This paper provides a sketch of a fresh conception of the “metaphysics” of culture and a sense of its conceptual power and advantages, based on a post-Darwinian account of the artifactual, hybrid nature of a person, chiefly in terms of (what I treat as terms of art) Bildung (“external” and “internal”), Sittlichkeit (both descriptive and normative), and interpretation (diversely manifested in different sectors of inquiry). I consider the (“metaphysical”) relationship between membership in the species Homo sapiens sapiens and functioning as (...) a person the generic distinction of human cultures (enlanguaged cultures), which I call Intentionality (that is, whatever is culturally significant or significative); and the bearing of the thesis on familiar philosophical quarrels and theory of the sciences. (shrink)

Two opposed movements of thought threaten philosophy as an autonomous practice from the inside: scientific naturalism and quietism. Naturalism (qua methodological thesis) threatens to turn philosophy into a mere ancilla of the sciences, quietism understood as the prescription to remain silent in philosophy would not countenance any more "positive" philosophy. This book reconstructs naturalism and quietism such that it becomes clear naturalism does have the potential to end philosophy as an autonomous practice and that quietism, correctly understood, does not. To (...) this end, this book provides arguments against the prevailing orthodox status of naturalism and a heterogenous reading of Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical quietism as the rejection of a certain kind of theories in philosophy, namely quasi-scientific theories. (shrink)

In his article “Opacity” (1986), David Kaplan propounded a counterexample to the the- sis, defended by Quine and known as Quine’s Theorem, that establishes the illegitimacy of quantifying from outside into a position not open to substitution. He ingeniously built his counterexample using Quine’s own philosophical material and novel devices, arc quotes and $entences. The present article offers detailed analysis and critical discus- sion of Kaplan’s counterexample and proposes a reasonable reformulation of Quine’s Theorem that bypasses both this counterexample and (...) another, in the author’s opinion, more persuasive counterexample, also discussed in this paper and somehow implicit in “Opacity”, which involves Russellian propositions instead of the Quinean apparatus. (shrink)

By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology. Semantics is the study of meaning. But what exactly is "meaning"? (...) What is the exact target of semantic theory? Much of the early work in natural language semantics was accompanied by extensive reflection on the aims of semantic theory, and the form a theory must take to meet those aims. But this meta-theoretical reflection has not kept pace with recent theoretical innovations. This volume re-addresses these questions concerning the foundations of natural language semantics in light of the current state-of-the-art in semantic theorising. (shrink)

Rémi Tison Dans cet article, je traite de la nature des processus cognitifs sous-tendant nos attributions d’états mentaux aux animaux non humains. Selon la conception traditionnelle, nous n’avons qu’un accès indirect aux états mentaux d’autrui, qui doivent être inférés sur la base du comportement. Cette conception traditionnelle influence autant les débats conceptuels concernant l’esprit des animaux que les recherches empiriques sur la cognition animale. Or de récents travaux sur la cognition sociale humaine avancent plutôt une conception « interactionniste », selon (...) laquelle les états mentaux peuvent parfois être directement perçus dans le comportement. J’applique dans cet article la conception interactionniste à l’attribution d’états mentaux aux animaux. Je conclus que celle-ci rend mieux compte des attitudes du sens commun à l’égard des états mentaux des animaux et est plus féconde pour la recherche empirique sur la cognition animale que la conception traditionnelle. (shrink)

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)

I revisit my 1993 paper on Putnam and mathematical realism focusing on the indispensability argument and how it has fared over the years. This argument starts from the claim that mathematics is an indispensable part of science and draws the conclusion, from holistic considerations about confirmation, that the ontology of science includes abstract objects as well as the physical entities science deals with.

