Process, Pattern, and Persistence: An Event-based Hylophmorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem

This paper addresses the grounding problem of coincident objects: the puzzle of how two things, such as a statue and the lump of clay of which it is composed, can share the same physical matter and location while possessing different modal properties (e.g., persistence conditions), thus in what are these properties grounded?. I argue that this problem is a pseudo-problem that dissolves when we replace a traditional substance-based ontology with an event-based hylomorphism. Drawing on Peter Simons' formalization of Alfred North Whitehead's partition definition in Process and Reality, alongside Kathrin Koslicki and Simon Evnin's more recent hylomorphic mereology, I develop a formal system for describing objects as temporally extended processes—ie dynamic patterns of inheritance that integrate physical and conceptual poles at each moment of becoming. I then ground their modal properties in the structure of these temporally extended patterns as well as the conditions in which they cohere. To show my machinery has explanatory power beyond metaphysical puzzles I apply it to two challenging test cases: the digitization of ancient manuscripts and 2) the shifting, contextual identity of religious icons. I conclude by reframing the grounding problem as the question of how one process can be represented multiple ways, and understood through multiple, diverging patterns.