Ontology Made Easy

Zusatztext Amie Thomasson's book, Ontology Made Easy, is a beautifully written defense of one of the most influential and most often discussed positions in contemporary metaphysics-her own deflationary take on existence propositions. This book also casts a new light on the debate between Quine and Carnap, a debate that has informed much of contemporary metaphysics, and defends her minimalist view against objections. It will be widely discussed in the years to come. Informationen zum Autor Amie Thomasson is Professor of Philosophy and Cooper Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami. She is the author of Ordinary Objects and Fiction and Metaphysics, and co-editor (with David W. Smith) of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind. In addition, she has published more than 50 book chapters and articles on topics in metaphysics, metaontology, fiction, philosophy of mind and phenomenology, the philosophy of art, and social ontology. Klappentext Existence questions have been topics for heated debates in metaphysics, but this book argues that they can often be answered easily, by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises. This 'easy' approach to ontology leads to realism about disputed entities, and to the view that metaphysical disputes about existence questions are misguided. Zusammenfassung Existence questions have been topics for heated debates in metaphysics, but this book argues that they can often be answered easily, by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises. This 'easy' approach to ontology leads to realism about disputed entities, and to the view that metaphysical disputes about existence questions are misguided. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction: The Forgotten Easy Approach1. The historical back story2. The rise of neo-Quineanism3. The easy approach to ontology: a preliminary sketch4. The plan of this bookPart 1: Developing Easy Ontology1) Whatever Happened to Carnapian Deflationism?1. Carnap's approach to existence questions2. Quine and the ascendency of ontology3. Putnam takes deflationism on an unfortunate turn4. 'Exists' as a formal notion: a brief history5. Is Carnap committed to quantifier variance?6. Conclusion2) The Unbearable Lightness of Existence1. A core rule of use for 'exists'2. What are application conditions?3. Do application conditions for 'K' include that Ks exist?4. Answering existence questions easily5. Against substantive criteria of existence6. Lines of reply3) Easy Ontology and its Consequences1. Using trivial inferences to answer existence questions2. Three forms of easy ontology3. First result: simple realism4. Second result: Meta-ontological deflationism4) Other ways of being Suspicious1. Denying that ontological disputes are genuine disputes2. Denying that we can know the answers3. Denying that there are answers to know4. Understanding hard ontology5) Fictionalism versus Deflationism1. Motives for fictionalism2. The fictionalist's case against easy arguments3. A problem for the fictionalist's analogy4. How the fictionalist incurs a debt5. A reply for the fictionalist6. The deflationary alternative7. ConclusionPart II: Defending Easy Ontology6) "Easy arguments give us problematic ontological commitments"1. Unwanted ontological commitments?2. Why easy arguments require no magic3. Do we get the objects we wanted?4. Conclusion7) "Easy arguments rely on the questionable idea of conceptual truths"1. Why easy ontology needs conceptual truths2. Williamson's attack on epistemic analyticity3. How easy inferences survive4. Caveats and conclusions8) "Easy arguments rely on principles that keep bad company"1. The bad company challenge for the easy approach2. Avoiding bad company3. The limited impact of bad company objections9) "The conclusions of easy arguments don't answer ontological questions"1. Hofweber's solution to the puzzle about ontology2. Focus and ontology...

Autorentext
Amie Thomasson is Professor of Philosophy and Cooper Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami. She is the author of Ordinary Objects and Fiction and Metaphysics, and co-editor (with David W. Smith) of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind. In addition, she has published more than 50 book chapters and articles on topics in metaphysics, metaontology, fiction, philosophy of mind and phenomenology, the philosophy of art, and social ontology.

Klappentext
Existence questions have been topics for heated debates in metaphysics, but this book argues that they can often be answered easily, by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises. This 'easy' approach to ontology leads to realism about disputed entities, and to the view that metaphysical disputes about existence questions are misguided.

Inhalt
Introduction: The Forgotten Easy Approach 1. The historical back story 2. The rise of neo-Quineanism 3. The easy approach to ontology: a preliminary sketch 4. The plan of this book Part 1: Developing Easy Ontology 1) Whatever Happened to Carnapian Deflationism? 1. Carnap's approach to existence questions 2. Quine and the ascendency of ontology 3. Putnam takes deflationism on an unfortunate turn 4. 'Exists' as a formal notion: a brief history 5. Is Carnap committed to quantifier variance? 6. Conclusion 2) The Unbearable Lightness of Existence 1. A core rule of use for 'exists' 2. What are application conditions? 3. Do application conditions for 'K' include that Ks exist? 4. Answering existence questions easily 5. Against substantive criteria of existence 6. Lines of reply 3) Easy Ontology and its Consequences 1. Using trivial inferences to answer existence questions 2. Three forms of easy ontology 3. First result: simple realism 4. Second result: Meta-ontological deflationism 4) Other ways of being Suspicious 1. Denying that ontological disputes are genuine disputes 2. Denying that we can know the answers 3. Denying that there are answers to know 4. Understanding hard ontology 5) Fictionalism versus Deflationism 1. Motives for fictionalism 2. The fictionalist's case against easy arguments 3. A problem for the fictionalist's analogy 4. How the fictionalist incurs a debt 5. A reply for the fictionalist 6. The deflationary alternative 7. Conclusion Part II: Defending Easy Ontology 6) "Easy arguments give us problematic ontological commitments" 1. Unwanted ontological commitments? 2. Why easy arguments require no magic 3. Do we get the objects we wanted? 4. Conclusion 7) "Easy arguments rely on the questionable idea of conceptual truths" 1. Why easy ontology needs conceptual truths 2. Williamson's attack on epistemic analyticity 3. How easy inferences survive 4. Caveats and conclusions 8) "Easy arguments rely on principles that keep bad company" 1. The bad company challenge for the easy approach 2. Avoiding bad company 3. The limited impact of bad company objections 9) "The conclusions of easy arguments don't answer ontological questions" 1. Hofweber's solution to the puzzle about ontology 2. Focus and ontology 3. Ways to read the quantifier 10) "Hard ontological questions can be revived in Ontologese" 1. Existence questions in Ontologese 2. Just more metaphysics? 3. Avoiding the joint-carving quantifier 4. Problematizing the joint-carving quantifier Conclusion: The Importance of Not Being Earnest 1. The empirical, conceptual, and pragm…

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