City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2017 Grounding, Causation and the Unity of Ontological Structure Thomas Kivatinos The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2390 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] GROUNDING, CAUSATION AND THE UNITY OF ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE by THOMAS KIVATINOS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2017 © 2017 THOMAS KIVATINOS All Rights Reserved ii GROUNDING, CAUSATION AND THE UNITY OF ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE by Thomas Kivatinos This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. __________________ ____________________________________ Date Barbara Montero Chair of Examining Committee __________________ ____________________________________ Date Nickolas Pappas Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Shamik Dasgupta Barbara Montero David Papineau Graham Priest Jonathan Schaffer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Grounding, Causation and the Unity of Ontological Structure by Thomas Kivatinos Advisor: Graham Priest Unity is enchanting. That is, it is an enchanting idea that although reality seems to be fragmented in various ways, this apparent fragmentation belies a fundamental unity. This dissertation is an attempt at theoretically capturing such unity via the theoretical unification of causation and grounding. And this unification supports another: the unification of reality’s causal structure and reality’s hierarchical structure. To propose a unification of causation and grounding, I employ a common conception of grounding on which grounding is understood as a dependence relation. On this conception, if the Xs ground the Ys, then the existence of the Ys depends upon the existence of the Xs. Thus, grounded entities ontologically depend upon their grounds. According to the standard view on the matter, this kind of dependence is distinct from causal dependence, and thus grounding and causation are distinct dependence relations. So, on this view, dependence comes in distinct kinds: causal and ontological. Dependence thus contrasts with a relation like identity, for example, which does not admit of variegated kinds: identity, unlike dependence, is uniform in all instances, since identity does not admit of distinct kinds. The standard view thus suggests that dependence is disunified. For this view suggests that there is a robust non-uniformity between instances of dependence: a non-uniformity between the instances of dependence that are considered cases of causation and the instances of dependence that are considered cases of grounding. iv In critical response, I explore a revisionary view on which the distinction between causation and grounding is a false distinction. On “grounding-causation-identity” or “GCI” for short, causation and grounding are numerically identical relations: what it is for causation to hold is no different than what it is for grounding to hold. For dependence does not admit of distinct kinds, such as causal dependence and ontological dependence: just as the nature of identity does not vary across instances, for identity does not admit of distinct kinds, the nature of dependence does not vary across instances, for it also does not admit of distinct kinds. GCI thus suggests, against the standard view, that dependence is fundamentally unified. For the nature of dependence is uniform in all instances. Further, as mentioned above, this unification of causation and grounding supports a unification of causal structure and hierarchical structure. That is, the unity of ontological structure is a ramification of the unity of dependence. This is because, as it’s commonly thought, ontological structure is “built” from dependence relations: on the one hand, reality’s causal structure is built from causal relations, and on the other, reality’s hierarchical structure is built from grounding relations. Since ontological structure is built from dependence relations, the distinction between causal structure and hierarchical structure hinges on the distinction between causal dependence and ontological dependence. Thus, because the standard view holds that causal dependence is distinct from ontological dependence, this view implies that reality’s causal structure is distinct from reality’s hierarchal structure. And so this view implies that ontological structure is fundamentally disunified. In contrast, since GCI denies the distinction between causal dependence and ontological dependence, GCI thus implies that the distinction between causal structure and hierarchical structure is also a false distinction: just as dependence is of one basic nature that does not vary, ontological structure is of one basic nature that does not vary. In this sense, GCI implies that on ontological structure is fundamentally unified. v The discussion throughout the dissertation consists in a multi-stage comparative analysis in which GCI is compared with the standard view as well as other alternative views: views which either portray the connection between causation and grounding differently than GCI or deny that there is any such connection. Though GCI’s rival views disagree about how or if causation and grounding are connected, these rival views are in agreement that causation and grounding are numerically distinct. In this respect, these rival views are each a specific variety of what I call “grounding-causation- non-identity” or “GCN” for short: the basic view that the relations are numerically non-identical. The standard view on the matter, discussed above, I call “common-genus-GCN.” For on this view, although the relations are numerically distinct, they are tightly connected in the respect that they are species of a common genus: the genus of dependence. On another variety of GCN, although the relations are numerically distinct, they are tightly connected in the respect that one of these relations is a species of the other: either grounding is a species of causation or causation is a species of grounding. So, one of the relations subsumes the other in the way that a genus subsumes its species. Hence, I call this view “subsumption-GCN.” Lastly, on “strict-GCN,” the relations are numerically distinct, and there is no tight ontological connection between them: causation and grounding form a gerrymandered pair of relations, not a pair which is genuinely integrated. Thus, listing the views to be discussed, the discussion consists in a comparative analysis of: • GCI: The view that there is no ontological distinction between causation and grounding, thus they are numerically identical. • Common-genus-GCN: The view that causation and grounding are numerically distinct, but they are tightly connected in the respect that they are species of the same genus. vi • Subsumption-GCN: The view that causation and grounding are numerically distinct, but they are tightly connected in the respect that one of these relations is a species of the other. • Strict-GCN: The view that causation and grounding are numerically distinct relations, and there is no tight ontological connection between them. I compare these views by appeal to five main points of comparison. Thus, I present five central arguments in the discussion. And for each of these arguments, I defend a claim concerning which view is most plausible, or which views are more plausible, with respect to one of these points of comparison. These points of comparison are: • How well the views explain the likeness between causation and grounding. • How conceptually parsimonious the views are. • How well suited the views are to the connection between causal explanation and metaphysical explanation. • The ability of the views to provide an account of an anomalous dependence relation which crosses both time and ontological levels. • The extent to which the views are supported or undermined by disputes about the purported differences between causation and grounding. The goal of the discussion is to establish that GCI is at least as plausible as the best rival view or views, and so GCI is to be taken just as seriously. Thus the discussion presents considerations which favor GCI over rival views, considerations which favor GCI and rival views equally, and considerations which threaten GCI. And as I propose, these considerations balance out in such a way that GCI is just as serious of a view as the alternatives. vii The dissertation is arranged as follows. Chapter 1 provides the background of the discussion via an outline of grounding and a host of related issues. Further, chapter 1 motivates the discussion by explaining the similarities between causation and grounding. As it is explained, since the relations bear such remarkable and systematic similarities, it is worth asking why they bear these similarities. For it would seem reasonable to think that the relations are connected in some way which explains these similarities. In chapter 2, the first four central arguments are discussed. The “argument from likeness” (quite obviously) focuses upon the first