Metaphysical Grounding and Being’s Incompleteness

In order to argue that Being is incomplete, this article engages recent views which regard metaphysical grounding as a form of ontological dependence. In contrast to foundational versions of grounding, it argues that grounding is ubiquitous, multidirectional, and multilevel. Each thing partially grounds, generates, and constitutes every other thing. Grounding is never full. Since grounding is always partial, a thing is never fully real. This is a condition of possibility of its reality. If it were to be fully grounded, per impossible , it would be incapable of further development or change. It would be wholly static and frozen. This is true for each thing and for the universe itself. The monistic One is never fully one and reality is never completely real. This ontology is gunky, junky, and hunky: everything partly grounds and is grounded by everything else, so that everything has parts and also is a constituent in a greater whole. Whereas the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna would assert that this means everything is empty and unreal, everything is partially real. However, things are never fully real because they are never fully grounded.