of will condition is then applied to cases involving lack of awareness. Though this condition involves no explicit epistemic condition on responsibility, it is shown how it accounts for the degrees to which lack of awareness can excuse.

Explaining connections in Akan discourse

The present paper focuses on the communicative roles of three discourse markers, na, (n)so and nanso, in Akan, a Niger Congo (Kwa branch) language. (N)so is an additive focus marker. Its use gives the addressee an indication that the (n)so-utterance ought to be processed within a parallel context provided by the immediately preceding utterance. It highlights the fact that the kind of parallel context that licenses the use of (n)so is much more lenient than is the case for the use of its English equivalent also/too. Significantly, an explanatory relation is among the inferential relations that may arise as a result of the use of the clausal coordinating connective na, a situation which is not permissible in the case of its English counterpart and. The contrastive marker nanso, much like its English counterpart but, signals that the proposition expressed in a following utterance is contrary to what is to be expected. It is suggested that specific language-internal facts ought to be recognized and accounted for within the pursuit of a general cognitive theory of utterance interpretation.

What Is Evolutionary Altruism?

In this paper I want to clarify what biologists are talking about when they talk about the evolution of altruism. I’ll begin by saying something about the common sense concept. This familiar idea I’ll call ‘vernacular altruism.’ One point of doing this is to make it devastatingly obvious that the common sense concept is very different from the concept as it’s used in evolutionary theory. After that preliminary, I’ll describe some features of the evolutionary concept. Then I’ll conclude by briefly considering what explanatory relation might obtain between vernacular altruism and evolutionary altruism.Although the points I’ll make are rather elementary ones, their interest is not restricted to those who have never heard of the evolutionary problem. The reason for this is that there is some amount of confusion about evolutionary altruism among evolutionary biologists themselves.