Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form

will be published in the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Due to
copyright restrictions, the full article can be found at
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papq.12391
Robert Weston Siscoe
Florida State University
wsiscoe@fsu.edu

Abstract

Starting with the slogan that understanding is a ‘knowledge of causes,’

Stephen Grimm and John Greco have argued that understanding comes
from a knowledge of dependence relations. Grounding is the trendiest
dependence relation on the market, and if Grimm and Greco are correct,
then instances of grounding should also give rise to understanding. In this
paper, I will show that this prediction is correct – grounding does indeed
generate understanding in just the way that Grimm and Greco anticipate.
However, grounding examples of understanding also show that Grimm
and Greco are not telling the full story when it comes to understanding.
Understanding can only be generated by a particular subset of dependence
relations — those dependence relations that are also explanatory. Grimm
and Greco should thus appeal to a privileged class of dependence relations,
relations like grounding that can give rise to explanation as well.

Keywords: Grounding, Understanding, Explanation, Knowledge of

Causes

Word Count: 9,967 (Including footnotes)

 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

Introduction
1 Advances in metaphysics often give way to advances within epistemology. A
2 striking recent example of this phenomenon is the far-reaching impact of the
3 modal revolution. Causal theories of the basing relation gave way to a counter-
4 factual analysis, a possibility that was only available due to the work of modal
5 metaphysicians.1 Then came perhaps the most famous application of modal
6 notions within epistemology – Nozick’s sensitivity theory of knowledge and the
7 subsequent debate between safety and sensitivity.2 Progress on modality thus
8 gave rise to a number of advances within epistemology, opening up new avenues
9 of research and clarifying some of epistemology’s central notions.
10

11 A new movement is now taking place within metaphysics. A number of in-

12 fluential theorists have argued for grounding, a metaphysical notion that they
13 claim arises across philosophy, from issues in logic to normativity to philosophy
14 of mind. Nevertheless, all this theorizing about grounding is not without crit-
15 ics. Jessica Wilson (2014) thinks that everything supposedly accomplished by
16 grounding can be done by other dependence relations, while Thomas Hofweber
17 (2009) and Christopher Daly (2012) find the notion of grounding too obscure to
18 be metaphysically useful. These criticisms, however, have not prevented ground-
19 ing theorists from moving forward. While it may seem like a precarious venture
20 to continue working on grounding with such uncertain foundations, it may ac-
21 tually be this moving forward which secures grounding as a vital concept across
22 philosophy. Quine was a vocal critic of the modal project, but by showing the
23 theoretical fruitfulness of modal notions, figures like David Lewis and Robert
24 Stalnaker were able to demonstrate the importance of modality within analytic
25 philosophy. Thus, every further application that is found for grounding demon-
26 strates that, despite the early misgivings, it may nevertheless be a promising
27 notion for future reflection.
28

29 What is left, then, is to apply grounding within epistemology. In this paper, I

30 will make one such application, arguing that grounding can provide fresh insights
31 on the epistemology of understanding.3 Stephen Grimm and John Greco both
1 The counterfactual analysis of the basing relation is due to Swain (1979), (1981), and

(1985).
2 Nozick (1981), pp. 172-196, first proposed the truth-tracking theory of knowledge with

what have come to be known as the sensitivity and adherence conditions. Sosa (1999), pp. 152-
155, introduced the safety condition in order to deal with worries concerning how sensitivity
theories of knowledge responded to skepticism. Though many have now rejected sensitivity as
a necessary condition on knowledge due to counterexamples (p. 167) and closure worries (p.
186) raised by Kripke (2011), Nozick’s legacy lives on through a number of ongoing projects
spawned by an emphasis on sensitivity, see Becker and Black (2012), DeRose (1995), Melchior
(2019), and Roush (2005). Safety has had an even more enduring legacy, with Pritchard
(2007), p. 281, (2008b), p. 32, and (2009b), pp. 34-35; Sosa (1999), pp. 152, and (2007), p.
26; and Williamson (2000), p. 100, amongst those who accept safety as a necessary condition
on knowledge.
3 For other papers that have begun to draw connections between grounding and epistemol-

ogy, see Beddor (2015), Maurin (2019), and Siscoe (Forthcoming).

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 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

32 take understanding to crucially involve dependence relations. Grimm endorses

33 the view on which understanding is ‘knowledge of dependence relations,’4 while
34 Greco claims that ‘to understand a thing is to be able to (knowledgeably) locate
35 it in a system of appropriate dependence relations.’5 Grimm and Greco thus
36 both subscribe to something in the neighborhood of Dependence:
37 Dependence – S understands why p if and only if there is a truth q on
38 which p depends and S has a special cognitive relationship with the fact
39 that a dependence relation holds between p and q
40 Advocates of Dependence take it that understanding involves a particular
41 cognitive relationship with dependencies. To understand is to see how things
42 depend on one another. Grimm and Greco are both flag bearers for this view,
43 maintaining that understanding is a knowledge of dependence relations. De-
44 pendence thus takes it that dependence relations play a central role in under-
45 standing.
46

47 Even though both Grimm and Greco explicitly say that they support Depen-
48 dence, at times they also gloss their views in terms of explanation. Grimm, for
49 example, says that understanding occurs via grasping the ‘sorts of relationships
50 that seem to obtain between the explanans and the explanandum,’6 while Greco
51 says that understanding something ‘is very close to being able to explain it.’7
52 There is thus another, closely-related way to think about what is required for
53 understanding:
54 Explanation – S understands why p if and only if there is a truth q that
55 explains p and S has a special cognitive relationship with the fact that
56 an explanatory relation holds between p and q
57 Those who support Explanation think that understanding has a special cogni-
58 tive link with explanation, that to understand something is being able to trace
59 explanatory relationships. John Bengson captures this view with the most gen-
60 eral of formulas, saying that ‘X understands [...] in virtue of bearing some
61 cognitive relation to an explanation,’8 a view which puts explanation, not de-
62 pendence, at the center of understanding.9
63

4 See Grimm (2014), p. 341.

5 See Greco (2014), p. 286.
6 See Grimm (2014), p. 341.
7 See Greco (2014), p. 287.
8 See Bengson (2017), p. 28.
9 One question that might arise for this account is whether, on some accounts of explanation,

it is simply analytic that understanding why involves a particular cognitive relationship with
explanation. For example, van Fraassen (1980) takes it that an explanation is simply an
answer to some why-question that emerges in a certain context. If van Fraassen is right about
this though, then doesn’t it simply fall out of the definition of explanation that understanding
why is produced by having a certain cognitive relationship with an explanation? While this
thought is plausible, as we will see in Section 3, Pritchard (2014) has shown that it is possible to
know the answer to a why-question without thereby possessing understanding, making it not
simply a matter of definition whether Explanation is correct. Thank you to an anonymous
reviewer for raising this point.

