Color Confinement and Priority Monism: A Grounding-Theoretic Model of Individuation in QCD

This paper argues that the ontological structure of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), interpreted under ontic structural realism and a separatist grounding-theoretic framework, provides a physically precise and non-trivial model for a domain-restricted version of priority monism. The SU(3) gauge field structure is identified as the fundamental grounding base from which confined hadronic entities are constitutively derived. The deconfined regime of QCD — realized physically in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) — is characterized not as a historical thermodynamic state but as the structural condition under which individuation constraints imposed by color confinement are not operative. A formal mapping is constructed between QCD dependence relations and the grounding structure posited by priority monism. The paper defends the move from synchronic structural determination under fundamental laws to grounding, and demonstrates the comparative advantage of the grounding-monist interpretation over priority pluralism and structural realism without grounding. The argument is explicitly conditional: if one accepts grounding and structural realism about QCD, then the monistic interpretation follows as the most parsimonious and structurally coherent account of individuation in the strong-interaction domain. This paper builds upon "The Physical Referent of the Ground of Being: A Metaphysical Interpretation of the Quark-Gluon Plasma" (Pinsonneault, 2026, Zenodo, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18521837), and is continued by "Dissolving the Problem of Evil: A Naturalized Non-Agential Ground in the Ontology of Quantum Chromodynamics" (Pinsonneault, 2026, Zenodo, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19023685)