enjoying a fundamental mode of being. However, it is a view I recommend to the
proponents of grounding to consider.
The notion of grounding and the notion of naturalness perform similar jobs in the
respective metaphysics of Schaffer and Sider. Perhaps we can use the notion of an
ultimate property to define up a notion of mode of being in a way analogous to how
we proceeded in chapter 1, in which naturalness was appealed to. And we should
determine whether we candefine upthe notion of grounding from the notion of a
degree of being in a similar way as the notion of naturalness was defined in terms of
degree of being in chapter 7. We should also investigate whether the other notions
of ontological superiority we are already familiar with can be used to understand
grounding.
Suppose that grounding is a universal andthat universals are not grounded in the
facts of which they are constituents. Just as this view makes room for grounding as
an ultimate relation, there is room for either existence or modes of existence as
ultimate properties. For example, even if every fact that a thing exists is grounded in
the thing itself, existence might still beultimate, and hence a kind of ontological
monism would be true. Alternatively, we might tell a similar story about modes of
existenceifweunderstandthemasultimatefirst-order properties of things.
A similar story could be offered of modes of being as ultimate second-order
properties. But such positions do not seem plausible on a trope-theoretic view of
properties for the same reason that grounding as an ultimate relation seemed
unfeasible on a trope-theoretic view.
So given suitable—but very contentious!—assumptions, we can understand modes
of being in terms of ultimate properties, which in turn are defined in terms of
grounding. Let’s turn to the question of whether we can define grounding in terms
of modes of being. If so, we face a similar situation to that of chapter 7 in which we
worried about the possibility that allegedly disparate phenomena, in that case
naturalness and degree of being, might at root be the same.
Let’sfirst note that the grounding relation is not identical with the relationxisat
least as real as y. The latter relation is reflexive and hence not asymmetric. A better
candidate for the grounding relation isx is more real than y, which is asymmetric.^25
This latter notion can play many of the same roles as grounding. For example, we can
use it to definefundamentalandderivativein a way similar to Schaffer:
xisfundamental= df. nothing is more real thanx.
xisderivative= df. something is more real thanx.In this vein, note also that the semi-mereological notions of anintegrated wholeand a
mere aggregatecan be defined in terms of degrees of being: an integrated whole is
more real than its proper parts, whereas a mere aggregate is less real than its proper
(^25) We can define this notion in terms ofx is at least as real as yas follows:x is more real than y= df.xis
at least as real asyand it is not the case thatyis at least as real asx.