Grounding: An abstract factive account

Abstract

Recent trends in metaphysical interests have shifted heavily toward the topic of metaphysical grounding. In this paper, I put forth an account of grounding called the Abstract Factive Approach. This approach differs from other factive accounts by understanding facts as abstracta rather than worldly entities. Following this, I give an indispensability argument for grounding explanations. After presenting this account and argument, I shift topics to metametaphysics to give a clearer picture of the import of grounding, launching investigation into explanation and realism to discover the epistemic goals of philosophy and metaphysics. I conclude that metaphysics has no inherent goal before going on to motivate a metaphilosophical position inspired by Winch (1990) which offers a reasonable interpretation of the metaphysician’s practice. From here, I explore the topic of realism from several angles, delicately charting a middle path between an austere metaphysical skepticism and a robust metaphysical realism. I argue to rethink global realism in terms of multiple localized theories of realism, constrained to the level of facts, motivating the view that realism about these local issues should be decided based on how it shapes our epistemic practices. Finally, I argue for a constructivist realist metaphysical approach, laying out the reasons to conclude that this metaphysical understanding makes the best sense of our epistemic situation.