Ontological dependence, grounding, and modality
Abstract
Ontological dependence and grounding are two important items in the metaphysician’s toolbox:
both notions can be used to formulate important philosophical claims and to define other
notions that play a central role in philosophical theorising. Philosophical inquiry about ontological
dependence and (especially) grounding has been very lively over the past few years, making
it difficult to write a short review article on any of them, let alone a short review article on both.
I try to reach a good compromise between a discussion of each notion taken separately and a
discussion of how they relate to one another. I begin by introducing the notions and discussing
a number of their connections with modality (Sections 9.1 and 9.2), starting with grounding for
systematic reasons (some important concepts of ontological dependence are defined in terms of
grounding). I then further the discussion of how the notions are connected to each other, by
arguing against the view that (partial) grounding is equivalent to (the converse of) ontological
dependence between facts (Section 9.3). Finally, I discuss their respective roles in the theory of
fundamentality (Section 9.4).