Ontological Disagreement

In this paper I argue against what I label as "Lightweight interpretation of ontological disputes". This interpretation criteria sees ontological disputes as metalinguistic negotiations concerning the pursuing of practical objectives. I have developed an argument, called "That's not the issue", which shows that this interpretation criteria is inapplicable to most ontological disputes.

Verbal disputes are often seen as closely related to a lack of substantivity. However, a systematic and comprehensive investigation of how verbalness relates to substantivity is still missing. The present paper attempts to close this gap. In addition to offering different conceptions of verbalness, the paper further develops Sider’s (2011) notion of substantivity. Ultimately, I argue for a more careful choice of terminology when it comes to assessing a dispute as “(merely) verbal” or “nonsubstantive”. While the paper shows that there (...) is no strict logical relation between mere verbalness and nonsubstantivity construed along the lines set out by Sider, it also demonstrates that further notable notions of (mere) verbalness and substantivity are in fact closely intertwined. (shrink)

The objectively best language is intended to refer to some metaphysically privileged language that ‘carves reality at its joints’ perfectly. That is, it is the kind of language that various ‘metaphysical deflationists’ have argued is impossible. One common line of argument amongst deflationists is that we have no means to compare languages that all express true facts about the world in such a way to decide which is ‘better’. For example, the language is physics is not objectively better than the (...) language of economics, as each language has the semantic purpose of expressing some domain of truths about the world inexpressible in the other language, and therefore neither could be ‘objectively best’. In this paper, I argue that metaphysical deflationists have failed to recognise a distinction between fine- and coarse-grained semantic purposes of languages, and that a recognition of that distinction provides us grounds to compare languages to see which is objectively best. I argue that once we recognise the distinction between fine- and coarse-grained semantic purposes, then we can see that it is relative to the coarse-grained purpose that we must compare putative objectively best ontological languages. (shrink)

In this paper, I distinguish between two possible versions of Amie Thomasson’s easy ontology project that differ in virtue of positing atomic or holistic application conditions, and evaluate the strengths of a holistic version over a non-holistic version. In particular, I argue that neither of the recently identified regress or circularity problems are troublesome for the supporter of easy ontology if they adopt a holistic account of application conditions. This is not intended to be a defence of easy ontology from (...) all possible objections, but rather to compare holistic and non-holistic versions of the view. This discussion is also significant in that it serves to highlight two distinct forms of easy ontology, which, I argue, need to be distinguished when assessing the merits of the easy approach in future work. (shrink)

Formal criteria of theoretical equivalence are mathematical mappings between specific sorts of mathematical objects, notably including those objects used in mathematical physics. Proponents of formal criteria claim that results involving these criteria have implications that extend beyond pure mathematics. For instance, they claim that formal criteria bear on the project of using our best mathematical physics as a guide to what the world is like, and also have deflationary implications for various debates in the metaphysics of physics. In this paper, (...) I investigate whether there is a defensible view according to which formal criteria have significant non-mathematical implications, of these sorts or any other, reaching a chiefly negative verdict. Along the way, I discuss various foundational issues concerning how we use mathematical objects to describe the world when doing physics, and how this practice should inform metaphysics. I diagnose the prominence of formal criteria as stemming from contentious views on these foundational issues, and endeavor to motivate some alternative views in their stead. (shrink)

A central dispute in social ontology concerns the existence of group minds and actions. I argue that some authors in this dispute rely on rival views of existence without sufficiently acknowledging this divergence. I proceed in three steps in arguing for this claim. First, I define the phenomenon as an implicit higher-order disagreement by drawing on an analysis of verbal disputes. Second, I distinguish two theories of existence—the theory-commitments view and the truthmaker view—in both their eliminativist and their constructivist variants. (...) Third, I examine individual contributions to the dispute about the existence of group minds and actions to argue that these contributions have an implicit higher-order disagreement. This paper serves two purposes. First, it is a study to apply recent advances in meta-ontology. Second, it contributes to the debate on social ontology by illustrating how meta-ontology matters for social ontology. (shrink)

There is a growing movement towards construing some classic debates in ontology as meaningless, either because the answers seem obvious or the debates seem intractable. In this paper, I respond to this movement. The response has three components: First, the members of the two sides of the ontological debates that dismissivists have targeted are using different quantifiers. Second, the austere ontologist is using a more fundamental quantifier than her opponent. Third, the austere ontologist’s more fundamental quantifier is a restriction of (...) her opponent’s quantifier. This response takes seriously the intuition that there is something wrong with the ontological disputes, but does not entail dismissivism. (shrink)

Many philosophers embrace grounding, supposedly a central notion of metaphysics. Grounding is widely assumed to be irreflexive, but recently a number of authors have questioned this assumption: according to them, it is at least possible that some facts ground themselves. The primary purpose of this paper is to problematize the notion of self-grounding through the theoretical roles usually assigned to grounding. The literature typically characterizes grounding as at least playing two central theoretical roles: a structuring role and an explanatory role. (...) Once we carefully spell out what playing these roles includes, however, we find that any notion of grounding that isn’t irreflexive fails to play these roles when they are interpreted narrowly, and is redundant for playing them when they are interpreted more broadly. The upshot is that no useful notion of grounding can allow a fact to ground itself. (shrink)

This paper argues for a particular view about in what metaphysical equivalence consists: namely, that any two metaphysical theories are metaphysically equivalent if and only if those theories are strongly hyperintensionally equivalent. It is consistent with this characterisation that said theories are weakly hyperintensionally distinct, thus affording us the resources to model the content of propositional attitudes directed towards metaphysically equivalent theories in such a way that non-ideal agents can bear different propositional attitudes towards metaphysically equivalent theories.

