HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Meta-ontology is the study of the field of inquiry known as
Ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ex ...
. The goal of meta-ontology is to clarify what ontology is about and how to interpret the meaning of ontological claims. Different meta-ontological theories disagree on what the goal of ontology is and whether a given issue or theory lies within the scope of ontology. There is no universal agreement whether meta-ontology is a separate field of inquiry besides ontology or whether it is just one branch of ontology. Meta-ontological realists hold that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. According to the Quinean approach, the goal of ontology is to determine what exists and what doesn't exist. The neo-Aristotelian approach asserts that the goal of ontology is to determine which entities are fundamental and how the non-fundamental entities depend on them. Meta-ontological anti-realists, on the other hand, deny that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. One example of such an approach is Rudolf Carnap's thesis that the truth of existence-claims depends on the framework in which these claims are formulated. The term "meta-ontology" is of recent origin. It was first used by
Peter van Inwagen Peter van Inwagen (; born September 21, 1942) is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a Research Professor of Philosophy at Duke University each sprin ...
in analyzing
Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
's critique of
Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...
's
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consci ...
, where Quine introduced a formal technique for determining the
ontological commitment An ontological commitment of a language is one or more objects postulated to exist by that language. The 'existence' referred to need not be 'real', but exist only in a universe of discourse. As an example, legal systems use vocabulary referring to ...
s in a comparison of ontologies.


Relation to ontology

Thomas Hofweber, while acknowledging that the use of the term is controversial, suggests that meta-ontology constitutes a separate field of enquiry besides ontology as its
metatheory A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is theory itself, aiming to describe existing theory in a systematic way. In mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. ...
, when understood in a strict sense. But ontology can also be construed more broadly as containing its metatheory. Advocates of the term seek to distinguish 'ontology', which investigates what there is, from 'meta'-ontology, which investigates what we are asking when we ask what there is. The notion of
ontological commitment An ontological commitment of a language is one or more objects postulated to exist by that language. The 'existence' referred to need not be 'real', but exist only in a universe of discourse. As an example, legal systems use vocabulary referring to ...
is useful for elucidating the difference between ''ontology'' and ''meta-ontology''. A theory is ontologically committed to an entity if that entity must exist in order for the theory to be true. Meta-ontology is interested in, among other things, what the ontological commitments of a given theory are. For this inquiry it is not important whether the theory and its commitments are true or false. Ontology, on the other hand, is interested in, among other things, what entities exist, i.e. which ontological commitments are true.


Realism

The meta-ontological realist holds that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. Recent work in meta-ontological realism can be roughly divided into 2 approaches: the neo-Aristotelian approach and the Quinean approach.


Quinean approach

According to the Quinean approach, the goal of ontology is to determine what exists and what doesn't exist. Quine himself developed a specific version of this approach relying on
first-order logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifi ...
and pre-existing scientific theories in order to answer existence-questions. It involves translating these theories into first-order logic formulas. Their
ontological commitment An ontological commitment of a language is one or more objects postulated to exist by that language. The 'existence' referred to need not be 'real', but exist only in a universe of discourse. As an example, legal systems use vocabulary referring to ...
s are then read off from the
existential quantifier In predicate logic, an existential quantification is a type of quantifier, a logical constant which is interpreted as "there exists", "there is at least one", or "for some". It is usually denoted by the logical operator symbol ∃, which, whe ...
s used in the formulas. One idea behind this approach is that scientific theories are our best guess about what is true. But in order for them to be true there should be something there that makes them true: their truthmakers. The existential quantifiers act as a guide to truthmakers. Another approach to answering existence-questions is proposed by Amie L. Thomasson. Her ''easy'' approach to ontology differs from Quine's approach in that it relies on common sense instead of science. The approach is ''easy'' because it usually starts off from very trivial common-sense premises. For example, an easy argument for the existence of numbers in the
philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people ...
can be made in the following way. There are five books on the table. So the number of books on the table is five. Therefore numbers exist. Thomasson's approach differs from Quine's not just concerning her commitment to common sense but also concerning her account of quantification.


Neo-Aristotelian approach

According to the neo-Aristotelian approach, the goal of ontology is to determine which entities are fundamental and how the non-fundamental entities depend on them. The concept of fundamentality is usually defined in terms of metaphysical grounding. Fundamental entities are different from non-fundamental entities because they are not grounded in other entities. For example, it is sometimes held that elementary particles are more fundamental than the macroscopic objects (like chairs and tables) they compose. This is a claim about the grounding-relation between microscopic and macroscopic objects. A neo-Aristotelian would categorize this claim as an ontological claim.
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
himself was also "neo-Aristotelian" in the sense that he held that entities from different ontological categories have different degrees of fundamentality. For example, substances have the highest degree of fundamentality because they exist in themselves. Properties, on the other hand, are less fundamental because they depend on substances for their existence. Jonathan Schaffer's priority monism is a more recent form of neo-Aristotelian ontology. He holds that on the most fundamental level there exists only one thing: the world as a whole. This thesis doesn't deny our common-sense intuition that the distinct objects we encounter in our everyday affairs like cars or other people exist. It only denies that these objects have the most fundamental form of existence.


Comparison

According to Schaffer, an important difference between the two approaches is that the Quinean approach leads to a ''flat'' ontology while the neo-Aristotelian approach leads to an ''ordered'' ontology. In a flat ontology, there is no difference in fundamentality between the different objects: they are all on the same level. In an ordered ontology, on the other hand, the entities are part of a complex hierarchical structure with different levels. The higher levels of this structure are grounded in the more basic levels. Schaffer also distinguishes a third type of ontology which he calls ''sorted''. Sorted ontologies classify entities into different exclusive ontological categories. But this classification doesn't entail any hierarchical relations between the entities of the different categories. It has been argued that neo-Aristotelianism is not a genuine alternative to Quineanism. So theories in ontology may combine elements from both approaches without becoming inconsistent.


Anti-realism

The meta-ontological
anti-realist In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument ...
holds that there are no objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. One example of such an approach is Rudolf Carnap's thesis that the truth of existence-claims depends on the framework in which these claims are formulated. The choice between frameworks is guided by pragmatic considerations but there is no definite fact about which framework is correct. Quine disagreed with his teacher Carnap on these points, which lead to the Carnap-Quine debate. Amie L. Thomasson summarizes the disagreement underlying this debate with reference to the distinction "between existence questions asked using a linguistic framework and existence questions that are supposed to be asked somehow without being subject to those rules—asked, as Quine puts it 'before the adoption of the given language'." Carnap refers to this distinction as the internal-external distinction.


See also

*
Grounding (metaphysics) Grounding is a topic in metaphysics. Consider an ordinary physical object, such as a table, and the atoms it is made of. Without the atoms, the table would not exist. The table's existence ''depends'' on the existence of the atoms. This kind of dep ...
* Metametaphysics *
Metaphilosophy Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy characte ...


References


Further reading

* * Chapter 2: ''Composition, Colocation and Metaontology" (Karen Bennett); Chapter 6: The Metaonology of Abstraction'' (Bob Hale, Crispin Wright) * * * * * * * To be published i
''Ontology after Carnap''
Stephan Blatti & Sandra Lapointe (eds.)


External links


PhilPapers metaontologyScholarly papers on metaontologyDavid Chalmers: Ontological Anti-RealismCian Dorr: What We Disagree About When We Disagree About Ontology
* *{{cite web , title=Meta-Ontology , url=https://www.inphoproject.org/taxonomy/2359 , work=InPho , publisher= Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project The connection of meta-ontology to various other facets of philosophy. Metaphysics Ontology Metaphilosophy