Abstract
In what follows, we provide a comprehensive summary of van Inwagen’s views on meta-ontology. We then expound two ways of challenging his proposed meta-ontology. First, we inquire whether the proposed Quinean method indeed provides reliable information as to what our ontological commitments are. We argue that it does not, as van Inwagen’s method tacitly presupposes the existence of an independent capacity to decide what our genuine commitments are (as opposed to mere byproducts of ordinary language). Second, we attempt to reconstruct van Inwagen’s idea of how ontological disputes are to be conducted once everybody’s ontological commitments are out in the open: How can rivaling ontologies be evaluated? We demonstrate that van Inwagen’s answer is incomplete, which is quite unfortunate, given the importance of the question.
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Notes
- 1.
Colloquia on metametaphysics have been held, for example, at the ninth triannual meeting of the German Society for Analytical Philosophy (GAP) at Osnabrück and the biannual conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA) at Düsseldorf, both in 2015. Books on the topic include the 550-page anthology Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology (Chalmers et al. 2009) and the much-discussed contributions of James Ladyman and Don Ross (e.g., Ladyman et al. 2007). Courses on “metametaphysics” have recently been taught at Duke University, Durham, N.C., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL, and the University of Victoria, B.C., to name only a selective few.
- 2.
Van Inwagen rightly points out that the word “meta-ontology” is ambiguous; it is used to refer both to a philosophical sub-discipline which comprises his and others’ work on the topic as well as to the result of this kind of inquiry (van Inwagen 1998, 233). Analogously, an ontology is the product of ontology. Disambiguation poses no problem, though, because talk of the product is identified by the use of an article.
- 3.
In van Inwagen’s own words: “What are we asking when we ask ‘What is there?’” (van Inwagen 1998, 233)
- 4.
Note that van Inwagen does not expressly state the latter question, but some of his work constitutes an obvious attempt at answering it.
- 5.
Statements of his meta-ontological preferences are found throughout van Inwagen’s works, most explicitly in his papers “Meta-ontology” (1998) and “Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment” (2009). According to van Inwagen, these are adaptations of the opening chapter of a future monograph, Being: A Study in Ontology.
- 6.
Although never expressly stated thus, van Inwagen is confident that Quine would subscribe to these “theses”, as he calls them (van Inwagen 1998, 233; 2009, 475). The fifth “thesis”, which consists in a description of Quine’s “criterion of ontological commitment” (van Inwagen 1998, 241), is identified as “a certain thesis about strategy” (van Inwagen 1998, 246) and, hence, constitutes an answer to the methodological/epistemic rather than the semantic question of meta-ontology. It will be discussed below (Sect. 3.1.2).
- 7.
Van Inwagen names Alexius Meinong and Rush Rhees as proponents of Meinongianism. Terence Parsons’ Nonexistent Objects (1980) counts as an example of neo-Meinongianism.
- 8.
The thesis that being is the same as existence entails the claim that the expressions “being” and “existence”, if applied correctly, share the same meaning (see our discussion of claim (3) below).
- 9.
The argument from intentionality comes closest to Meinong’s original train of thought.
- 10.
In earlier publications, van Inwagen admits to “hav[ing] difficulty in seeing how to argue for” the (neo-)Meinongian view (van Inwagen 1998, 235; cf. also van Inwagen 2009). By augmenting his reply to opponents of that persuasion by means of comments on their arguments (van Inwagen 2015, 306–311), he improves his station significantly, which is why we chose to display these comments in this context.
- 11.
Further examples include the “nonexistent poison in the paranoid’s drink” (van Inwagen 1998, 235; 2009, 481) and unconceived “people waiting in the existential wings” (van Inwagen 2009, 481). Van Inwagen attempts to prove that these supposed examples are in fact unproblematic and cannot serve as evidence for the claim that being and existence are not the same.
- 12.
The formal proof for the interdefinability of the quantifiers in combination with the negation symbol can be found in most introductions to formal logic.
- 13.
For an example of a linguistic convention without much ontological import, consider the copula in simple subject-predicate sentences. When translating a subject-predicate sentence into predicate logic, the copula simply disappears. Whereas the copula does serve to indicate that the predicate is predicated of the subject, it serves a functional role that might as well be filled in other ways.
- 14.
True, theses (1) and (2) do not primarily concern the meanings of the words “being” and “existence”, but as contributions to an answer to the first meta-ontological question they imply certain semantic claims: If being is not an activity, then “being” can be employed in some ways but not in others, and if being is the same as existence, the expressions “being” and “existence” are synonymous.
