Wenqi ZONG
Abstract. Grounding is a central notion in answering ―what is fundamental.‖ The concept is seen as primitive, which means it cannot be defined or analyzed. However, proponents of grounding think that the notion can be understood through its logical features. Some philosophers argue that grounding’s logical features—irreflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity are problematic, so the way of understanding grounding through its logical features does not work. In this paper, I’m going to argue against these ideas and show that it is necessary for grounding of being irreflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity. At first, I’m going to argue against the counter-example of irreflexivity—mental/brain state relation. No matter brain state is identical to the mental state or the brain state determines the mental state, there will be no challenge to grounding relations of being irreflexive. In the following, I’ll discuss whether asymmetric grounding fails to explain some kinds of
relations. At last, I will discuss the counterexamples of grounding being transitive, and explain the worries of transitivity is unnecessary. To sum up, logical features of grounding are necessary, nevertheless, grounding would fail to show the level differences of reality, thereby failing to answer the question ―”what is fundamental.”
Keywords: grounding, irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity