How to have a radically minimal ontology

Philosophical Studies 151 (2):249 - 264 (2010)
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Abstract

In this paper I further elucidate and defend a metaontological position that allows you to have a minimal ontology without embracing an error-theory of ordinary talk. On this view 'there are Fs' can be strictly and literally true without bringing an ontological commitment to Fs. Instead of a sentence S committing you to the things that must be amongst the values of the variables if it is true, I argue that S commits you to the things that must exist as truthmakers for S if it is true. I rebut some recent objections that have been levelled against this metaontological view

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Ross Cameron
University of Virginia

Citations of this work

Grounding and metametaphysics.Alexander Skiles & Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller, The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
What Not to Multiply Without Necessity.Jonathan Schaffer - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (4):644-664.
The Narrow Ontic Counterfactual Account of Distinctively Mathematical Explanation.Mark Povich - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (2):511-543.
Building the world from its fundamental constituents.L. A. Paul - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (2):221-256.

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References found in this work

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New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
New Work For a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1997 - In David Hugh Mellor & Alex Oliver, Properties. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ontological realism.Theodore Sider - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers, Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 384--423.

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