Title: Grounding Existence

Speaker: Qichen Yan (Peking University)

Time: Mar. 10th (Tuesday), 15:10 - 18:00

Location: Room 314, Teaching Building No.2 (北京大学第二教学楼314)

Abstract:

The standard grounding theory has the following non-ideal features. If contingentism—the thesis that possibly something could possibly fail to exist—is true, then the standard grounding theory requires that the full grounds of a true universal statement include a totality fact, which is necessarily equivalent to some quantified statement but cannot be reduced to any quantified statement. Similarly, the standard grounding theory requires that the full grounds of an existential truth include a non-quantificational existence fact, which is necessarily equivalent to some quantified statement but cannot be reduced to any quantified statement. In this talk, I show that the full grounds of true quantified statements can be identified without appealing to any non-quantificational totality fact or existence fact. I argue that, by drawing inspiration from the history of philosophy (particularly Aristotle's metaphysics), such an improved account can be developed. On the proposed account, any entity of any ontological category is "nothing over and above" the essential properties it possesses. I will provide independent motivations, accessible to contemporary philosophers, to endorse this idea. The proposed account will be formulated within a higher-order logical framework, allowing us to theorize more systematically about the essences and existences of entities in any ontological category.