Itamar Weinshtock Saadon

Reality is composed of facts that enter into two kinds of determination or explanatory relations: grounding and causation. When one fact grounds or causes another, it determines it. It is common to think that each such determination relation is asymmetric. I shall argue for the stronger Euthyphro Principle, according to which determination itself is asymmetric. If A partly determines B—either by partly grounding it or by partly causing it—then it is not the case that B partly determines A—either by partly grounding it or by partly causing it. If this is right, many philosophical views are incompatible with some intuitive claims about their subject matters. Hence, the principle has serious implications in various parts of philosophy. The paper argues for the principle and responds to putative counterexamples.