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 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

64 Explanation holds that understanding comes, not from dependence relation-

65 ships, but from explanatory relationships. From Grimm and Greco’s accounts
66 of understanding, it is unclear whether Dependence and Explanation are
67 distinct. While both Grimm and Greco are committed to Dependence, they
68 also make comments that suggest that Dependence comes to the same thing
69 as Explanation. In this paper, I will make the case that, not only do De-
70 pendence and Explanation come apart, but that Explanation is the right
71 way to think about understanding. Understanding why p consists of having a
72 special cognitive relationship with what explains p. Not all dependence relation-
73 ships, however, give rise to explanations. Only a certain subset of dependence
74 relations, explanatory relations like grounding and causation, can result in ex-
75 planations, confirming that not only do Explanation and Dependence come
76 apart, but that Explanation is the right way to think about understanding.10
77

78 There are a couple things to note about our definitions before we begin. Those
79 who theorize about understanding have identified a number of different types of
80 understanding, including objectual understanding and understanding why. In
81 this paper, I will primarily be concerned with accounts of understanding why,
82 the variety of understanding captured by instances of the following schema:11
83 (1) Jill understands why the log caught on fire
84 (2) Jack understands why 2 + 2 = 4
85 (3) Jane understands why the painting is beautiful
86 A variety of accounts of understanding why have been given, including that
87 understanding why is reducible to a particular kind of knowledge,12 a specific
88 variety of belief,13 or a certain type of intellectual know-how.14 I will not be
10 For the purposes of this paper, I will be assuming that grounding is a relation, although

there is some disagreement. Fine (2012a) and (2012b) and Correia (2010), p. 254, favor
the view that grounding is best thought of as a sentential operator. A sentential operator,
however, seems ill-suited for some of the work to which grounding is often put. Grounding
claims are thought to portray the very structure of reality, work that cannot be accomplished
by this operationalist approach. The logical ‘or’ is also a sentential operator, but this fact
alone is insufficient to generate a worldly relation of disjunction. Furthermore, as we will see,
grounding is thought to play a central role in metaphysical explanation. In order for grounding
claims to coincide with explanations though, they must latch onto something worldly, as
explanations require backing by dependence relations; see Kim (1994) and Ruben (1990). For
more on the connection between grounding and explanation, see Section 4.
11 For more on this distinction, see Baumberger, Beisbart, and Brun (2017), p. 5; Hannon

(2021); and Kvanvig (2003), p. 191. On certain connections between understanding why
and objectual understanding, our defense of Explanation will be relevant for theorizing
about objectual understanding as well. Khalifa (2013), for example, thinks that all objectual
understanding is reducible to understanding why, making the thesis of this paper relevant for
giving a full account of objectual understanding. Elgin (2017), on the other hand, takes it that
understanding why is secondary to objectual understanding, making the conclusions defended
here less relevant for a theory of objectual understanding, while Dellsén (2020) argues that
objectual understanding can take place even in the absence of explanation.
12 See Grimm (2006) and (2014), Greco (2010) and (2014), Hu (2019), Lipton (2004), and

Sliwa (2015).
13 See Pritchard (2010) and (2014).
14 See Hills (2015) and Wilkenfield (2013).

3
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

89 defending any of these accounts here, but will instead be interested in whether
90 understanding why crucially involves dependence or explanatory relationships,
91 allowing that all of these accounts are compatible with the insights forwarded
92 in this paper.
93

94 Another question that might arise is why I have refrained from describing De-
95 pendence and Explanation in terms of knowledge, characterizing them in-
96 stead in terms of a ‘special cognitive relationship.’ Again, my hope here is to
97 remain neutral between accounts that take it that understanding is reducible to
98 belief or knowledge and those that do not. Even on interpretations that take
99 understanding why to be a sort of intellectual know-how, there is still a central
100 relation around which that know-how revolves. For example, according to Al-
101 ison Hills, understanding why p (because of q) involves a number of abilities,
102 including:
103 (i) following some explanation of why p given by someone else;
104 (ii) explaining why p in your own words;
105 (iii) drawing the conclusion that p (or that probably p) from the infor-
106 mation that q;
107 (iv) drawing the conclusion that p* (or that probably p*) from the infor-
108 mation that q* (where p* and q* are similar to p and q);
109 (v) given the information that p, give the right explanation, q;
110 (vi) given the information that p*, give the right explanation, q*.15
111 Explanation plays a crucial role in (i)-(vi), putting Hills squarely in the Ex-
112 planation camp. Dependence and Explanation do not require that under-
113 standing is ultimately cashed out in terms of belief or knowledge, but are open
114 to a wide range of cognitive relationships. My arguments in this paper will be
115 consistent with understanding why being a type of cognitive ability as well as
116 a particular set of beliefs. What I am concerned with is the target relation of
117 these cognitive relationships — whether understanding is directed only at ex-
118 planatory relations or the wider set of dependence relations.
119

120 Here’s the plan. In Section 1, I further detail the origins of Dependence,
121 tracing the development of both Grimm and Greco’s views on understanding.
122 Then, in Sections 2 and 3, I show that there are a number of instances in which
123 Dependence is not sufficient for understanding, pointing out in Section 4 that
124 these are all cases where dependence relations do not give rise to explanation. In
125 Section 5, I argue that, due to its connection with explanation, grounding can fill
126 in the lack of understanding from the problematic cases in Section 2. Grounding
127 talk thus has utility within epistemology, a point that does not answer the
128 grounding skeptics directly,16 but nevertheless motivates further adoption of
129 grounding within philosophy, as the more diverse uses to which grounding is
130 put lend credence to the usefulness of thinking in terms of grounding more
131 generally.
15 See Hills (2015), p. 663.
16 Though refutations have been given. See Audi (2012a) and Raven (2012).

4
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

132 1 Two Accounts of Understanding

133 In his work on understanding, Stephen Grimm argues that understanding is a
134 knowledge of dependence relations. Grimm builds on the formula that under-
135 standing is a ‘knowledge of causes’ — understanding why the log caught on fire
136 involves knowing what caused the log to catch on fire. This is not the whole
137 story, however, for we also possess non-causal forms of understanding. Con-
138 sider, for example, what is grasped when someone understands why 2 + 2 = 4.
139 In this case, it is the knowledge of numerical and mathematical concepts that
140 contributes to understanding of the mathematical fact, not a knowledge of the
141 efficient cause of 2 + 2 = 4 (as if there were one). Such non-causal instances of
142 understanding thus require a more inclusive notion of understanding. To this
143 end, Grimm modifies his position to ‘claim that understanding consists not of
144 “knowledge of causes” but rather of something like “knowledge of dependency
145 relations”.’17 Grimm does not take this to be a major shift away from the knowl-
146 edge of causes position – after all, on more expansive notions of cause, causation
147 extends to a wider array of dependence relations than just efficient causation.
148 If, following Aristotle, we take causation to include a number of essential and
149 teleological relations as well, the ‘knowledge of causes’ and the ‘knowledge of
150 dependencies’ formulas are not that far apart. We can thus include a wider
151 range of dependence relations, including relations like supervenience, while still
152 retaining the motivation for the original ‘knowledge of causes’ account.18
153

