Ontological Dependence

Abstract

The notion that ontological dependence is intended to capture is that of a distinctively metaphysical dependence relation. Common examples of ontological dependence proposed in the literature include the following: a nonempty set ontologically depends on its members; the holes in a piece of cheese ontologically depend on the cheese itself; normative facts ontologically depend on nonnormative facts; and mental phenomena ontologically depend on physical phenomena. Ontological dependence is usually thought to help provide for a distinctive kind of metaphysical explanation. It is often proposed that ontological dependence relations structure the world, and so the notion of dependence is closely related to ideas about fundamentality. A common (though disputed) assumption is that whatever is metaphysically fundamental does not ontologically depend on anything else. Foundationalist views of metaphysical structure hold further that everything that is not fundamental ultimately depends on this class of fundamental entities. Most of the recent literature discusses ontological dependence in terms of Grounding, and this entry reflects that. Note, however, that there is a lack of clear consensus about the details of the relationship between ontological dependence and grounding. Some take grounding statements to express facts about the ontological dependence relations between entities of various categories, while others think that grounding relations themselves relate entities of various ontological categories, and sometimes take the term “grounding” to be synonymous with “ontological dependence.” Similar discrepancies arise between different ways of understanding the relationship between ontological dependence and metaphysical explanation (as well as between grounding and metaphysical explanation).