Few if any distinctions are more easily recognisable and assented to than that between _objects_, that is, things which are some ways, and that which they are, that is, _ways for objects to be_ (‘ways of being’ for short). In this paper I present an argument designed to show that this distinction is indeterminate in the sense that the truth-conditions of predicational sentences leave open what should count as an object and a way of being. The bulk of the argument (...) is inspired by the celebrated permutation argument advanced by Quine, Wallace, Putnam and others. (shrink)

The cell assembly is an important concept for cognitive psychology. Cognitive processing will to a large extent depend on the relations that can exist between different assemblies. A potential relation between assemblies can already be seen in the occurrence of (classical) conditioning. However, the resulting associations between assemblies only produce behavioristic processing or so-called regular computation. Higher-level cognitive abilities most likely result from nonregular computation. I discuss the possibility of this form of computation in terms of cell assemblies.

The idea that some objects are metaphysically “cheap” has wide appeal. An influential version of the idea builds on abstractionist views in the philosophy of mathematics, on which numbers and other mathematical objects are abstracted from other phenomena. For example, Hume’s Principle states that two collections have the same number just in case they are equinumerous, in the sense that they can be correlated one-to-one: (HP) #xx=#yy iff xx≈yy. The principal aim of this article is to use the notion of (...) grounding to develop this sort of abstractionism. The appeal to grounding enables a unified response to the two main challenges that confront abstractionism. First, we must explicate the metaphor of meta- physical “cheapness.” Second, we must rebut the “bad company” objection, which rejects abstraction principles like (HP) as tarnished by their similarity to inconsistent principles like Frege’s Basic Law V. By enforcing a simple requirement that all abstraction be properly grounded, we propose a unified solution to these two hard, and prima facie unrelated, problems. On our view, grounded abstraction simultaneously ensures “cheap” abstracta and permissible abstraction. (shrink)

I wish to discuss in this paper some of the problems involved in determining whether subjects on particular occasions are justified in coming to believe a proposition. I will argue that in attributing actual justification to a particular subject–subjective justification–we have to take into account factual-psychological questions and that these are the source of fundamental difficulties. These factual-psychological questions concern the beliefs someone uses in the process of acquiring another belief and the actual connections she makes among her beliefs.But why (...) should epistemologists be interested in making attributions of actual justification to particular subjects? After all, if the central goal of epistemology is to guide us in choosing rational strategies for supporting our beliefs, or to assess whether theories are well grounded or acceptable, epistemologists should be concerned with the justification a theory or proposition might have independently of anyone actually coming to believe it. This may be so, but it has to be shown that it is so. Moreover, the consideration of the factual-psychological questions involved in attributions of subjective justification seems to be necessary in some recent hybrid forms of naturalized epistemology. I call them ‘hybrid’ because, unlike Quine’s naturalized epistemology, they include in the epistemological task more than naturalistic explanations of how we acquire our language and beliefs. Besides taking into consideration the actual processes of our coming to believe or accept sentences, they also make use of epistemic notions like justification, warrant, relevant or right connection among beliefs, and so forth. (shrink)

Ethologists and others studying animal behavior in a spirit are in need of a descriptive language and method that are neither anachronistically bound by behaviorist scruples nor prematurely committed to particular Just such an interim descriptive method can be found in intentional system theory. The use of intentional system theory is illustrated with the case of the apparently communicative behavior of vervet monkeys. A way of using the theory to generate data - including usable, testable data - is sketched. The (...) underlying assumptions of this approach can be seen to ally it directly with theorizing in evolutionary biology, which has recently come under attack from Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin, who castigate it as the Their arguments, which are strongly analogous to B. F, Skinner's arguments against point to certain pitfalls that attend the careless exercise of such thinking (and rival varieties of thinking as well), but do not constitute a fundamental objection to either adaptationist theorizing or its cousin, intentional system theory. (shrink)

No response that was not as long and intricate as the two commentaries combined could do justice to their details, so what follows will satisfy nobody, myself included. I will concentrate on one issue discussed by both commentators: the relationship between evolution and teleological (or intentional) explanation. My response, in its brevity, may have just one virtue: it will confirm some of the hunches (or should I say suspicions) that these and other writers have entertained about my views. For more (...) closely argued defenses of my points, see Dennett 1990a,b,c; 1991a,b. (shrink)

It’s been a long productive ride, but it’s time to get off the bandwagon and recognize that the Cartesian tradition, in analytic philosophy of language and mind and linguistics, has played itself o...