Some philosophers deny the existence of composite material objects. Other philosophers hold that whenever there are some things, they compose something. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize an objection to these revisionary views: the objection that nihilism and universalism are both unacceptably uncharitable because each of them implies that a great deal of what we ordinarily believe is false. Our main business is to show how nihilism and universalism can be defended against the objection. A secondary point is (...) that universalism is harder to defend than nihilism. (shrink)

This article examines whether it is possible to uphold one form of deflationism towards metaphysics, ontological pluralism, whilst maintaining metaphysical realism. The focus therefore is on one prominent deflationist who fits the definition of an ontological pluralist, Eli Hirsch, and his self-ascription as a realist. The article argues that ontological pluralism is not amenable to the ascription of realism under some basic intuitions as to what a “realist” position is committed to. These basic intuitions include a commitment to more than (...) a stuff-ontology, and a view that realism carries with it more than a rejection of idealism. This issue is more than merely terminological. The ascription of realism is an important classification in order to understand what sorts of entities can be the truthmakers within a given theory. “Realism” is thus an important term to understand the nature of the entities that a given theory accepts into its ontology. (shrink)

Can the abstract entities be designated? While the empiricists usually took the positive answer to this question as the first step toward Platonism, in his ``Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’’ [Carnap 1950], Carnap tried to make a reconciliation between the language referring to abstract entities on the one hand, and empiricism on the other. In this paper, firstly, I show that the ingenuity of Carnap’s approach notwithstanding, it is prone to criticism from different aspects. But I also show how, even without (...) leaving the empiricist research program, the shortcomings could be amended. Following Carnap’s 1950 outset, and adding some apparently untasteful (Meinongian) ingredients, I will sketch a refined way for dealing with the problem of existence of abstract entities within the framework of the philosophy of empiricism. (shrink)

Following W.V. Quine’s lead, many metaphysicians consider ontology to be concerned primarily with existential questions of the form, “What is there?”. Moreover, if the position advanced by Rudolf Carnap, in his seminal essay, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology ”, is correct, then many of these existential ontological questions ought to be classified as either trivially answerable or as “pseudo-questions”. One may justifiably wonder, however, whether the Quinean and Carnapian perspective on ontology really does justice to many of the most central concerns (...) of this discipline. This chapter argues, by considering a particular ontological dispute between two different kinds of trope theorists, that some of the most interesting and important debates which properly belong to the study of being, whether we call it “metaphysics” or “ ontology ”, do not concern existential questions at all; rather, such disputes in some cases focus on non-existential disagreements over questions of fundamentality. (shrink)

Discordamos sobre todo o tipo de coisas: o que existe, como as coisas funcionam, o que fazer, de que gostamos, etc. Entre os vários tipos de desacordo discutidos em debates filosóficos contemporâneos encontram-se os desacordos irrepreensíveis, os desacordos meramente verbais, e os desacordos entre pares. Os diferentes tipos de desacordo dão lugar a diversos problemas filosóficos. Há filósofos defendem que se o desacordo sobre uma questão é irrepreensível, então talvez não haja verdades objectivas sobre essa questão, e que se um (...) desacordo é meramente verbal, então não existe nenhum problema real em discussão. Algumas consequências destes tipos de desacordo concernem a objectividade dos problemas em causa. Outras consequèncias concernem a racionalidade das nossas crenças, como quando aprendemos que um par epistémico não concorda connosco. Este artigo resume a discussão filosófica contemporânea sobre o desacordo meramente verbal, o desacordo irrepreensível, e o desacordo entre pares. (shrink)

