General discussion of grounding, including its formal features, relations to other notions, and applications. (Originally published 2014; revised 2021).

General discussion of grounding, including its formal features, relations to other notions, and applications.

Argument that full grounds modally entail what they ground.

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

Characterization of a form of explanation involving grounding on the model of mechanistic causal explanation.

Discussion of partial grounds that aren't parts of full grounds; definition of full grounding in terms of partial grounding.

Discussion of the challenge that acquaintance with the nature of experience poses to physicalism.

Discussion of a metaphysical sense of 'inheritance' and cognate notions relevant to fundamentality.

Defense of an account of intrinsic properties in terms of (what is now called) grounding rather than naturalness.

Amendment of the Witmer, Butchard, and Trogdon (2005) account of intrinsic properties with the aim of neutrality between competing theories of what is fundamental.

Argument that priority monism is best understood as being a contingent thesis.

Discussion of atomistic and monistic theses about abstract reality.

Grounding and explanation are said to be intimately connected. Some even maintain that grounding just is a form of explanation. But grounding and explanation also seem importantly different—on the face of it, the former is ‘worldy’ or ‘objective’ while the latter isn’t. In this paper, we develop and respond to an argument to the effect that there is no way to fruitfully address this tension that retains orthodox views about grounding and explanation but doesn’t undermine a central piece of methodology, (...) namely that explanation is a guide to ground. (shrink)

Defense of a psychological account of what it is for an artwork to be complete.

Argument that Lewis and others are wrong that physicalism is if true then contingently true.

Response to Skiles (2009) on Trogdon (2009) on intrinsic properties and fundamentality.

Response to Gover (2015) on Trogdon and Livingston (2015) on artwork completion.

Discussion of grounding-theoretic accounts of truthmaking in terms of the theoretical role of “catching cheaters”.

Discussion of reductive and non-reductive physicalism formulated in a priority monist framework.

Grounding-theoretic reformulation of Fodor's theory of content that addresses recalcitrant Quinean concerns.

Chapter 1 is devoted to taking care of some preliminary issues. I begin by distinguishing those states of awareness in virtue of which we’re acquainted with the phenomenal characters of our experiences from those states of awareness some claim are at the very nature of experience. Then I reconcile the idea that experience is transparent with the claim that we can be acquainted with phenomenal character. -/- In Chapter 2 I set up a dilemma that is the primary focus of (...) the dissertation. In the first part of this chapter I argue that phenomenal acquaintance has three key features, what I call its ‘directness’, ‘thickness’, and ‘infallibility’. In the second part I argue, however, that it’s really quite puzzling how thoughts about phenomenal character (or any thoughts, for that matter) could have them. In the next two chapters I consider how we might resolve the dilemma described above. -/- I begin in Chapter 3 by considering an account of phenomenal acquaintance inspired by Bertrand Russell’s discussion of acquaintance. The general idea here is to excise mental representation from phenomenal acquaintance, and I ultimately reject the proposal. -/- Chapter 4 is the core chapter of the dissertation. In it I propose an account of phenomenal acquaintance that doesn’t excise mental representation. My account is comprised of three theses. First, token experiences are complex and have instances of phenomenal properties as components. Second, instances of phenomenal properties are mental representations, and they represent themselves. Third, the attention relevant to phenomenal acquaintance is underwritten by self-representation. I argue that my account explains how phenomenal acquaintance is direct, thick, and infallible, thereby resolving our dilemma. -/- I argue in Chapter 5 that my account of phenomenal acquaintance explains why there is an explanatory gap between the phenomenal and non-phenomenal truths. Accordingly, I conclude that the explanatory gap doesn’t pose a problem for physicalism. Here I implement what has come to be called the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ for responding to the challenge posed by the explanatory gap. (shrink)

Sketch of an account of perceptual content that satisfies conditions concerning accuracy, transparency, and richness.