154 Even though Grimm explicitly commits himself to Dependence, it is not clear
155 that he treats this account as distinct from Explanation. To begin with, he
156 says that the knowledge of causes formula can also be understood in terms of
157 knowledge of explanation: ‘For convenience, let us think of [...] the “knowledge
158 of causes” formula as the modal-model — that is, a model on which what is
159 grasped when one has knowledge of the cause is the modal relationship that
160 obtains between the terms of the explanation.’19 Later, in motivating the wider
161 Dependence account of understanding, he again appeals to explanatory rela-
162 tionships, saying that ‘some of our understanding does not appeal to [causes]
163 at all but rather to other sorts of relationships that seem to obtain between the
164 explanans and the explanandum.’20 Thus, even though, Grimm says that his
165 official view is a variant of Dependence, he also does not make it clear if his
166 view should be distinguished from Explanation.
167

168 Like Grimm, John Greco also advocates for taking understanding to be a knowl-
169 edge of dependence relations. Starting with the view that ‘understanding is
170 knowledge of causes, or something close to it,’21 Greco then expands this ac-
171 count to include a number of other dependence relations. On the filled out view,
17 See Grimm, (2014), p. 341.
18 Ibid, pp. 340-341.
19 Ibid, p. 339.
20 Ibid, p. 341.
21 See Greco (2010), p. 9.

5
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

172 ‘to understand a thing is to be able to (knowledgeably) locate it in a system

173 of appropriate dependence relations,’22 relations which can include constitu-
174 tion, supervenience, and part-whole relationships right alongside causation.23
175 Greco also sees this strategy as roughly in line with Aristotle’s approach to un-
176 derstanding. According to Greco, Aristotle also advocated for a ‘knowledge of
177 causes’ account of understanding, an account that extended to include material,
178 formal, and final causation along with efficient causation. In this way, though
179 Aristotle may not have included all of the dependence relations that can give
180 rise to understanding, his view also anticipates the Dependence account of
181 understanding.
182

183 Just as Greco mirrors Grimm’s move from a knowledge of causes to a knowledge
184 of dependence relations view, he is also not clear about whether there should
185 be a distinction between Dependence and Explanation. Like Grimm, Greco
186 runs the knowledge of causes formula together with knowledge of explanation:
187 ‘Understanding involves “grasping,” “appreciating,” or knowing causal relations
188 taken in a broad sense: i.e. the sort of relations that ground explanation.’24 Fur-
189 thermore, Greco notes that there is a close relationship between explanation and
190 the grasp of dependence relations, pointing out that ‘another salient feature of
191 understanding is that it is closely tied to explanation. To understand something
192 is very close to being able to explain it.’25 Thus, not only does Greco end up
193 endorsing a Dependence-style view like Grimm, he also does not explicitly
194 distinguish between Dependence and Explanation.

195 2 Dependence Without Understanding

196 On Grimm and Greco’s account, dependence relations are the crucial relation
197 involved in understanding. As we have seen though, there are a number of
198 places where they do not distinguish Dependence from Explanation. Further
199 complicating matters, there are a number of authors that adopt Explanation
200 without also appealing to Dependence. Bengson singles out explanation as the
201 relation crucial to understanding, and Hills captures understanding with a num-
202 ber of explanation-centered abilities. Wesley Salmon holds that ‘understanding
203 results from our ability to fashion explanations,’26 while Michael Strevens says
204 that understanding, ‘consists in grasping correct explanations.’27 In the case of
205 understanding in science, J.D. Trout claims that ‘scientific understanding is the
206 state produced, and only produced, by grasping a true explanation.’28 All of
207 these authors thus endorse a tight link between understanding and explanation
22 See
Greco (2014), p. 286.
23 Ibid,
p. 291.
24 See Greco, (2010), p. 9.
25 See Greco (2014), p. 287.
26 See Salmon (1984), p. 259.
27 See Strevens, (2010), p. 17.
28 See Trout (2007), pp. 585-586. These are far from isolated examples. Jaegwon Kim

(1994), p. 61; Jonathan Kvanvig (2009), p. 99; and Kareem Khalifa (2011), p. 108, all
endorse the connection between explanation and understanding as well.

6
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

208 without also resorting to talk of dependence relations. So which is it? Should
209 we sign up for Dependence, Explanation, or both? In this section, I will
210 argue that it is possible to grasp dependence relations without thereby having
211 understanding, the beginning of a case that Explanation is the correct account
212 of understanding. Understanding why only comes from being able to trace the
213 underlying explanatory structure that gives rise to a target phenomenon, some-
214 thing that a grasp of dependence relations does not always provide.
215

216 In moving from an account that emphasizes a knowledge of causes (including

217 Aristotle’s four causes), Grimm and Greco highlight the other sorts of rela-
218 tionships that they have in mind, singling out examples like part-whole and
219 supervenience relationships. This list of relationships, Greco notes, ‘is meant
220 to be neither exclusive nor exhaustive. Rather, the substantive point is that
221 there are many and various dependence relations, and understanding centrally
222 involves knowledge of these.’29 The prediction of Dependence, then, is that
223 the appropriate grasp of these dependence relations will result in understanding.
224

225 Let’s start with supervenience. In Hawaii, it has been observed that the volca-
226 noes Mauna Loa and Kilauea both swell with magma simultaneously. This is
227 due to being fed by the same underground magma source — when the pressure
228 increases in the chamber, this causes both volcanoes to inflate with magma.30
229 So, the fact that Mauna Loa is filled with magma supervenes on the fact that
230 Kilauea is filled with magma. This example of supervenience, a fairly robust
231 modal relationship that may extend back as long as the volcanoes have existed,
232 is explained by a common cause. Suppose that Joe grasps this supervenience re-
233 lationship, that Mauna Loa and Kilauea both inflate at the same time. Despite
234 this knowledge, he does not understand why either Mauna Loa or Kilauea swells
235 with magma, nor does he understand why they expand at the same time. Be-
236 cause Joe’s grasp of the situation does not trace the underlying causal structure
237 of the relationship between Mauna Loa and Kilauea, he also lacks understanding.
238

239 This point extends beyond just examples of causation. Take an example of a
240 supervenience relationship supported, not by a common cause, but by a com-
241 mon ground.31 The fact that Joe exists grounds at least two further things,
242 the fact that his singleton exists and the truth of the proposition <Joe exists>.
243 This underlying common ground then supports a supervenience relationship –
244 in all worlds in which Joe’s singleton exists, <Joe exists> is true. Grasping this
245 supervenience relationship, however, does not give rise to understanding. Even
246 if Joe knows that, whenever <Joe exists> is true then his singleton exists, he
29 See Greco (2014), p. 291. Grimm (2014) also includes Aristotle’s four causes, superve-

nience, (p. 341) and part-whole (p. 339) in his list of relevant dependence relations, while
Greco goes on to list conceptual, logical, and mathematical relationships as well.
30 See Miklius and Cervelli (2003).
31 Examples of common ground are invoked by Schaffer (2016a), pp. 55-56. Because Barker

(2021) gives an argument that it is not possible to have two entities that are both fully
grounded by a single entity, however, we will also consider cases that do not appeal to a
common ground as well.

