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The Journal of Philosophy

Volume 111, Issue 9/10, September/October 2014
Ontological Disagreement

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Displaying: 1-6 of 6 documents


1. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
Wolfgang Mann, Achille C. Varzi Foreword
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2. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
C. S. I. Jenkins Serious Verbal Disputes: Ontology, Metaontology, and Analyticity
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This paper builds on some important recent work by Amie Thomasson, wherein she argues that recent disputes about the existence of ordinary objects have arisen due to eliminiativist metaphysicians’ misunderstandings. Some, she argues, are mistaken about how the language of quantification works, while others neglect the existence and significance of certain analytic entailments. Thomasson claims that once these misunderstandings are cleared away, it is trivially easy to answer existence questions about ordinary objects using everyday empirical methods of investigation. She reveals how two conflicting metaontologies can lead to different positions in the first-order debate. In this paper, I bring a third metaontological perspective to the table: one that enables us to maintain that ontological disputes about ordinary objects are not trivially easy to settle, even if we agree with Thomasson that they are merely verbal. These are serious verbal disputes.
3. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
Stephen Yablo Carnap’s Paradox and Easy Ontology
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4. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
Amie L. Thomasson Quizzical Ontology and Easy Ontology
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This paper examines what’s at stake in which form of metaontological deflationism we adopt. Stephen Yablo has argued for a ‘quizzicalist’ approach, holding that many ontological questions are ‘moot’ in the sense that there is simply nothing to settle them. Defenders of the ‘easy approach’ to ontology, by contrast, think not that these questions are unsettled, but that they are very easily settled by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises—so obviously and easily settled that there is no point debating them. The views may differ in terms of how far the deflation extends—while easy ontology deflates debates about ordinary objects, Yablo doesn’t think his view does. But the crucial underlying difference lies in whether we think there are ontological presuppositions for introducing terminology.
5. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
Kristie Lyn Miller Defending Substantivism about Disputes in the Metaphysics of Composition
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6. The Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 111 > Issue: 9/10
Shamik Dasgupta The Possibility of Physicalism
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