Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology
Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan)
This Page provides (where held) the Abstract of the above Book and those of all the Papers contained in it.
Text Colour-ConventionsDisclaimerPapers in this BookBooks / Papers Citing this BookNotes Citing this Book


Amazon Product Description

  1. Metaphysics asks questions about existence: for example, do numbers really exist? Metametaphysics asks questions about metaphysics: for example, do its questions have determinate answers? If so, are these answers deep and important, or are they merely a matter of how we use words? What is the proper methodology for their resolution?
  2. These questions have received a heightened degree of attention lately with new varieties of ontological deflationism and pluralism challenging the kind of realism that has become orthodoxy in contemporary analytic metaphysics.
  3. This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline. It brings together many of the central figures in the debate with their most recent work on the semantics, epistemology, and methodology of metaphysics.

Contents
  1. Introduction: A Guided Tour of Metametaphysics (David Manley) – 1
  2. Composition, Colocation, and Metaontology (Karen Bennett) – 38
  3. Ontological Anti-Realism (David J. Chalmers) – 77
  4. Carnap and Ontological Pluralism (Matti Eklund) – 130
  5. The Question of Ontology (Kit Fine) – 157
  6. The Metaontology of Abstraction (Bob Hale and Crispin Wright) – 178
  7. Superficialism in Ontology (John Hawthorne) – 213
  8. Ontology and Alternative Languages (Eli Hirsch) – 231
  9. Ambitious, Yet Modest, Metaphysics (Thomas Hofweber) – 260
  10. Ways of Being (Kris McDaniel) – 290
  11. Metaphysics after Carnap: The Ghost Who Walks? (Huw Price) – 320
  12. On What Grounds What (Jonathan Schaffer) – 347
  13. Ontological Realism (Theodore Sider) – 384
  14. Ontology, Analyticity, and Meaning: The Quine-Carnap Dispute (Scott Soames) – 424
  15. Answerable and Unanswerable Questions (Amie L. Thomasson) – 444
  16. Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment (Peter van Inwagen) – 472
  17. Must Existence-Questions Have Answers (Stephen Yablo) – 507
Book Comment

OUP Oxford (19 Feb 2009)


"Bennett (Karen) - Composition, Colocation, and Metaontology"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Author’s Abstract
  1. The paper is an extended discussion of what I call the ‘dismissive attitude’ towards metaphysical questions.
  2. It has three parts.
    • In the first part, I distinguish three quite different versions of dismissivism. I also argue that there is little reason to think that any of these positions is correct about the discipline of metaphysics as a whole; it is entirely possible that some metaphysical disputes should be dismissed and others should not be. Doing metametaphysics properly requires doing metaphysics first. I then put two particular disputes on the table to be examined in the rest of the paper: the dispute over whether composite objects exist, and the dispute about whether distinct objects can be colocated.
    • In the second part of the paper, I argue against the claim that these disputes are purely verbal disputes.
    • In the third part of the paper, I present a new version of dismissivism, and argue that it is probably the correct view about the two disputes in question. They are not verbal disputes, and the discussion about them to date has not remotely been a waste of time.
  3. At this stage, however, our evidence has run out. I argue that neither side of either dispute is simpler than the other, and that the same objections in fact arise against both sides. (For example, the compositional nihilist does not in fact escape the problem of the many1, and the one-thinger does not in fact escape the grounding problem.)

Sections
  1. ’That’s a Stupid Question’
  2. Three Kinds of Dismissivism
  3. A Methodological Suggestion
  4. Two Metaphysical Disputes
    • Constitution
    • Composition
    • Preliminary Analogies
  5. Difference Minimization I: Downplaying Excess
  6. Against Semanticism
    • Hirsch’s Notion of a Verbal Dispute
    • The Linking Principles are not Analytic
  7. Difference Minimization II: Up-Playing Expressive Power
    • The Nihilist
    • The One-Thinger
  8. The Costs of Up-Playing Expressive Power
  9. Problems Rearising for the Low-Ontologist
  10. The Third Dismissive Attitude

Paper Comment


"Chalmers (David) - Ontological Anti-Realism"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Ontological and Ordinary Existence Assertions
  3. Disagreements in Commonsense Ontology
  4. Disagreements in Ontological Theory
  5. Ontological Realism and Ontological Anti-Realism
  6. Lightweight and Heavyweight Realism
  7. Against Lightweight Realism
  8. Against Heavyweight Realism
  9. Models, Worlds, and Domains
  10. An Analysis of Ordinary Existence Assertions
  11. An Analysis of Ontological Existence Assertions
  12. Questions and Objections
    • What is admissibility?
    • What are the fundamental truths?
    • Is the use of abstract objects legitimate?
    • What about singular terms?
    • Is this ontological pluralism?
    • What are substantive disagreements?
    • What about ontological relativism?
    • What about other ontological debates?
  13. Conclusion


"Eklund (Matti) - Carnap and Ontological Pluralism"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. External and Internal Questions
  3. The Shallowness of Ontological Questions
  4. Ontological Pluralism
  5. Was Carnap an Ontological Pluralist
  6. Semanticism
  7. Against Ontological Pluralism
  8. Some Replies to the Foregoing Arguments
  9. A Different Route?


