{"id":3367,"date":"2020-02-02T16:31:39","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T16:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/02\/02\/is-there-such-a-thing-as-metaphysical-explanation\/"},"modified":"2020-02-02T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T16:31:39","slug":"is-there-such-a-thing-as-metaphysical-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/02\/02\/is-there-such-a-thing-as-metaphysical-explanation\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There Such a Thing as Metaphysical Explanation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
M. L. writes,<\/span><\/div>\n
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I've been enjoying your critique of [Peter] van Inwagen. [The reader is presumably referring to  my "Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and Method" in Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism<\/em>, 2015, vol. 12, no. 2, 99-125]  I was initially astonished at his claim that metaphysics\/ontology doesn't explain, but it also got me curious about where the explanation is going on <\/em>in ontological accounts (especially of properties, however construed).<\/span><\/div>\n
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I'm doing a Ph.D. in metaontology and I'm contrasting neo-Quinean (van Inwagen) and neo-Aristotelian (Lowe) approaches. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Can you direct me to where you might have written about, if indeed you have, how it is ontology\/metaphysics explains<\/em>?<\/span><\/div>\n
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Well, I haven't discussed the issue head-on in a separate publication, but I have discussed it en passant<\/em> in various contexts. Below is a re-do of a 2012 weblog entry that addresses the question and may spark discussion. Combox open.<\/span><\/div>\n
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………………………<\/span><\/div>\n
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Let 'Tom' name a particular tomato.  Let us agree that if a predicate applies to a particular, then the predicate is true of<\/em> the particular.  Predicates are linguistic items.  Tomatoes are not. If Tom is red, then 'red' is true of Tom, and if 'red' is true of Tom, then Tom is red. This yields the material biconditional<\/span><\/p>\n

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1. Tom is red iff 'red' is true of Tom.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now it seems to me that the following question is intelligible:  Is Tom red because 'red' is true of Tom, or is 'red' true of Tom because Tom is red?  'Because' here does not have a causal sense.  So the question is not whether Tom's being red causes 'red' to be true of Tom, or vice versa.  So I won't speak of causation in this context.  I will speak of metaphysical\/ontological grounding<\/em>.  The question then is what grounds what, not what causes what.   Does Tom's being red ground the application (the being-applied)  of 'red' to Tom, or does the application (the being-applied) of 'red' to Tom ground Tom's being red?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am not primarily concerned with the correct answer to this question, but with meaningfulness\/intelligibility of the question itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grounding is asymmetrical: if x grounds y, then y does not ground x.  (It is also irreflexive and transitive.)  Now if there is such a relation as grounding, then there will be a distinctive form of explanation we can call metaphysical\/ontological explanation.  (Grounding, even though it is not causation, is analogous to causation, and metaphysical explanation, even though distinct from causal explanation, is analogous to causal explanation.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Explaining is something we do: in worlds without minds there is no explaining and there are no explanations, including metaphysical explanations.  But I assume that, if there are any metaphysical grounding relations, then  in every world metaphysical grounding relations obtain.  (Of course, there is no grounding of the application of predicates in a world without languages and predicates, but there are other grounding relations. For example, if propositions are abstract objects that necessarily exist, and some of the true ones need truth-makers, then truth-making, which is a grounding relation, exists in worlds in which there are no minds and no languages and hence no sentences.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Grounding is not causation. It is not a relation between event tokens such as Jack's touching a live wire and Jack's death by electrocution.  Grounding is also not a relation between propositions.  It is not a logical relation that connects propositions to propositions.  It is not the relation of material implication, nor is it entailment (the necessitation of material implication), nor any other logical relation wholly situated at the level of propositions.  Propositions, let us assume, are the primary truth-bearers. <\/span><\/p>\n

In our example, grounding is not a relation between propositions — it is not a logical relation — since neither Tom nor 'red' are propositions. <\/span><\/p>\n

I want to say the following.  Tom's being red grounds<\/em> the correctness of the application of 'red' to Tom.  'Red' is true of Tom because<\/em> (metaphysically, not causally or logically) Tom is red, and not vice versa.  'Red' is true of Tom in virtue of  <\/em>Tom's being red.  <\/em>Tom's being red is metaphysically prior<\/em> to the truth of 'Tom is red' where this metaphysical priority cannot be reduced to some ordinary type of priority, whether logical, causal, temporal, or what have you.  Tom's being red metaphysically accounts<\/em> for the truth of 'Tom is red.' Tom's being red makes<\/em> it the case the 'red' is true of Tom.  Tom's being red makes<\/em> 'Tom is red' true.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I conclude that there is at least one type of metaphysical grounding relation, and at least one form of irreducibly metaphysical explanation. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We can ask similar questions with respect to normative properties.  Suppose Jesus commands us to love one another.  We distinguish among the commander, the act of commanding, the content of the command, and the normative property of the commanded content, in this case the obligatoriness of loving one another.  If Jesus is God, then whatever he commands is morally obligatory. Nevertheless, we can intelligibly ask whether the content is obligatory because Jesus\/God commands it, or whether he (rightly) commands it because it is obligatory.  The 'because' here is neither causal not logical.  It is metaphysical\/ontological.<\/span><\/div>\n
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This of course a variation on the old Euthyphro Dilemma in the eponymous Platonic dialog.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I freely admit that there is something obscure about a grounding relation that is neither causal nor logical. But of course logical and causal relations too are problematic when subjected to squinty-eyed scrutiny. <\/span><\/div>\n
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I conclude with a dogmatic slogan. Metaphysics without metaphysical explanation is not metaphysics at all.  <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. L. writes,   I've been enjoying your critique of [Peter] van Inwagen. [The reader is presumably referring to  my "Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and Method" in Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism, 2015, vol. 12, no. 2, 99-125]  I was initially astonished at his claim that metaphysics\/ontology doesn't explain, but … Continue reading “Is There Such a Thing as Metaphysical Explanation?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,439,224,237,20,228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constituent-ontology","category-euthyphro-paradox","category-explanation","category-facts","category-metaphilosophy","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}