Paradox as a Guide to Ground

Abstract

AbstractI will use paradox as a guide to metaphysical grounding, a kind of non-causal explanation that has recently shown itself to play a pivotal role in philosophical inquiry. Specifically, I will analyze the grounding structure of the Predestination paradox, the regresses of Carroll and Bradley, Russell's paradox and the Liar, Yablo's paradox, Zeno's paradoxes, and a novel omega plus one variant of Yablo's paradox, and thus find reason for the following: We should continue to characterize grounding as asymmetrical and irreflexive. We should change our understanding of the transitivity of grounding in a certain sense. We should require foundationality in a new, generalized sense, that has well-foundedness as its limit case. Meta-grounding is important. The polarity of grounding can be crucial. Thus we will learn a lot about structural properties of grounding from considering the various paradoxes. On the way, grounding will also turn out to be relevant to the diagnosis (if not the solution) of paradox. All the paradoxes under consideration will turn out to be breaches of some standard requirement on grounding, which makes uniform solutions of large groups of these paradoxes more desirable. In sum, bringing together paradox and grounding will be shown to be of considerable value to philosophy.1