7
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

247 still does not understand why either is the case. In order to understand why his
248 singleton exists or why <Joe exists> is true, he would also have to know that
249 his existence is their common ground. Thus, Joe does not have understanding
250 because he cannot trace the underlying metaphysical structure of the relation-
251 ship between his existence, the existence of his singleton, and the truth of the
252 proposition <Joe exists>.
253

254 Even if we do not consider cases of common causes or grounds, supervenience

255 still does not always give rise to understanding. Consider, again, the existence of
256 Joe and his singleton. If Joe only knows that these are perfectly correlated, this
257 does not yield understanding. He does not understand why his singleton exists,
258 or that his existence plays a role in explaining the existence of his singleton. As
259 with common causes/grounds, this is because knowledge of supervenience does
260 not tell us about the underlying structure of the phenomenon. Joe’s singleton
261 exists in virtue of Joe existing, but merely grasping a perfect correlation leaves
262 Joe in the dark about this underlying metaphysical structure. This problem oc-
263 curs in an even more pronounced way with disconnected necessary facts. That
264 2 + 2 = 4 supervenes on the fact that water is H2 O, but merely grasping this su-
265 pervenience relationship will never result in an understanding of why the other
266 is true. Even though these facts stand in a supervenience relation, they are not
267 linked in the right way to give rise to understanding.
268

269 Perhaps this has all been too quick. How robust are the intuitions that Joe does
270 not understand why Mauna Loa and Kilauea swell with magma, or that he does
271 not understand why his singleton exists or why <Joe exists> is true? One way
272 to test the strength of these intuitions is via some of the abilities thought to be
273 associated with understanding. As Hills has pointed out, understanding why
274 p typically equips a person with a range of intellectual abilities concerning p.
275 This point is not just limited to those who take understanding to be a type of
276 know-how. In responding to Hills’s argument that reductive knowledge views
277 of understanding cannot account for the connection between understanding and
278 intellectual abilities, Emily Sullivan argues that reductive accounts still predict
279 that understanding why will give rise to a number of intellectual abilities.32 One
280 way, then, to test our intuitions concerning whether Joe understands is to see
281 what kinds of intellectual abilities are bestowed by his grasp of these relations.
282

283 One of the abilities related to understanding why p that both Hills and Sullivan
284 cite is the ability to explain why p,33 an ability that only serves to confirm
285 our original judgment that Joe lacks understanding in both cases of common
286 causes and common grounds. Simply by grasping the supervenience that holds
287 between the volcanic activity at Mauna Loa and Kilauea, Joe cannot explain
288 why either volcano swells with magma, nor can he explain why they do so at
289 the same time. Likewise, if Joe only knows that, whenever <Joe exists> is true
32 See Sullivan (2018).
33 See Hills (2015), p. 663 and Sullivan (2018), pp. 233-234.

8
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

290 then his singleton exists, he still cannot explain why either is the case, that it
291 is his existence that both explains the existence of his singleton and the truth
292 of <Joe exists>. This point extends beyond our cases of branching causes and
293 grounds as well. Just because Joe grasps the supervenience relation between
294 the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 and the fact that water is H2 O, this does not thereby
295 allow him to explain either of these facts. He will need to appeal to facts about
296 math, or facts about the constitution of water, in order to explain these truths,
297 something that Dependence does not necessarily afford. Thus, not only does
298 it seem intuitively correct that Joe lacks understanding in these cases, he also
299 lacks one of the central abilities related to understanding.
300

301 One concern with focusing on the ability to explain why p is that, by picking
302 out a variety of intellectual know-how connected to explanation, it might seem
303 to favor the Explanation account of understanding from the outset. It would
304 be helpful, then, to also consider an ability related to understanding that does
305 not require an explicit connection with explanation. One such ability is knowing
306 what will happen in similar situations. Hills outlines this ability, saying that
307 understanding why p equips one with the ability to draw the conclusion p* (or
308 that probably p*) from the information that q* (where p* and q* are similar
309 to p and q).34 Sullivan agrees, saying that, both to know and to understand, a
310 person ‘must be able to get the truth not just on this particular occasion, but
311 get things right even if conditions were slightly different.’35 Amber Riaz, an-
312 other knowledge reductionist about understanding, thinks that understanding
313 includes ‘a kind of hyperknowledge involving, among other things, knowing why
314 p, why p’, why p* (where the situations corresponding to the judgments that
315 p, that p’ and that p* have slight differences), knowing why the differences be-
316 tween those situations warrant different judgments, and so on.’36 Thus, another
317 widely endorsed ability granted by understanding is knowing what will happen
318 in similar situations.
319

320 If we evaluate Joe according to this ability, it also does not give us a reason
321 to doubt our intuition that he lacks understanding in the cases we have con-
322 sidered. Suppose, for example, that we are now considering another Hawaiian
323 volcano, Kohala, and Joe observes that Kohala is filled with magma and is
324 about to erupt. If Joe understands why Mauna Loa swells with magma, then
325 on Riaz’s account, he will also have knowledge why about similar scenarios,
326 including why Kohala swells with magma. Simply grasping the correlation be-
327 tween Mauna Loa and Kilauea, however, does not provide Joe with knowledge
328 why in either case. From this information alone, he does not know that Mauna
329 Loa, Kilauea, or Kohala fill with magma due to the pressure exerted by methane
330 and magma from their underground chambers. He may think, for instance, that
331 pressure increases in the magma chamber beneath Kohala are associated with
332 decreases in volcanic pressure, that gravity pulls magma further down into the
34 See Hills (2015), p. 663.
35 See Sullivan (2018), p. 235.
36 See Riaz (2015), p. 123.

9
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

333 earth, relieving Kohala of any excess magma. The fact that he could grasp the
334 supervenience between Mauna Loa and Kilauea and still misunderstand volca-
335 noes in this way highlights the fact that he lacks the hyperknowledge that Riaz
336 thinks is an aspect of understanding. Hills’s account gives the same verdict. If
337 we inform Joe that the pressure is increasing in the magma chamber beneath
338 Kohala, unless he also grasps the connection between volcanoes and their under-
339 ground chambers, he will not be able to draw the conclusion that the pressure
340 in Kohala is also increasing. Thus, it seems right to say that Joe’s knowledge of
341 the supervenience relationship between Mauna Loa and Kilauea does not grant
342 him understanding of why the volcanoes expand with magma.
343

344 What about our cases of grounding? Here, again, we find the Joe does not have
345 the requisite intellectual know-how that comes with understanding. Not only
346 does he not understand why <Joe exists> is true, but he does not possess hy-
347 perknowledge of why other propositions are true either. Suppose, for example,
348 that the correspondence theory of truth is correct: <Joe exists> is made true by
349 the corresponding fact of Joe’s existence. But perhaps Joe believes that <Joe
350 exists> is true simply because ‘Joe exists’ is assertable amongst one’s peers,
351 making him believe that other propositions are true when their corresponding
352 sentences are assertable.37 In this case, along with not understanding why <Joe
353 exists> is true, Joe also doesn’t know why other similar propositions are true
354 either. The same issue is even more apparent with disconnected necessary facts.
355 Unless Joe has other background knowledge about why 2 + 2 = 4, he will not
356 be able to predict the sums of other simple addition problems, preventing him
357 from having the hyperknowledge that comes along with understanding.
358

359 Before we get the impression that this is just a problem for supervenience, let’s
360 look at another dependence relation that Greco proposes, the mereological part-
361 whole relation.38 The relationship between a whole and its constituents gives
362 rise to a different sort of understanding, understanding of why something is the
363 kind of thing it is. Take, for example, the relationship between a molecule of
364 H2 O and its constituent atoms. What makes it a molecule of water is that it is
365 made up by a particular kind of parts, two atoms of hydrogen and one molecule
37 For the view that truth is ‘what our peers will [...] let us get away with saying,’ see Rorty

(1979), p. 176.
38 One reason that it is valuable to consider examples beyond just supervenience is that there

is not complete consensus on whether supervenience is a dependence relation. Even though

Greco and Grimm include it as one of their central examples, they do not give a deeper
theoretical account of when dependence obtains. Instead, both authors approvingly cite Kim
(1994), who takes supervenience to be amongst the dependence relations. In Physicalism,
or Something Near Enough, Kim (2005) says, ‘I take supervenience as an ontological thesis
involving the idea of dependence – a sense of dependence that justifies saying that a mental
property is instantiated at a time because, or in virtue of the fact that, one of its physical
‘base’ properties is instantiated by the organism at that time. Supervenience, therefore, is
not a mere claim of covariation between mental and physical properties; it includes a claim of
existential dependence of the mental on the physical’ (p. 34). Not everyone, however, agrees.
Yoshimi (2007) acknowledges that ‘supervenience is widely held to be a dependence relation’
(p. 118), but still argues that ontological dependence and supervenience can come apart.

10
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

366 of oxygen, standing in covalent bonds. These parts, then, remain atoms even
367 when they are not bonded together as part of an H2 O molecule. In other cases,
368 though, this order of explanation can flow in the other direction, from a whole
369 to its parts. A word is made up by a collection of syllables, but those letters
370 would not form syllables were it not for facts about the word and its pronunci-
371 ation. There is thus a part-whole relationship in both cases, but understanding
372 the relationship between the whole and its parts can flow in different directions
373 depending on whether the whole or its parts are more fundamental.
374

375 Because it is possible both that a whole is more fundamental than its parts and
376 for the parts to be prior to the whole, grasping a part-whole relationship does
377 not always result in understanding. Organisms have a number of proper parts,
378 organs like a brain, a heart, and a stomach. Even though these organs and
379 the organism stand in a part-whole relationship, there is an important sense in
380 which the organism is prior to its parts. What makes it the case that something
381 is a heart instead of just a random collection of cells is that it pumps blood for
382 the organism. Likewise, the fact that a mass of blood vessels and digestive tissue
383 forms a stomach is grounded in the fact that they perform the digestive function
384 for an organism. For this reason, Joe might grasp the part-whole relationship
385 between an organism and its heart but still not understand why it is a heart –
386 what makes it a heart instead of just an arbitrary clump of cells. Similarly, Joe
387 could know that a word and its syllables have a part-whole relation with one
388 another, but he still might not understand why those particular letters form a
389 syllable. Thus, it is possible to know that two entities stand in the part-whole
390 relation without thereby gaining understanding.
391

392 The intuition that Joe doesn’t understand why certain letters form a syllable
393 or why a particular collection of cells makes up an organ is borne out by the
394 abilities associated with understanding. Joe cannot explain why some sequence
395 of letters is a syllable while another sequence is not, nor can he explain why
396 a specific group of cells is an organ but another random collection of cells is
397 not. He also doesn’t have the hyperknowledge associated with understanding.
398 Just like he does not understand why the letters ‘at’ form a syllable in the word
399 ‘atlas,’ he does not know why ‘pro’ forms a syllable in ‘produce,’ or why ‘vol’
400 forms a syllable in ‘volcano.’ Similarly, along with not understanding why a
401 specific collection of cells makes up a heart, he also doesn’t know why certain
402 cells form a stomach, or why other cells form a lung. This lack of hyperknowledge
403 then undercuts his predictive abilities as well, as he cannot reliably discriminate
404 between syllables and non-syllables or between organs and random clumps of
405 cells. Joe’s lack of understanding is thus revealed in a number of ways, both by
406 the intuition that he lacks understanding along with the fact does not possess
407 the abilities that come along with it.

11
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

408 3 Dependence and Complexity

409 One worry that the defender of Dependence might have about these pur-
410 ported counterexamples is that our interpretation of Dependence has been
411 too simplistic. For ease of explanation, I have often described these cases by
412 speaking of what our protagonist Joe knows or grasps. But it is well known
413 that reductionist accounts of understanding, those that try to characterize un-
414 derstanding completely in terms of knowledge, face a number of difficulties, and
415 Dependence itself need not be limited to reductive knowledge accounts of un-
416 derstanding. Can Dependence avoid these issues by making it clear that it is
417 not limited to reductionist accounts?
418

419 One of the primary issues for reductionist accounts of understanding is that
420 there is a gap between knowing why and understanding why. Duncan Pritchard,
421 for example, has pointed out that it is possible to have knowledge of why a
422 particular event happened without having the deeper intellectual grasp required
423 for understanding. Suppose, for example, that Kate has learned from a scientist
424 that oxygen will cause a particular chemical reaction. If Kate does not have
425 a grip on why exactly oxygen makes a difference to the chemical reaction, this
426 knowledge will not be sufficient for understanding why the chemical reaction
427 took place:
428 Given that Kate has gained this (true) information about the cause of
429 the chemical reaction from someone she recognises to be an expert in
430 the field, she surely counts as knowing what the cause of the chemical
431 reaction was. Moreover, it is also surely right that Kate knows why the
432 chemical reaction took place, given that she has this knowledge of the
433 cause of the reaction. So Kate knows why the chemical reaction took
434 place, and she knows that it took place because of the introduction of
435 oxygen. Crucially, however, Kate does not understand why the chemical
436 reaction took place, because in order to possess understanding in such a
437 case it is surely required that she should have a sound epistemic grip on
438 why cause and effect are related in this way. Since Kate lacks this, she
439 lacks understanding.39
440 As Pritchard points out, because Kate does not have a deeper grasp of the
441 connection between oxygen and the chemical reaction, she might know why the
442 reaction took place without understanding why it did. There is thus a gap
443 between knowing why and understanding why that creates issues for reductive
444 knowledge accounts of understanding.40 A defender of Dependence might
39 See
Pritchard (2014), p. 316.
40 Similar
points are made by Pritchard (2008a) and (2009a) and Hills (2009) and (2016).
Pritchard (2014) thinks that this lack can be filled in by a particular kind of belief (pp.
318-320), while Hills (2016) thinks that this gap points to understanding being a type of
intellectual know-how (pp. 669-670). Even Grimm (2014) thinks that knowing particular
propositions may not be enough – instead what is needed is a deeper grasp of a proposition,
much the same way that a priori propositions are grasped (pp. 333-335).

12
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

445 appeal to this gap between knowing why and understanding why in order to
446 argue that the cases we saw in Section 2 are not actually counterexamples to
447 Dependence. Instead, as Pritchard has shown, there are issues for reductive
448 knowledge accounts of understanding, and if our characterization of Depen-
449 dence comes too close to a reductionist account, then it is unsurprising that it
450 has difficulties as well.
451

452 In response to the thought that the problems with Dependence are just the
453 same problems as those facing reductive knowledge accounts, it is helpful to
454 point out that the issues that arise for Dependence are not analogous to the
455 types of cases that Pritchard has in mind. For Pritchard, it is possible to know
456 why without understanding why. In the cases we have looked at, however,
457 Joe does not even possess knowledge why, much less understanding why. Even
458 though he grasps the supervenience relation between eruptions at Mauna Loa
459 and Kilauea, Joe does not know why either erupt, as he does not know how
460 their underground common source contributes to their eruptions. Likewise, Joe
461 does not know why his singleton exists or why <Joe exists> is true, since he
462 does not know that his existence gives rise to both. Thus, the examples we have
463 considered cannot be fixed by a patch to the reductive knowledge account of
464 understanding. Kate knows why without understanding why, but Joe neither
465 knows why nor does he understand why, so even if we supplement our account
466 of understanding to meet Pritchard’s worries, this will not address the sorts of
467 issues facing a Dependence account of understanding. Thus, it seems unlikely
468 that the problems we saw with Dependence arise because we have character-
469 ized the view as too much like reductive accounts of understanding.
470

471 Another way in which the counterexamples from Section 2 may have been too
472 simplistic is by describing Joe as grasping only a single dependence relation.
473 Why not consider a version of Dependence that provides Joe with more in-
474 formation pertaining to that dependence relationship? We could, for example,
475 provide Joe with knowledge not just that a dependence relationship obtains,
476 but also information about what fact is more fundamental. This is in keeping
477 with the way that Greco describes Dependence, not characterizing it in terms
478 of grasping a single dependence relation, but saying that understanding of a
479 particular phenomenon occurs when someone can ‘knowledgeably locate it in a
480 system of appropriate dependence relations.’41 If we take this thought on board,
481 then our original Dependence becomes the following:
482 Dependence* – S understands why p if and only if
483 (i) there is a truth q on which p depends and S has a special cognitive
484 relationship with the fact that a dependence relation holds between p and
485 q and
486 (ii) S also has a special cognitive relationship with the fact that q is more
487 fundamental than p
41 See Greco (2014), p. 286.

13
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

488 With Dependence*, we still have it that understanding why is in part hav-
489 ing a special cognitive relationship with a dependence relationship, but now we
490 have added condition (ii), that S also must have a grasp of which fact is more
491 fundamental.
492

493 Can Dependence* overcome the inadequacies of Dependence? There is rea-

494 son to think not. To begin with, in the difficulties created by cases of common
495 causes and common grounds, neither fact seems to be more fundamental. Nei-
496 ther the eruptions at Mauna Loa nor the eruptions at Kilauea are more fun-
497 damental – it is rather the filling of the shared magma chamber that is more
498 fundamental than them both. Likewise, the truth of <Joe exists> and the ex-
499 istence of his singleton are both dependent on Joe’s existence. Our updated
500 Dependence* account cannot grant understanding in the case of disconnected
501 necessary facts either. I am not certain whether the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 or
502 the fact that water is H2 O is more fundamental, but either way, adding con-
503 dition (ii) to our original Dependence account will not bring Joe any closer
504 to understanding why 2 + 2 = 4 or why water is H2 O. He will instead need
505 more background information about numerical and mathematical concepts and
506 the constitution of water in order to understand these facts. Thus, it does not
507 appear that Dependence* will be particularly helpful when it comes to our
508 counterexamples involving supervenience.
509

510 Dependence* might appear a bit more promising when it comes to our ex-
511 amples of the part-whole relationship. After all, part of the difficulty was that
512 Joe did not understand whether a word or its syllables, or an organism or its
513 organs, were more fundamental. If we shift to Dependence*, that issue is
514 now resolved. Not only does Joe grasp that a word and its syllables stand in a
515 part-whole relationship, but he also knows that the word is more fundamental
516 than its parts. This additional information, however, is not enough to grant him
517 understanding of why a string of letters forms a syllable. Even though he now
518 knows that the word is more fundamental, he does not grasp that it is because
519 of the word’s pronunciation that particular letters make up a syllable, and he
520 still cannot predict, with novel words he hears, what the syllables will be. The
521 same occurs with an organism and its organs. Even if Joe learns that an organ-
522 ism and its organs stand in the part-whole relationship and that the organism
523 is more fundamental, he still does not have the resources to understand why
524 a particular collections of cells forms a heart, a liver, or a kidney. To under-
525 stand this, he would also need to grasp how that collection of cells performs a
526 particular function for the organism, pumping, oxygenating, or detoxifying the
527 blood. Only then would be able to understand why certain groups of cells form
528 an organ. Thus, even a grasp of what is most fundamental is not sufficient to
529 grant understanding.

14
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

530 4 Dependence without Explanation

531 We have seen reason to be dubious that Dependence is the right way to char-
532 acterize understanding, as it is possible to grasp certain dependence relations
533 without thereby understanding the target phenomenon. Does this mean that
534 we should also be skeptical of Explanation? Grimm and Greco do not sharply
535 distinguish between Dependence and Explanation, and in many cases dis-
536 cuss them as if they come to the same thing. If this is right, and Dependence
537 is indicted by the cases we saw in Section 2, then Explanation should be as
538 well. In this section, I will argue that this is not the moral we should draw
539 from the counterexamples to Dependence. The cases we saw in Section 2 are
540 all examples of dependence without explanation, so even though they create
541 worries for Dependence, they are not also problematic for Explanation. Not
542 only does Dependence come apart from Explanation, but they come apart
543 precisely in the cases that make trouble for Dependence.
544

545 The first thing to note is that the above cases of supervenience do not issue in
546 explanations. The fact that Mauna Loa inflates with magma does not explain
547 why Kilauea does so at the same time. Instead, the fact that the underground
548 chamber is pushing magma upwards explains why they both swell simultane-
549 ously. Likewise, the existence of Joe’s singleton does not explain the truth of
550 <Joe exists>, nor does the truth of <Joe exists> explain the existence of his
551 singleton. It is his existence, their common ground, that explains both of them.
552 There is also an explanatory gap in the cases of supervenience that do not ap-
553 peal to a common cause/ground. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 does not explain, nor
554 is it explained by, the fact that water is H2 O. This problem persists with the
555 supervenience of more closely related facts. If all Joe knows is that his existence
556 supervenes on the existence of his singleton, he does not yet have an explanation
557 for why his singleton exists.
558

559 The thought that supervenience cannot explain is nothing new — there have
560 been many authors who have thought that supervenience is not explanatory.
561 Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons, for instance, argue that the fact that the
562 moral supervenes on the non-moral does not itself explain anything – instead,
563 further explanation is needed for why this supervenience relationship obtains.42
564 Thus, it is no surprise that supervenience is not explanatory. What is important
565 for our purposes is that, in the cases where dependence relations do not issue
566 in understanding, they also do not give rise to explanations.
567

568 The same is true of the part-whole relation. The fact that a heart partially
42 See Horgan and Timmons (1992), p. 227. For those who concur that supervenience is

not an explanatory relation, see Bennett (2017), p. 14, fn. 10; Horgan (1984) and (1993);
Kim (1990), pp. 13-14, and (1993), pp. 166-167; McLaughlin (1995), p. 18; Schiffer (1987),
pp. 153-154; and Wedgwood (2007), pp. 141-142, and for those who have wielded this
point already in discussing the relationship between the normative and the non-normative,
see Blackburn (1984), p. 186; McPherson (2012), p. 216; and Raz (2000), p. 51.

15
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

569 composes an organism does not explain why it is a heart. Instead, it is the
570 fact that it performs a particular function for an organism which explains why
571 it is a heart. Likewise, the fact that a particular collection of letters partially
572 composes a word does not explain why that collection is a syllable. Only further
573 facts about the word and its pronunciation can explain why those letters form
574 a syllable. This is because, as with supervenience, the part-whole relation is
575 not by itself explanatory. In arguing that the part-whole relation cannot fully
576 explain the relationship between a whole and its constituents, Ross Cameron
577 says that ‘I can know that the Xs compose Y, but it is still an open question
578 whether the existence of the parts give ground to the existence of the whole, or
579 whether the existence of the whole gives ground to the existence of the parts.’43
580 In the same vein, referring to his monistic view of the cosmos, Jonathan Schaffer
581 makes the point that, ‘even given that this particle is a part of the cosmos, there
582 is a remaining question as to whether the whole depends on the part or the part
583 on the whole.’44 Because the part-whole relation is not always explanatory on its
584 own, grasping the part-whole relationship between a whole and its constituents
585 does not always give rise to understanding.

586 5 Grounding, Explanation, and Understanding

587 We have now seen that the counterexamples to Dependence are not also prob-
588 lematic for Explanation, suggesting that only explanatory relations are nec-
589 essary for understanding. In this section, I will show that grounding is one
590 of the primary explanatory relations that fills the gap left by Dependence.
591 As we will see, grounding can provide non-causal explanations where other de-
592 pendence relations, including supervenience and part-whole relationships, do
593 not. Because grounding is a dependence relationship that is also explanatory,
594 it makes understanding possible, demonstrating that only a certain subset of
595 dependence relations give rise to understanding. The grounding relation thus
596 plays a critical role in demonstrating both that Dependence should be kept
597 distinct from Explanation, but also that Explanation is the superior account
598 of understanding.
599

600 Let’s begin by looking at dependence relations that can give rise to understand-
601 ing. Grimm and Greco were right to think that causation can lead to under-
602 standing. Suppose that Joe learns that both Mauna Loa and Kilauea are fed
603 by a common source – that both are supplied by the same underground magma
604 chamber. He grasps that pressure in this chamber leads to magma flowing up-
605 wards to both volcanoes. In this case, he now understands why Mauna Loa and
606 Kilauea expand, and why they do so at the same time. He can trace the under-
607 lying causal structure that leads to their swelling simultaneously. Joe’s lack of
608 understanding is thus filled by substituting knowledge of a causal relationship
43 SeeCameron (2016), p. 386.
44 SeeSchaffer (2016b), p. 157. Other authors that point out that the part-whole relation
still leaves an open question about whether the parts or the whole are more fundamental
include Bennett (2017), pp. 60-61; Nolan (2018), pp. 92-93; and Schaffer (2010).

16
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

609 for his knowledge of supervenience.

610

611 Not only does grasping the causal connection between Mauna Loa and Kilauea
612 grant understanding, but even elementary knowledge of a causal relationship
613 can bring someone closer to understanding. Recall that the worry with reduc-
614 tive knowledge accounts of understanding was that it is possible to know why an
615 event occured without understanding why it occurred. This was distinct from
616 the issues with supervenience — knowledge of supervenience relationships not
617 only fails to grant understanding why, but also does not result in knowledge why.
618 In Pritchard’s example, Kate learned why the chemical reaction occurred via
619 testimony, so she knew why it occurred, but she did not have a sufficient grip on
620 how the cause and effect were related, preventing her from understanding why it
621 occurred. Even though she still lacked understanding, knowing about this causal
622 relationship brought Kate to a point where she knew why the chemical reaction
623 occurred, a step closer to understanding. Similarly, if Joe learns via testimony
624 what causes Mauna Loa and Kilauea to expand together, he will know why they
625 inflate, something he did not grasp when he only knew they supervened on one
626 another. Of course, this must be supplemented with a deeper appreciation of
627 the connection between the underground magma chamber and the swelling of
628 the volcanoes in order to result in understanding, but even knowledge of an
629 explanatory relationship is enough to bring him closer to understanding than
630 where he was with just knowledge of the supervenience of the two volcanoes.
631

632 As with causation, grasping grounding relations can also give rise to under-
633 standing. Not all understanding is causal understanding. Take, for example,
634 the relationship between the fact that Joe exists and the truth of the proposi-
635 tion <Joe exists>. According to leading grounding theorists, the truthmaking
636 relation is an instance of grounding.45 <Joe exists> is true in virtue of the fact
637 that Joe exists. When Joe knew that the truth of <Joe exists> supervened on
638 his existence, he did not understand why <Joe exists> was true. If Joe grasps
639 the grounding relation between the two though, that his existence is what makes
640 the proposition true, then he does understand why <Joe exists> is true. Thus,
641 the grounding relation can provide understanding where supervenience does not.
642

643 Just as knowing about a common cause can provide understanding, grasping a
644 common ground can as well. Just like Joe’s existence grounds the truth of <Joe
645 exists>, his existence also grounds the existence of his singleton. When Joe
646 only knew that the existence of his singleton supervened on the truth of <Joe
647 exists>, he did not understand why his singleton existed, why <Joe exists>
648 was true, or why they supervened on one another. If Joe learns that his single-
649 ton exists in virtue of his existence, discovering the grounding relationship that
650 holds between him and his singleton, then he does understand why his singleton
651 exists. And if he learns both what grounds his singleton and the truth of <Joe
45 Supporters of a grounding account of truthmaking include Cameron (2018), Liggins

(2012), Rodriquez-Pereyra (2005), and Schaffer (2008a), pp. 10-18, (2008b), pp. 309-312,
and (2010), pp. 309-311.

17
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

652 exists>, then he understands why those supervene on one another as well.
653

654 Grounding can also supply understanding where the part-whole relationship
655 cannot. A person that merely knows that some letters compose a word does
656 not yet understand why those letters are a syllable, nor does learning that a
657 heart is part of an organism grant an understanding of why it is a heart. If
658 Joe learns, however, that a collection of cells is a stomach in virtue of playing
659 the digestive role for the organism, then he does understand why it is a stom-
660 ach. Likewise, if Joe learns that a couple letters are a syllable because of how a
661 word is pronounced, then he does understand why they form a syllable. This is
662 because part-whole relationships do not always clarify grounding relationships.
663 As Ross Cameron and Jonathan Schaffer have pointed out, ‘some wholes might
664 be grounded in their parts, others might give ground to them.’46 In cases where
665 wholes give ground to their parts, it is particularly clear that the part-whole
666 relationship cannot provide understanding without the grounding relationship
667 between the whole and its parts.
668

669 Even if grounding knowledge is gained via testimony, it can still bring someone
670 closer to understanding. Just like causation, it is possible that someone ob-
671 tains knowledge of a grounding relation without also gaining understanding. If
672 Joe’s professor tells him that his existence grounds the existence of his singleton
673 but Joe does not learn any more about why this is the case, he might know
674 why his singleton exists without understanding why it does. Like Pritchard has
675 pointed out, unless there is a deeper epistemic grasp about the connection be-
676 tween two facts, testimonial knowledge does not always result in understanding.
677 Even though it is possible to have grounding knowledge without understanding,
678 grounding knowledge still brings a person closer to understanding than other
679 dependence relations. When Joe just knew that his existence supervened on
680 the existence of his singleton, not only did he not understand why his single-
681 ton existed, he also did not know why it existed either. Grounding knowledge
682 thus brings Joe closer to understanding than a mere knowledge of supervenience.
683

684 What differentiates causation and grounding from supervenience and the part-
685 whole relationship? Why do the former relations result in understanding, while
686 the latter do not? The relevant difference is that causation and grounding are
687 both dependence relations and explanatory relations. One of the primary tasks
688 of the sciences is causal explanation, discovering the causal links between phe-
689 nomena that then issue in explanations.47 Because causation is an explanatory
690 relationship, it is able to grant understanding of the link between Mauna Loa
691 and Kilauea in a way that merely knowing about the supervenience relationship
692 between them does not. Along with causation, grounding is also capable of
693 giving rise to explanation. Some take it that grounding itself is an explanatory
694 relation, others that it backs such explanations.48 All we need for our purposes
46 SeeCameron (2016), p. 386.
47 See,for instance, Salmon (1984) and Woodward (2003).
48 Those who take the former view include Dasgupta (2014), Fine (2012a), Litland (2013),

18
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

695 is that grounding generates explanations, an obvious result of the grounding-is-

696 explanatory view and also predicted by the grounding-backs-explanation view.
697 On both views, worldly determination relations like causation give rise to ex-
698 planations, and grounding is one such relation. This differentiates grounding
699 from other sorts of dependence relations, making it capable of contributing to
700 understanding in much the same way as causation.
701

702 Grimm and Greco were on the right track – dependence relations do play an
703 important role in understanding. Where Grimm and Greco went wrong is to
704 think that understanding can be supplied by all dependence relationships. As
705 we have seen, grasping supervenience and part-whole relationships does not al-
706 ways result in understanding. This is because these dependence relations do
707 not give rise to explanation. Grounding, however, is both a dependence relation
708 and an explanatory relation, making it capable of giving rise to understand-
709 ing. Grimm and Greco are thus partially vindicated. Dependence is a helpful
710 starting place for thinking about understanding, an initial position that then
711 points us towards grounding and causation as possible sources of understand-
712 ing. Ultimately, however, the reason that these dependence relationships yield
713 understanding is because they are also explanatory, making Explanation the
714 best view of understanding.

715 Conclusion
716 Despite all of the work done on grounding, the thought that understanding
717 can be supplied by any dependence relation whatsoever persists. In his recent
718 chapter, “What’s the Point of Understanding?”, Michael Hannon adopts De-
719 pendence, arguing that diverse dependence relations can grant understanding
720 of a wide range of subject matters:
721 We should expect different kinds of explanations from different subject
722 matters. Thus, an attractive strategy proposed by Kim (1994), Greco
723 (2014), and Grimm (2014) is to set aside the narrow focus on causation
724 and appeal to the more general notion of dependence. On this view,
725 dependence is the genus category, with different kinds of dependence —
726 causal, mereological, grounding — playing the role of species.49

727 Like Grimm and Greco, Hannon singles out dependence relations as the relation
728 crucial to understanding. According to Hannon, grasping a dependence relation
729 provides understanding, with different varieties of dependence giving way to un-
730 derstanding of distinct subject matters. Like Grimm and Greco though, Hannon
731 fails to note that grasping certain dependence relationships does not result in
732 understanding.
733

Raven (2012), and Rosen (2010), while those who endorse the latter view include Audi (2012b),
Correia and Schnieder (2012), Koslicki (2012), Schaffer (2012), and Trogdon (2013).
49 See Hannon (2019), p. 228.

19
 Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

734 Also like Grimm and Greco, at the same time that Hannon identifies under-
735 standing with Dependence, he also characterizes understanding in terms of
736 Explanation: ‘Attributions of understanding are primarily used to identify in-
737 dividuals who can provide us with explanations.’50 According to Hannon, we
738 value understanding because we ultimately desire strong explanations. Find-
739 ing those with understanding supplies us with these explanations, revealing the
740 importance of understanding. As we have seen though, dependence relations
741 are not always explanatory. If what is valuable about understanding is that
742 it picks out those with explanations, then Hannon should adopt Explanation
743 over Dependence. Only a subset of dependence relations supply explanation
744 as well as understanding.
745

746 The one improvement that Hannon does make on Dependence is that he in-
747 cludes grounding in his list of dependence relations that can give rise to under-
748 standing. Grounding is one of the primary dependence relations that can give
749 rise to non-causal explanations, and because of this connection with explana-
750 tion, grounding is able to supply understanding in a vast range of cases, cases
751 where other dependence relations cannot. Because grounding can help clarify
752 the concept of understanding, this gives further reason to think that grounding
753 talk is valuable. Grounding is explanatory in a way that other dependence re-
754 lations are not, giving it a link to understanding that goes above and beyond
755 other dependence relations. While this does not directly rebut all of the criti-
756 cisms of the grounding skeptics, it gives reason to think that grounding might
757 be theoretically useful in epistemology much the same way that modal notions
758 solidified their standing by proving to have applications within epistemology.51

50 Ibid, p. 225.
51 I want to thank Michael Bruckner, Stew Cohen, Juan Comesaña, Samuel Dishaw, Denish
Jaswal, JiMin Kwon, Felipe Morales, Brian Pollex, Joshua Schechter, Adham El Shazly, Andy
Sin, Jason Turner, and an audience of the Understanding Working Group of the Early Career
Epistemologists Network for their generous feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

20
Grounding, Understanding, and Explanation

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