ABSTRACT of The Flying Termite by L.L. Katona -/- In this book I would like to show the term “intelligence“ has a universal, non-anthropomorphic meaning. We can perceive intelligence in dogs, dolphins or gorillas without understanding of it, but intelligence can be also seen in many other things from insects and the Solar System to elementary particles or the rules of a triangle. But that doesn’t mean intelligence comes from Intelligent Design, yet alone a Designer, they seems to be the (...) “state of things” in the Universe. One of the most known law of the triangle is “the measures of the interior angles of a triangle in Euclidean space always add up to 180 degrees.” The question is this law exists without any existing triangle, or not? If there is an encrypted program in DNA, what determines which living being will be a chameleon or a cat, where this program lies? Whether in the DNA itself? But DNA also programmed. Where is the program of a computer? You may say in the hard drive or in the head of the programmer. But the hard drive or the head of the programmer is just the vehicle of the program; when you dissect a computer or a programmer’s head you will not find the program, just the diodes or cells connected by pack of orders. And you won’t see the orders in them. In my book I want to show the works of this elusive intelligence with some interesting contradictions between causality, determinism, teleology, and dependent formation through biology, mathematics and logic. If I need to summarize my idea I can use the following parable. A priest and an atheist are playing with a beach ball in a pool, in a two-dimensioned plane. They are rod-people with a circle. What they can’t perceive is this plane is a part of a three-dimensioned world, where the wind is blowing, so they can’t understand why the ball disappearing continuously, and why it comes back at another point randomly. Both of them have a hint, the ball is a sphere, and the space is three-dimensioned, but instead of trying to work in team to understand this curious phenomena of the Beach Ball, they’re using the old method: insulting each other. (shrink)

This paper defends substantivism about disputes in the metaphysics of composition. That is, it defends the view that disputes about the metaphysics of composition are substantial: they are neither merely apparent disputes in which disputants are talking past one another in virtue of disagreeing about the truth conditions for certain sentences; nor are they disputes in which there is no fact of the matter in the world in virtue of which one party to the dis-pute is right and the other(s) (...) wrong. (shrink)

In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–215) is elaborated diachronically by use of a simulation. The Hegselmann–Krause model is extended to multiple epistemic systems and used to investigate the role of (...) consensus and difference splitting in peer disagreement. I find that the very possibility of multiple epistemic systems downgrades the epistemic value of consensus and makes difference splitting a suboptimal strategy. (shrink)

The problem with ontological commitment is that when we symbolize the statements that we make about what 'exists' or what is 'real', they do not always translate to exactly that which we intend to express. In this essay, I explore the relation between 'Reality' and how we describe reality. I evaluate the accounts of three prominent philosophers on the topic, address their shortcomings, and introduce my own account; which I call "The Natural Definition of Reality".

Abstract: There are two traditionally rival views about the nature of time: substantivalism that takes time to be a substance that exists independently of events located in it, and relationism that takes time to be constructed out of events. In this paper, first, I want to make some progress with respect to the debate between these two views, and I do this mainly by examining the strategies they use to face the possibilities of ‘empty time’ and ‘time without change’. As (...) we shall see, the two allegedly very different rival views are much less different than has been thought: their structure is extremely similar, their strategies are extremely similar, and they can both face the possibilities of ‘empty time’ and ‘time without change’ in the same way. Thus, I argue in favour of a certain kind of equivalence between the two views; I discuss a Strong and a Weak version of this claim; and I provide reasons for endorsing the former. I also discuss the parallel between this pair of views about the nature of time and another analogous pair of views: the bundle theory and the substratum theory about the nature of material objects, with respect to the problem with Identity of Indiscernibles. (shrink)

My focus here will be Rudolf Carnap’s views on ontology, as these are presented in the seminal “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” (1950). I will first describe how I think Carnap’s distinction between external and internal questions is best understood. Then I will turn to broader issues regarding Carnap’s views on ontology. With certain reservations, I will ascribe to Carnap an ontological pluralist position roughly similar to the positions of Eli Hirsch and the later Hilary Putnam. Then I turn to some (...) interrelated arguments against the pluralist view. The arguments are not demonstrative. Some possible escape routes for the pluralist are outlined. But I think the arguments constitute a formidable challenge. There should be serious doubt as to whether the pluralist view, as it emerges after discussion of these arguments, will be worth defending. Moreover, there is an alternative ontological view which equally well subserves the motivations underlying ontological pluralism. (shrink)

There are different ways to be. This paper explicates and defends this controversial thesis. Special attention is given to the meta-ontology of Martin Heidegger. -/- .

In order to re-contextualize the otherwise ontologically privileged meaning of metaphysical debates into a more insubstantial form, metaphysical deflationism runs the risk of having to adopt potentially unwanted anti-realist tendencies. This tension between deflationism and anti-realism can be expressed as follows: in order to claim truthfully that something exists, how can deflationism avoid the anti-realist feature of construing such claims singularly in an analytical fashion? One may choose to adopt a Yablovian fallibilism about existential claims, but other approaches can be (...) appealed to as well. Amie Thomasson's Easy Ontology is one such approach, whereby the interaction of empirical as well as analytic features within the construction of its ontological theory affords a role for analytical rules without forsaking a link with empirical reality. The development of these analytical and empirical features has resulted in significant critiques regarding, one, potential reference failure of easy-ontological claims, and two, a circularity in how easy ontology explains the relation between its analytical rules and existential claims. This essay offers a response by showcasing how an easy ontological deflationism can reject these criticisms without succumbing to, one, the anti-realism of pure analyticism, and two, a further critique of wholesale referential indeterminacy in its referring terms. (shrink)