- 15.
Admittedly, Quine’s own meta-ontology focuses on “theories rather than […] individual sentences”. However, since “a theory is identical with the set of sentences it ‘endorses’, […] the ontological implications of a theory are just the totality of the ontological implications of its constituent sentences”. Also, van Inwagen notes that “[i]t is individual sentences […] to which the technique of ‘paraphrase’ is applied”, and thus justifies his emphasis on the logical analysis of individual statements rather than full-blown theories (van Inwagen 2008b, 127–128 n. 8).
- 16.
Quine’s “old Platonic riddle of nonbeing” presents similar difficulties: “Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not?” (Quine 1980, 1–2)
- 17.
To be exact, we settle on a sentence that expresses a proposition we believe. As it is sentences, not propositions, which can be formalized, we delay the discussion of the role of propositions in ontology until Sect. 3.2.1.
- 18.
In van Inwagen 2014b, the “canonical notation” is referred to as “Tarskian”, which is the language ontologists must be prepared to switch to when ordinary language gives out.
- 19.
Unless, of course, paraphrase is possible, which is often the case. This issue will be discussed below.
- 20.
In “On What There Is”, Quine elaborates on this idea, claiming that any “singular noun […] can always be expanded into a singular description, trivially or otherwise, and then analyzed out à la Russell”. Consequently, “we do not commit ourselves to an ontology containing Pegasus or the author of Waverley or the round square cupola of Berkeley College when we say that Pegasus or the author of Waverly or the cupola in question is not. We need no longer labor under the delusion that the meaningfulness of a statement containing a singular term presupposes an entity named by the term. A singular term need not name to be significant.” (Quine 1980, 8–9)
- 21.
Note that to adequately capture the definite article, we would have to add that there is at most one King of France. More accurately, this paraphrase could be formalized as “~∃x (Fx ∧ Gx ∧ ∀y (Fy → (x = y)))”, where F is the property of being King of France and G the property of being bald.
- 22.
It is false that there is an entity which is now King of France. As one of its conjuncts is false, so is “There is an entity which is now King of France and which is bald.” Hence, the negation of the latter is true.
- 23.
One of Russell’s objectives is to demonstrate that the law of excluded middle (i.e., “either ‘A is B’ or ‘A is not B’ must be true” (Russell 1905, 485)) is not violated by the fact that both “The present King of France is bald” and “The present King of France is not bald”, properly understood, are false – a problem that Frege could not solve (Russell 1905, 483).
- 24.
Consider, for example, the sentences “∀x, if x is a planet, x is at any time at some distance from every star)” and “∀x (x is a planet → ∀y (y is a star → ∀t (t is a time → ∃z (z is a distance & x is at t separated from y by z))))”, both of which are legitimate translations of “Every planet is at any time at some distance from every star” (van Inwagen 1998, 243).
- 25.
Van Inwagen might want to include in this list some examples of the kind Rudolf Carnap discusses in “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language”. Carnap, too, argues that there are utterances – “pseudo-statements”, he calls them – which cannot be sensibly represented “in the notation of symbolic logic” (e.g., Martin Heidegger’s “The Nothing nothings”; Carnap 1959, 69–71). Whereas van Inwagen does not aim to eliminate metaphysics tout court (or to buy into the reductionist program of logical empiricism), like Carnap he favors discontinuing some style(s) of metaphysics.
- 26.
Think of “the ontology room” as any context in which ontologists meet to discuss ontological questions rather than everyday matters.
- 27.
By means of an example, van Inwagen complains that talk of “states” is ubiquitous in the philosophy of mind, but no satisfactory explanation of what that word means has been provided (van Inwagen 2010, 186).
- 28.
Interestingly, van Inwagen and van Fraassen agree in their evaluation of metaphysics thus conducted: both suspect that no good can come of “explanatory metaphysics” (van Inwagen 2010, 187–188).
- 29.
Here is a nice example of this strategy: “If, for example, one wants to know whether there are universals, what one should not do is this: collect a set of data (‘This thing here is red and that other thing over there is also red’) and attempt to discover whether those data a[re] best explained by a ‘theory’ that ‘posits’ universals; what one should do is to ask whether the theses that one brings to philosophy logically imply the existence of universals.” (van Inwagen 2010, 191)
- 30.