Écrire un livre sur les fondements empiriques de la signification qui reprenne la question tant débattue de la critique de l'analycité, de la traduction radicale et de l'indétermination de la traduction, d'un point de vue éclairant, précis, et renouvelé à bien des égards, est la gageure que relève Martin Montminy avec son excellent livre Les fondements empiriques de la signification. La thèse simple mais convaincante de l'auteur est que la critique de l'analycité et de la distinction entre analytique et synthétique, (...) comme critique de toute approche normative de la signification, est la voie d'entrée, le fil directeur et l'argument central des différentes thèses de Quine sur l'épistémologie naturalisée, le holisme épistémologique et l'indétermination de la traduction. C'est par ce biais qu'il défend une approche empirique de la signification liant toute théorie sémantique à des données empiriques en principe accessibles à un observateur. Par ce fil directeur, Montminy, dans une argumentation toujours claire et explicite, offre à la fois une introduction pédagogique au. (shrink)

This thesis attempts to justify a normative role for methodology by sketching a pragmatic way out of the dichotomy between two major strands in economic methodology: empiricism and postmodernism. I discuss several methodological approaches and assess their aptness for theory appraisal in economics. I begin with the most common views on methodology and argue why they are each ill-suited for giving methodological prescriptions to economics. Then, I consider positions that avoid the errors of empiricism and postmodernism. I specifically examine why (...) the two major strands of methodological criticism fail to give helpful methodological advice to economists and sketch out a pragmatic approach that can do this. (shrink)

Theoretical equivalence and duality are two closely related notions: but their interconnection has so far not been well understood. In this paper I explicate the contribution of a recent schema for duality to discussions of theoretical equivalence. I argue that duality suggests a construal of theoretical equivalence in the physical sciences. The construal is in terms of the isomorphism of models, as defined by the schema. This construal gives interpretative constraints that should be useful for discussions of theoretical equivalence more (...) generally. I illustrate the construal in various formulations of Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. (shrink)

I begin to develop a framework for emergence in the physical sciences. Namely, I propose to explicate ontological emergence in terms of the notion of ‘novel reference’, and of an account of interpretation as a map from theory to world. I then construe ontological emergence as the “failure of the interpretation to mesh” with an appropriate linkage map between theories. Ontological emergence can obtain between theories that have the same extension but different intensions, and between theories that have both different (...) extensions and intensions. I illustrate the framework in three examples: the emergence of spontaneous magnetisation in a ferromagnet, the emergence of masslessness, and the emergence of space, in specific models of physics. The account explains why ontological emergence is independent of reduction: namely, because emergence is primarily concerned with adequate interpretation, while the sense of reduction that is relevant here is concerned with inter-theoretic relations between uninterpreted theories. (shrink)

I begin to develop a framework for emergence in the physical sciences. Namely, I propose to explicate ontological emergence in terms of the notion of ‘novel reference’, and of an account of interpretation as a map from theory to world. I then construe ontological emergence as the “failure of the interpretation to mesh” with an appropriate linkage map between theories. Ontological emergence can obtain between theories that have the same extension but different intensions, and between theories that have both different (...) extensions and intensions. I illustrate the framework in three examples: the emergence of spontaneous magnetisation in a ferromagnet, the emergence of masslessness, and the emergence of space, in specific models of physics. The account explains why ontological emergence is independent of reduction: namely, because emergence is primarily concerned with adequate interpretation, while the sense of reduction that is relevant here is concerned with inter-theoretic relations between uninterpreted theories. (shrink)

I begin to develop a framework for emergence in the physical sciences. Namely, I propose to explicate ontological emergence in terms of the notion of ‘novel reference’, and of an account of interpretation as a map from theory to world. I then construe ontological emergence as the “failure of the interpretation to mesh” with an appropriate linkage map between theories. Ontological emergence can obtain between theories that have the same extension but different intensions, and between theories that have both different (...) extensions and intensions. I illustrate the framework in three examples: the emergence of spontaneous magnetisation in a ferromagnet, the emergence of masslessness, and the emergence of space, in specific models of physics. The account explains why ontological emergence is independent of reduction: namely, because emergence is primarily concerned with adequate interpretation, while the sense of reduction that is relevant here is concerned with inter-theoretic relations between uninterpreted theories. (shrink)

We need not accommodate facts about meaning if Quine is right about the indeterminacy of subsentential expressions; there can be no such facts to accommodate. Evans argued that Quine's approach overlooks the ways speakers use predication to endow their use of subsentential expressions with the necessary determinacy. This paper offers a critical assessment of the debate in relation to current arguments about naturalism and shows how Evans's response depends on a basic claim that turns out to be false.

En este escrito se analiza la significación y el uso filosófico que Wittgenstein dio en su pensamiento maduro al concepto de forma de vida. Así, aunque se señala que Wittgenstein sólo hizo uso de dicho concepto en el contexto de la justificación de la praxis lingüística como límite epistemológico, se enfatiza no obstante que en ese uso ya es posible vislumbrar una cierta concepción antropológica sobre los seres humanos como animales de conducta expresiva, intencional, simbólica, lingüística generadora de reglas y (...) amante de regularidades. El artículo acaba con un análisis del problema de la forma de vida de los animales y su relación con la forma de vida humana: en concreto se destaca el carácter lingüístico y cultural de la forma de vida humana, y se muestran los límites en la atribución a los animales no-humanos de los predicados mentales humanos. (shrink)

Suzanne de Castell; On Writing of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 39–49, https://doi.org/10.1111.

In this paper, I respond to recent attempts by philosophers to deny the existence of something that is both real and significant: reasonable disagreements between epistemic peers. In their arguments against the possibility of such disagreements, skeptical philosophers typically invoke one or more of the following: indifference reasoning , equal weight principles , and uniqueness theses . I take up each of these in turn, finding ample reason to resist them. The arguments for indifference reasoning and equal weight principles tend (...) to overlook the possibility of a certain kind of agnostic credal state which I call deep agnosticism , the possibility of which derails the arguments. The arguments for uniqueness theses tend to invoke a flawed understanding of the evidential support relation. When these problems and misunderstandings are brought into the light and corrected, the threat to reasonable disagreement vanishes. (shrink)

This paper argues that phenomenal or internal metrical spaces are redundant posits. It is shown that we need not posit an internal space-time frame, as the physical space-time suffices to explain geometrical perception, memory and planning. More than the internal space-time frame, the idea of a phenomenal colour space has lent credibility to the idea of internal spaces. It is argued that there is no phenomenal colour space that underlies the various psychophysical colour spaces; it is parasitic upon physical and (...) psychophysical colour spaces. The argumentation is further extended to other sensory spaces and generalised quality spaces. (shrink)

The idea has recently taken root that evolutionary theory and social constructivism are less antagonistic than most theorists thought, and we have even seen attempts at integrating constructivist and evolutionary approaches to human thought and behaviour. We argue in this article that although the projected integration is possible, indeed valuable, the existing attempts have tended to be vague or overly simplistic about the claims of social constructivist. We proceed by examining how to give more precision and substance to the research (...) programme of evolutionary social constructivism, a task we accomplish by focusing on the specific selection pressures that may have shaped the psychological and cultural mechanisms that give rise to social constructions. The benefit of such an integration for social constructivism is to have a solid foundation in the natural sciences. For evolutionists, evolutionary social constructivism offers a wider assortment of methods with which to study the interplay between culture and human nature. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the method of explication as a procedure for conceptual engineering in philosophy and in science. In the philosophical literature, there has been a lively debate about the different desiderata that a good explicatum has to satisfy. In comparison, the goal of explicating the concept of explication itself has not been central to the philosophical debate. The main aim of this work is to suggest a way of filling this gap by explicating (...) ‘explication’ by means of conceptual spaces theory. Specifically, I show how different, strictly-conceptual readings of explication desiderata can be made precise as geometrical or topological constraints over the conceptual spaces related to the explicandum and the explicatum. Moreover, I show also how the richness of the geometrical representation of concepts in conceptual spaces theory allows us to achieve more fine-grained readings of explication desiderata, thereby overcoming some alleged limitations of explication as a procedure of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

To what extent are countability distinctions subject to systematic semantic variation? Could there be a language with no countability distinctions—in particular, one where all nouns are count? I argue that the answer is no: even in a language where all NPs have the core morphosyntactic properties of English count NPs, such as combining with numerals directly and showing singular/plural contrasts, countability distinctions still emerge on close inspection. I divide these distinctions into those related to sums and those related to parts. (...) In the Sahaptian language Nez Perce, evidence can be found for both types of distinction, in spite of the absence of anything like a traditional mass–count division in noun morphosyntax. I propose an extension of the Nez Perce analysis to Yudja, analyzed by Lima as lacking any countability distinctions. More generally, I suggest that at least one countability distinction may be universal and that languages without any countability distinctions may be unlearnable. (shrink)

The primary theoretical focus of this paper is on Free Choice uses of any, in particular on two phenomena that have remained largely unstudied. One involves the ability of any phrases to occur in affirmative episodic statements when aided by suitable noun modifiers. The other involves the difference between modals of necessity and possibility with respect to licensing of any. The central thesis advanced here is that FC any is a universal determiner whose domain of quantification is not a set (...) of particular individuals but the set of possible individuals of the relevant kind. In a theory of genericity utilizing situations, an any phrase can be seen as having a universal quantifier binding the situation variable of the common noun. This inherent genericity is argued to be at the heart of the intuition that any statements support counterfactual inferences and do not involve existential commitments. A conflict in presuppositions is shown to account for the incompatibility of unmodified any phrases in affirmative episodic statements and the crucial role played by modification in ameliorating this clash is explicated. In the case of modals of necessity, the interaction between the universal force of any and the particular modal base is shown to be crucial. In view of these facts it is argued that FC any is not directly licensed by modal or generic operators as generally assumed but that its felicitous use is sensitive to the pragmatics of epistemic modality. Turning to its polarity sensitive uses, language internal as well as crosslinguistic evidence is presented to distinguish it from FC any in having the existential quantificational force typical of indefinites. The paper concludes by suggesting that the common tie between them is that they both occur in statements that apply to a class of entities, rather than to particular members of the class. (shrink)

For philosophers, the current phase of the debate with which this volume is concerned can be taken to have begun in 1986, when Jane Heal and Robert Gordon published their seminal papers (Heal, 1986; Gordon, 1986; though see also, for example, Stich, 1981; Dennett, 1981). They raised a dissenting voice against what was becoming a philosophical orthodoxy: that our everyday, or folk, understanding of the mind should be thought of as theoretical. In opposition to this picture, Gordon and Heal argued (...) that we are not theorists but simulators. For psychologists, the debate had begun somewhat earlier when Heider (1958) produced his work on lay psychology; and in more recent times the psychological debate had continued in developmental psychology and in work on animal cognition. (shrink)

This is a study of the syntax and semantics of reports containing speech-act and propositional attitude verbs with quotational complements. I make the case that while the quotational complements of some verbs, including _utter_, are nominal and metalinguistic, those of others, including _assert_ and _believe_, are clausal and nonmetalinguistic. Quotational reports with ‘say’ are ambiguous. When quotational complements are clausal, they are like _that_-clauses in being subordinate content clauses with main-clause form. Unlike _that_-clauses, quote-clauses force deictic shift and are unambiguously (...) opaque. I also argue that quotation marks serve a different function in “mixed” reports, and that use of the traditional “direct” and “indirect” is not consistent with their traditional definitions. (shrink)

In a novel move against Russellianism, Heck (2014) has argued that reports of the form S believes that p are semantically opaque on the grounds that there are no other means in English to report psychologically individuated beliefs, such as those Lois Lane reports using the names ‘Superman’ and ‘Clark Kent.’ I show that there are several other ways to meet this need. I focus on quotational reports of the form S believes “p,” which philosophers have overlooked or mischaracterized. I (...) argue that reports of this form are no more metalinguistic than those using the complementizer that. In both, the meaning of the report depends on the meaning, not the form, of the complement. Some distinguishing features of non-metalinguistic quotational reports are that their complements force “deictic shift” and have no transparent interpretation. Free direct speech and thought bubbles have the same properties. The “q-ascriptions” McCullagh (2017a) proposed to defend Russellianism against Heck are not in common use and on his account are unsuitably metalinguistic. The fact that quotational belief reports are opaque without being metalinguistic makes the Russellian thesis that the meaning of a name is its referent untenable, thereby undermining Russellianism about belief reports. (shrink)

Goldstein reported multiple cases of failure to categorise colours in patients that he termed amnesic or anomic aphasics. These patients have a particular difficulty in producing perceptual categories in the absence of other aphasic impairments. We hold that neuropsychological evidence supports the view that the task of colour categorisation is logically impossible without labels.

Real causal systems are complicated. Despite this, causal learning research has traditionally emphasized how causal relations can be induced on the basis of idealized events, i.e. those that have been mapped to binary variables and abstracted from time. For example, participants may be asked to assess the efficacy of a headache-relief pill on the basis of multiple patients who take the pill (or not) and find their headache relieved (or not). In contrast, the current study examines learning via interactions with (...) continuous dynamic systems, systems that include continuous variables that interact over time (and that can be continuously observed in real time by the learner). To explore such systems, we develop a new framework that represents a causal system as a network of stationary Gauss--Markov (``\OU'') processes and show how such \textit{OU networks} can express complex dynamic phenomena such as feedback loops and oscillations. To assess adult's abilities to learn such systems, we conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to identify the causal relationships of a number of OU networks, potentially carrying out multiple, temporally-extended interventions. We compared their judgments to a normative model for learning OU networks as well as a range of alternative and heuristic learning models from the literature. We found that, although participants exhibited substantial learning of such systems, they committed certain systematic errors. These successes and failures were best accounted for by a model that describes people as focusing on pairs of variables, rather than evaluating the evidence with respect to the full space of possible structural models. We argue that our approach provides both a principled framework for exploring the space of dynamic learning environments as well as new algorithmic insights into how people interact successfully with a continuous causal world. (shrink)

Nowadays, essentialism has obtained various senses and its extension reaches out over many branches of study who have some immediate connection with it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and David Wiggins are the notable upholders of essentialism. The Essentialist movement which stemmed from the view that philosophy is a speculative study of Reality was temporarily suspended or stagnated by the spirited movement of the logical positivists like Moritz Schlick, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer. According to (...) these philosophers, philosophy is simply an activity of analysis of the fundamental concepts of ordinary language or of science or of any other discipline. Such concept—analysis—philosophers are called anti-essentialist. Here, I shall concentrate on the views of Aristotle. I shall discuss the doctrine of essence, natural kinds, real essence in favour of essentialism and also discuss W. V. O. Quine’s view as an anti-essentialist trend. At last I shall try to examine whether and to what extent an attack of essences reflects back certain essentialist commitments, which is to see what reasonable theory of essences can be eked out from the entire exercise. (shrink)

Let “explanationism” be the view that ontology is fundamentally an explanatory enterprise. What it does is “on a par” with natural science, as Quine put it. Carnap appears to offer a “lighter weight” alternative in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”: ontology is concerned with semantics and language choice. This paper argues that Carnap’s account of the internal/external distinction is of less use than Carnap suggests for diagnosis of disputes in ontology. But he largely agrees with Quine about explanationism. I propose that (...) explanationism is an attractive metametaphysical position between “heavy weight” and “light weight” views. Its method is abductive inference, which is broader than “light weight” methods. Since it is “on a par” with natural science, ontology contributes nothing beyond the claim that what there is, is what our best theories say there is. Hence, it is not “heavy weight”. (shrink)