"Fine (Kit) - The Question of Ontology"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


"Hale (Bob) & Wright (Crispin) - The Metaontology of Abstraction"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


"Hawthorne (John) - Superficialism in Ontology"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Verificationism
  2. Intensional Issues
  3. Hyperintensional Issues
  4. Conclusion


"Hirsch (Eli) - Ontology and Alternative Languages"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Alternative Languages
  3. Verbal Disputes and Interpretive Charity
  4. The Demand for a Semantics
  5. Platonism versus Nominalism
  6. Appendix: Duran’s Dilemma (a Parable)


"Hofweber (Thomas) - Ambitious, Yet Modest, Metaphysics"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. What Can Metaphysics Hope to Do?
    • Two Examples
    • Two Attitudes
    • Two Questions
  2. Ontology as Esoteric Metaphysics
  3. Ontology as Egalitarian Metaphysics
    • Polysemous Quantifiers
    • Non-Referential Singular Terms
    • Internalism versus Externalism
    • Internalism about (Talk about) Natural Numbers
    • Internalism about (Talk about) Properties and Propositions
    • A Domain for Ontology
  4. The Answer to the Ontological Questions
  5. The Prospects for Ontology


"Manley (David) - A Guided Tour of Metametaphysics"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Worrying about Metaphysics
  2. Themes from Carnap and Quine
  3. Verbal Disputes
  4. No Determinate Truth Value?
  5. Epistemic Pessimism
  6. Easy Answers
  7. Defending Mainstream Metaphysics
  8. Reforming Metaphysics
  9. Conclusion


"McDaniel (Kris) - Ways of Being"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Senses of “Being”, Ways of Being
  3. Theodore Sider Meets Martin Heidegger
  4. Heidegger and the Ontological Deflationist
  5. Ways of Believing in Ways of Being
  6. Some Brief Remarks on Other Ontological Debates
    • Subsistence Revisited
    • Possibilism


"Price (Huw) - Metaphysics after Carnap: The Ghost Who Walks?"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. The Car Nap Case
  2. Carnap’s Deflationism
  3. Quine’s Defense of Metaphysics – The Bad News
  4. Carnap, Quine and Ryle on the “Mixing of Spheres”
  5. Saving Ontology
  6. Is there an Argument from Indispensibility?
  7. How Metaphysical is Modal1 Realism?


"Schaffer (Jonathan) - Monism: The Priority of the Whole"

Source: Philosophical Review, Vol. 119, No. 1, 2010


Author's Introduction
  1. Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?
  2. The monist holds that the whole is prior to its parts, and thus views the cosmos as fundamental, with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from the One. The pluralist holds that the parts are prior to their whole, and thus tends to consider particles fundamental, with metaphysical explanation snaking upward from the many. Just as the materialist and idealist debate which properties are fundamental, so the monist and pluralist debate which objects are fundamental.
  3. I will defend the monistic view. In particular I will argue that there are physical and modal considerations that favor the priority of the whole. Physically, there is good evidence that the cosmos forms an entangled system and good reason to treat entangled systems as irreducible wholes. Modally, mereology allows for the possibility of atomless gunk, with no ultimate parts for the pluralist to invoke as the ground of being.
  4. The debate between monists and pluralists has long occupied philosophical center stage, with William James (1975, 64) considering it “the most central of all philosophic problems, central because so pregnant.” The monistic side can claim an intellectual pedigree tracing from Parmenides, Plato, and Plotinus, to Spinoza, Hegel, and Bradley. During the nineteenth century, the monistic side had achieved a position of dominance.
  5. Yet today, monism is routinely dismissed as obviously false or merely meaningless. These attitudes are rooted in the philosophical revolts of the early twentieth century. During the early analytic revolt against the neo-Hegelians, Russell and Moore dismissed monism as contrary to common sense. During the positivistic revolt against metaphysics generally, Carnap and Ayer ridiculed the whole debate as mystical nonsense. So the fashions turn.
  6. I will claim that monism was never refuted but only misinterpreted. Monism is now usually interpreted as the view that exactly one thing exists (van Inwagen 2002, 25; Hoffman and Rosenkrantz 1997, 77). On such a view there are no particles, pebbles, planets, or any other parts to the world. There is only the One. Perhaps monism would deserve to be dismissed as obviously false, given this interpretation. But how uncharitable!
  7. The core tenet of historical monism is not that the whole has no parts, but rather that the whole is prior to its parts. As Proclus (1987, 79) says: “The monad is everywhere prior to the plurality .... In the case of bodies, the whole that precedes the parts is the whole that embraces all separate beings in the cosmos.” Such a doctrine presupposes that there are parts, for the whole to be prior to them. The historical debate is not a debate over which objects exist, but rather a debate over which objects are fundamental. I will defend the monistic view, so interpreted: the world has parts, but the parts are dependent fragments of an integrated whole.
  8. The plan:
    • In §1 I will clarify the debate as a debate over which objects are fundamental.
    • In §2 I will argue for the monistic view that the cosmos is fundamental, on the basis of considerations from physics and mereology.
    • I will conclude with a brief appendix on historical matters.

