Too Many fictions

Sammanfattning

Recent debates on grounding have increasingly questioned the orthodox realist view according to which grounding is a mind-independent relation structuring reality into hierarchical levels of fundamentality. One influential anti-realist alternative is Naomi Thompson’s figuralist fictionalism, which holds that grounding discourse is non-literal yet appropriate, serving to convey information about metaphysical explanation and underlying dependence relations without ontological commitment to grounding relations themselves. On this view, grounding talk preserves a minimalist realist essence by projecting a single generic system of metaphysical explanation onto reality. This paper argues that Thompson’s figuralist account cannot sustain this purpose, reducing its appeal to usefulness. The central objectiondeveloped is that grounding discourse is highly agent- and context-sensitive, allowing speakers who agree on the relevant dependency facts to construct distinct, and sometimes incompatible, systems of metaphysical explanation. This means that grounding talk can construct -too many fictions- despite tracking underlying dependence relations. Moreover, the paper also argues that grounding claims can appear even in the absence of any underlying dependence relation at all. Together, these considerations put doubt on the claim that grounding talk is mainly about worldly dependencies, causing a fundamental problem for Thompson's account. As an alternative, the paper briefly considers Miller and Norton’s non-cognitivist account, which aims to resolve these tensions by abandoning the attempt to preserve a minimalist realist essence. On this view, the core function of grounding talk is not to track worldly structure, but to express attitudes of commitment to, and recommendations for the acceptance of, certain norms governing interventional conduct.