more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 15047

[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality ]

Full Idea

Questions of what is real are to be settled upon the basis of considerations of ground.

Gist of Idea

What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground'

Source

Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro)

Book Ref

-: 'Philosophers' Imprint' [-], p.1


A Reaction

This looks like being one of Fine's most important ideas, which is shifting the whole basis of contemporary metaphysics. Only Parmenides and Heidegger thought Being was the target. Aristotle aims at identity. What grounds what is a third alternative.

Related Idea

Idea 15060 Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K]


The 25 ideas with the same theme [sort of reality to which realists are committed]:

Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato]
Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin]
Knowledge of potential is universal and indefinite; of the actual it is definite and of individuals [Aristotle]
We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne]
Only unities have any reality [Leibniz]
Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down [Peirce]
The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl]
Space is neutral between touch and sight, so it cannot really be either of them [Russell]
Readiness-to-hand defines things in themselves ontologically [Heidegger]
To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap]
Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman]
Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong]
Reality is the overlap of true complete theories [Harman]
Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal [Kim]
Without God we faced reality: what do we face without reality? [Baudrillard]
If causal power is the test for reality, that will exclude necessities and possibilities [McGinn]
Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik]
A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K]
Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]
Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K]
What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K]
In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K]
Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K]
Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber]