Grounding, Simplicity, and Repetition

Abstract

AbstractFor Bolzano, grounding and propositional complexity are connected: simpler and more general truths are supposed to ground more complex and specific truths. How does one measure the complexity of a truth? Bolzano’s answer is: a truth is a whole with parts (‘objective ideas’) and we measure its complexity by counting its parts. But how do we count parts of propositions? Does the proposition that it is not the case that it is not the case that Socrates is wise have five parts or six parts? Plausible assumptions about grounding require that an idea can occur several times in a proposition (‘six’ is the right answer). The repetition problem is the question how one objective can be contained several times in one proposition given that objective ideas are non-spatial and atemporal. The paper argues that this problem can be answered if we take the notion of a position in a proposition seriously.