ABSTRACT
Recent works have proposed a treatment of grounding “in the image of causation”. There are important analogies between grounding and causation: both seem to be ‘building’ relations, both seem to be strict orders, and both seem amenable to representation by models of structural equations (cf. Schaffer, 2016______. “Grounding in the Image of Causation”. Philosophical Studies, 173, 2016, pp. 49-100.; Wilson, 2018WILSON, A. “Metaphysical Causation”. Noûs, Vol. 52, Nr. 4, 2018, pp. 723-751.). But it seems also that there are important differences, because causation is usually considered as an external relation, while grounding is internal; there are cases of probabilistic causation, but there is nothing like probabilistic grounding; grounding is taken to be a well-founded relation, but not causation; grounding entails ontological supervenience, but not causation. It is argued here that most of those supposed differences are motivated by a Humean conception of causation in which there are no necessary connections between cause and effect. A non-Humean view of causation, though, makes the unification of grounding and causation much more reasonable that any separate treatment.
Keywords:
Grounding; Causation; Dependence; Ontological Priority