Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground

We find verticalrelations in many different realms, whether between atoms and molecules, wordsand sentences, neurons and brains, or individuals and societies. This book isthe first to bring together, and comparatively assess, the exciting array ofphilosophical approaches to vertical relations that have independently sprungup in analytic metaphysics, the metaphysics of mind, and the philosophy ofscience. Analytic metaphysicians have recentlyfocused on a relation of 'Ground' that is claimed to be found in aesthetics,ethics, logic, mathematics, science, and semantics. Metaphysicians of mind have focussed on avertical relation of 'realization' between properties, whilst philosophers ofscience associated with the rise of the 'New Mechanism' have renewed interestin vertical relations of scientific composition found in so-called mechanisticexplanations. This volume analyses the inter-relations between these differentapproaches to spark a range of new debates, including whether the variousframeworks for vertical relations are independent, complementary or in even competition.