We have seen that grounding is irreflexive. This is a problem for Husserl’s account of necessity, which includes the idea that if, on the one hand, all necessities are grounded on laws, on the other hand: 1) all laws are ne- cessities, 2) for any necessity A which is also a law, the law on which it is grounded is A itself. If that is Husserl’s view, then grounding for him cannot be irreflexive. But grounding just is irreflexive: even if one does not have a compelling intuition to that effect (which, I venture, is un- likely), irreflexivity, as I showed in Section 2.2, still follows from grounding being asymmetrical. And surely grounding is asymmetrical – or it is not grounding at all. So Husserl’s account as stated in (17) would seem to be incoherent: because it appeals to grounding and yet contradicts one of the principles governing the notion.
My position is that this is a genuine problem for Husserl, but that the account can be so amended as to preserve its original spirit and yet escape the difficulty. Let me say how.
First, notice that if we take Husserl to his word, then in effectAcannot be grounded simply onA. Indeed, if the reason why Husserl suggests that
A should ground itself is thatA is a law, thenA’s being a law should figure in the explanation of why Ais true. Otherwise, what groundsA
would simply be a necessarily true proposition (as it happens, A itself). But then why appeal to laws in the first place? In other words, Husserl must concede that it is only because Ais a law that it is alleged by him to be liable to ground itself: otherwise, the sense in which it is only those
necessities which are laws, and not necessities in general, that are in a position to ground themselves is lost; and if necessities in general are in a position to ground themselves, then there is no need to appeal to laws to begin with, and Husserl’s particular account of necessity loses its raison d’être. But shouldn’t we say, then, that what groundsAis notA, but the proposition, or the fact,that A is a law? In symbols:
hAiChIt is a law thatAi
Admittedly, this is not what Husserl says; but it may be what he means. And if it is not, then, I submit, it is what he should have said and meant. For one thing, this way of putting things, unlike the original Husserlian one, is compatible with the irreflexivity of grounding: because hAi , hIt is a law thatAi. Second, the proposal is intuitively appealing: for it
makes good sense, at least in the Husserlian environment, to say that, e.g., necessarily all humans are animals because it is an (eidetic) law that all possible humans are animals – i.e., because it is in the essence of every possible instance of Human that it is an animal. I see no reason why one that accepts Husserl’s basic idea should turn down this particular way of cashing it out. Indeed, the fact that the latter, and not Husserl’s way, is compatible with the irreflexivity of grounding is a strong reason to accept the proposal.
If we do accept the proposal, however, and decide to modify the account accordingly, then we ought to extend the amendment to other parts of the account. IfAis not a law, for Husserl it is grounded on a lawαsuch that
αin a position to groundAis not merely its content (i.e., the proposition that α, whatever it may be), but α’s being a law. Thus, instead of saying, with Husserl, thathAiis grounded onhαi, we should say that
hAiChIt is a law thatαi
The same applies to eidetic laws and laws about eide. Ifαis an eidetic law and β a law about the relevant eide, instead of saying, with Husserl, that
hαiis grounded onhβi, we should say that
hIt is a law thatαiChIt is a law thatβi
This leads to the following reformulation of (17) (in which the new symbolism for propositional abstracts is incorporated):
(17*) For every necessary truthAthere is a lawαsuch that:
(a) hAiChIt is a law thatαi, and eitherA=αorAinstantiatesα;
(b) α is either a law about eide, i.e., an essentialist truth about a universal, or an eidetic law, i.e., an essentialist truth about all the possible instances or bearers of a pure universal (or about an arbitrary instance or bearer of a pure universal); and
(c) for every αwhich is an eidetic law, there is a law about eide β such thathIt is a law thatαiChIt is a law thatβi.
2.2.4
Universal Instantiation as a Grounding Relation
As I pointed out in Section 2.1, we need to explain why, even though for a propositionAto be grounded on a propositionBis not forAto be a logical
consequence ofB, ifBis an eidetic law andAits instance thenAis not only a logical consequence ofB, but also grounded on it. The key here is, I think, the fact thatBis not simply a universal proposition, but an eidetic law.
Suppose that A is the proposition that Socrates-cum-Human is essen- tially an animal, andBthe eidetic law that every possible human – i.e., every possible instance of the universal Human – is essentially an animal. As we know from Section 1, B states the essence of every possible object-cum- Human. But then to say that the proposition that Socrates-cum-Human is essentially an animal is grounded on the proposition that every possible human is an animal is just to say that Socrates-cum-Human is essentially an animal because every possible human is, as a matter of essence, an an- imal. In other words, it is as if we asked: ‘Why is Socrates is essentially an animal if he is human?’. It makes good sense, at least in the Husserlian environment, to answer: ‘Because all humans are animals: it is part of their essence’.
It is in this sense that the particular proposition – which, by the way, is also a necessary and in fact an essentialist proposition about Socrates-cum- Human – is not merely deducible from the eidetic law that every possible object-cum-Human is an animal, but is also explained by (grounded on) it. Then, of course, the eidetic law is in turn grounded, for Husserl, on some law about the eidos Human; but that is another story, and I will have much to say about it in Chapter 3.