Journal | JoLMA
Journal issue | 5 | 2 | 2024
Research Article | Metaphysical Grounding and Being’s Incompleteness
Metaphysical Grounding and Being’s Incompleteness
Abstract
In order to argue that Being is incomplete, this article engages recent views which regard metaphysical grounding as a form of ontological dependence. In contrast to foundational versions of grounding, it argues that grounding is ubiquitous, multidirectional, and multilevel. Each thing partially grounds, generates, and constitutes every other thing. Grounding is never full. Since grounding is always partial, a thing is never fully real. This is a condition of possibility of its reality. If it were to be fully grounded, per impossible, it would be incapable of further development or change. It would be wholly static and frozen. This is true for each thing and for the universe itself. The monistic One is never fully one and reality is never completely real. This ontology is gunky, junky, and hunky: everything partly grounds and is grounded by everything else, so that everything has parts and also is a constituent in a greater whole. Whereas the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna would assert that this means everything is empty and unreal, everything is partially real. However, things are never fully real because they are never fully grounded.
Submitted: July 22, 2024 | Accepted: Oct. 23, 2024 | Published Dec. 11, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Being • Nāgārjuna • Non-Being • Metaphysical Grounding
Copyright © 2024 J.M. Fritzman. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2024/02/001