Paper Comment


"Schaffer (Jonathan) - On What Grounds What"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Three Conceptions of Metaphysical Structure
    • The Quinean View: On What There Is
    • The Aristotelian View: On What Grounds What
    • Metaphysical Structures: Flat, Sorted, and Ordered
  2. Three Arguments for Ordered Structure Plus Permissivism
      Permissivism: The Triviality of Existence Questions
    • Ordering: The Importance of Dependence Structure
    • Substantial Presuppositions: The Quinean Method Presupposes Aristotelian Structure
  3. Towards a neo-Aristotelian Framework
    • The Grounding Family
    • Grounding Itself
    • Illustration: A neo-Aristotelian Metaphysic

Paper Comment

For Notes, see "Funkhouser (Eric) - Notes on Schaffer, 'On What Grounds What'".


"Sider (Ted) - Ontological Realism"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, (2009): pp. 384–423


Sections
  1. The Ontology of Composite Material Objects
  2. Losing One’s Nerve
  3. Forms of Ontological Deflationism
  4. Blame the Predicates or the Quantifiers?
  5. Quantifier Variance
  6. Other Ways to be Shallow
  7. Structure
  8. Regimentation of Talk of Structure
  9. Logical Structure
  10. Quantificational Structure
  11. Reply to the Deflationist
  12. What Should We Believe?

Section 1 (Full1 Text)
  1. In 1987, Peter van Inwagen asked a good question. (Asking the right question is often the hardest part.) He asked: what do you have to do to some objects to get them to compose something — to bring into existence some further thing made up of those objects? Glue them together or what?
  2. Some said that you don’t have to do anything. No matter what you do to the objects, they’ll always compose something further, no matter how they are arranged. Thus we learned of the fusion of the coins in our pockets and the Eiffel tower.
  3. Others said that the objects have to be fastened together in some way, the way the parts of the things we usually think about are. But van Inwagen taught us of people stuck or glued or sewn or fused to each other. Such entanglements, van Inwagen thought, create no new entities.
  4. Others said that nothing you could do to the objects would make them compose something further. According to these “mereological nihilists”, tables, chairs, computers, molecules, people, and other composite objects, simply don’t exist. All that exist are simples — entities without further parts; subatomic particles presumably — which are “arranged table-wise”, “arranged chair-wise”, and so on.
  5. Van Inwagen himself also dispensed with tables and chairs, but departed from the nihilists by admitting people and other living things into his ontology. (Why he spared the living few could tell.)
  6. This debate in ontology then got connected to other debates about material objects, especially those concerning persistence over time. For instance, the nihilists have a very quick solution to the old puzzle of the statue2 and the lump of clay: neither exists!

Paper Comment



In-Page Footnotes ("Sider (Ted) - Ontological Realism")

Footnote 1: Footnotes omitted.


"Soames (Scott) - Ontology, Analyticity, and Meaning: The Quine-Carnap Dispute"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Ontological Commitment and Abstract Objects in “On What There Is”
  2. Ontology and the Rejection of Metaphysics in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”
  3. Abstract Objects and the Role of Analyticity in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”
  4. ”Two Dogmas” and Beyond: Quine and Carnap on Meaning, Reference, and Analyticity
  5. The Relevance of Quine’s Holism to the Dispute over Analyticity and Ontology
  6. Extracting Positive Lessons about Ontology from the Debate


"Thomasson (Amie L.) - Answerable and Unanswerable Questions"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Problems about Reference
  2. Questions About Identity and Persistence
  3. Questions About Existence
  4. Specific Existence Questions
  5. Generic Existence Questions: Three Ways of Looking at Things
    • Sortal1 Uses
    • The Covering Use
    • The Alleged Neutral Use
  6. Quantification and Existence Questions
  7. The Metaphysician’s Work


"Van Inwagen (Peter) - Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Thesis 1. Being is not an activity
  3. Thesis 2. Being is the same as existence
  4. Thesis 3. Existence is univocal
  5. Thesis 4. The single sense of being or existence is adequately captured by the existential quantifier of formal logic
  6. Thesis 5.

Paper Comment


"Yablo (Stephen) - Must Existence-Questions Have Answers"

Source: Chalmers (David), Manley (David) & Wasserman (Ryan) - Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology


Sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Goals and Desiderata
  3. Ontology Recapitulates Philology
  4. Counting as False
  5. Counting as True
  6. Nominalist Ramifications(?)
  7. Platonistic Ramifications(?)
  8. Quizzicalistic Ramifications(?)
  9. Extent of the Phenomenon


Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
  1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026
  2. Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)


© Theo Todman, June 2007 - March 2026. Please address any comments on this page to theo@theotodman.com. File output:
Website Maintenance Dashboard
Return to Top of this Page Return to Theo Todman's Philosophy Page Return to Theo Todman's Home Page