We will return to this issue in Sect. 3.2.2 below.
- 31.
Van Inwagen’s low esteem for amateur philosophy disguised as popular science derives from the fact that he cannot remember to ever have „seen any philosophical work by scientists (Galileo is the sole exception I am willing to allow) that is of much philosophical interest” (van Inwagen 2010, 185).
- 32.
Van Inwagen is not the solitary proponent of this view. For example, Hofweber (2011) defends a similar idea, differing, however, in dividing ontology into four parts. To Hofweber, the study of ontological commitment is distinct from meta-ontology proper, which consists in “saying what task it is that the discipline of ontology should aim to accomplish, if any, how the questions it aims to answer should be understood, and with what methodology they can be answered” (Hofweber 2011).
- 33.
Here’s a nice example for an “ontologically treacherous” expression. If there is thunder, a speaker of English will say just that (“There’s thunder”), whereas a speaker of German will say “Es donnert”, which translates literally as “it thunders”.
- 34.
True, van Inwagen notes that we actually start out with beliefs or utterances (i.e., sentences expressing propositions), not sentences. It is sentences, however, that we formalize, not propositions.
- 35.
This is true of at least some situations. We do not mean to say that there cannot be situations in which a philosopher (or, more generally, a person) is genuinely undecided whether or not he or she does or does not hold a certain ontological commitment. For example, we do not expect a first-year philosophy student to be an instant realist or nominalist about universals, nor do we believe that a philosopher renowned for his or her work in ethics has a detailed opinion on all topics in epistemology.
- 36.
To elaborate on the mode of presentation of the proposed method provided in Sect. 3.2.2: The method is not a three-step, but rather a four-step procedure, instructing us to formalize, deduce, decide (between genuine ontological commitments and ontological byproducts of ordinary language) and paraphrase.
- 37.
“Among these,” van Inwagen writes, “we may cite religion (and anti-religion), politics, loyalties to certain social groups, antipathy to other social groups, the desire for emotional comfort, the desire to be respected by one’s peers, the desire to be thought original, the desire to shock, the desire to be in a position to force one’s opinions upon others, the desire to belong to a like-minded group of people who flatter one another by making fun of people whose opinions differ from those of the group, and the desire to be one of a small group of enlightened ones who bravely struggle against the superstitions of the masses.” (van Inwagen 2015, 18)
- 38.
In the same breath, Mackie claims that van Inwagen’s project in Material Beings is an instance of revisionary metaphysics, which, in his eyes, is a “misreading” of the book (van Inwagen 2010, 193). We believe that even if Mackie errs here, van Inwagen’s work does exhibit traces of the reconciling tendency.
- 39.
Although in this case we cannot read off our ontological commitments from the ordinary language sentence, we at least know from the ordinary language sentence “that a correct paraphrase […] must start with an existential quantifier” (van Inwagen 1990, 102).
- 40.
- 41.
It should be noted that this maxim, of course, does not need to be stated explicitly. In most cases it is implicit and only becomes apparent in the process of meta-level reasoning.
- 42.
In common usage, “parsimony” is taken to refer to a group of principles that demand to reduce the number of kinds of entities included in our ontology. (Among these principles are different formulations of Ockham’s Razor.) It sometimes goes by the label of “simplicity”, which more often is taken to comprise both parsimony and elegance (i.e., ideological simplicity; a theory which makes use of fewer primitive predicates than another is more elegant).
- 43.
Van Inwagen states that he is strongly committed to the following thesis (among others): “Principles of ‘standard logic’ […] should be universally valid, or at worst, should fail only in bizarre science-fiction cases that never actually occurred.” (van Inwagen 1993, 683)
- 44.
An example of a general metaphysical thesis (according to his understanding of the term) is van Inwagen’s answer to the Special Composition Question in Material Beings, in the light of which he evaluates examples of artifacts and everyday objects. A list of metaphysical theses van Inwagen commits himself to can be found in van Inwagen 1993.
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Acknowledgments
Julia F. Göhner’s research for this paper was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the context of the research group “Causation, Laws, Dispositions and Explanations at the Interface of Science and Metaphysics”. She wishes to express her gratitude for their support.
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Göhner, J.F., Steinbrink, L. (2018). Ontological Commitments, Ordinary Language and Theory Choice. In: Jansen, L., Näger, P. (eds) Peter van Inwagen. Münster Lectures in Philosophy, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70052-6_3
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