Ontology is the study of what exists. Metaontology is the study of ontology. This dissertation is a work in metaontology. In particular, its goal is to develop, motivate, defend, and explore a distinctively pragmatist metaontology --- a pragmatist account of how to answer existence questions. To do this, I'll argue that pragmatists are entitled to a popular `deflationary' metaontology: one which claims that existence questions are so easy to answer that many recent ontological debates are misguided. I call the resulting position `ontological pragmatism' and argue for it over a variety of views in ontology and metaontology alike. In chapter 1, I characterise two opposing metaontological camps: the dominate metaontology --- what I call `mainstream ontology' --- and a deflationary alternative called `easy ontology'. I then present some motivations for exploring a central thesis of the dissertation: that pragmatism and easy ontology might be usefully put together. In chapter 2, I put these two views together by arguing that Amie Thomasson's (2015) easy ontology may be used to construct a pragmatist metaontology, resulting in the view I call `ontological pragmatism'. I then argue that mainstream ontology is misguided, from a distinctively pragmatist point of view. In chapter 3, I argue that ontological pragmatism is a plausible position for pragmatists and others to endorse by motiving the view and defending it from objections. In chapter 4, I compare ontological pragmatism to Stephen Yablo's (2005) fictionalist account of mathematics. I argue that pragmatism is more plausible than Yablo's account, establishing pragmatist approaches to mathematics as a new live option in these debates. Finally, in chapter 5, I use ontological pragmatism to respond to Sider's (2011) idea that there is a privileged meaning of `exists' said to `carve nature at the joints'. I focus on Sider's indispensability argument for this claim and argue that the pragmatist can diffuse his argument by showing that existential quantification is merely pragmatically indispensable for us, given our limitations. I conclude by highlighting some further lines of inquiry. By the end of the dissertation, I'll have (1) developed a pragmatist metaontology, (2) motivated and defended it, (3) applied it to the philosophy of mathematics, and (5) shown how it can defuse the idea that there is a metaphysically privileged meaning of `exists'. By doing this, I hope I'll have given pragmatists their own metaontology which may be fruitfully deployed in future debates.

<p>In this master’s thesis I defend a Quinean approach to ontology. I first describe the Quinean approach as consisting of three steps and three theses. All three theses have been challenged in the contemporary literature. In each chapter I describe one such challenge, and then provide a response. The first challenge states that ontology is actually easy. Proponents of this challenge include Matti Eklund’s maximalist, as well as Amie Thomasson. In response, I argue that the maximalist cannot consistently determine whether abstract entities exist. I also argue that Thomasson’s account involves a certain slide in logic and is, in certain cases, ontologically uninformative. I then turn to the second challenge, which states that traditional ontological questions are not even worth pursuing. Here I discuss the work of Rudolf Carnap and of Jonathan Schaffer. I argue that Carnap fails to provide a cogent argument for the meaninglessness of ontological questions. Furthermore, I argue that one should not adopt Schaffer’s Aristotelian view of metaphysics and ontology. I do so by constructing an argument, logically parallel to one of Schaffer’s own, to demonstrate that there are no fundamental grounds. Finally, I consider the challenge posed by an ambiguity in ‘existence’. According to Eli Hirsch, such an ambiguity results in verbal disputes. Hirsch argues that the remedy is to adopt ordinary English. In response, I accept that ‘existence’ is ambiguous. But I deny that this poses a significant problem for Quinean ontology.</p> / Master of Philosophy (MA)

There is a large philosophical literature focused on what sorts of things can be said to exist. This field is called ontology. Ontological disputes have sometimes been accused of being merely verbal disputes: that they are concerned only with language and not with facts. Some think that if this accusation is correct, philosophers should give up doing ontology. However, whether the accusation is correct and whether it is so serious depends on what is meant by verbal dispute. Eli Hirsch in particular has argued that ontological disputes are merely verbal in one specific sense. In this paper, I first argue that his accusation fails to show that ontological disputes are not substantive. Even if we admit that ontological disputes are verbal in Hirsch's sense, they may still be substantive in a variety of other senses. Second, I argue that even though ontological disputes are substantive, the reason for this will not support stronger claims about the nature and role of ontological disputes. / Master of Arts

In this thesis I focus on dismissivism in metaphysics. Some philosophers argue that at least some metaphysical disputes are not substantial, and as a consequence should be dismissed. In this work I restrict my attention to metaphysics and focus on debates about existence and grounding. In particular I am interested in finding out whether there is a difference between the possible options available for dismissing debates about what there is and the possible options available for dismissing debates about what grounds what. I will delve into this in two different steps. First of all I explore the possibility to dismiss debates about what there is, and as a case study I analyse the debate between three-dimensionalism and four-dimensionalism. Secondly I delve into whether it is possible to dismiss debates about what grounds what, thanks to the discussion of another case study, i.e. the debate between tropes ontologies and universals ontologies. It is worth exploring the nature of dismissivism, because it bears on the future of philosophy. If philosophy has to have a future, we have to make sure that at least some disagreements within it are substantial. My conclusions will be that metaphysical debates about what there is can be dismissed for a variety of reasons (semantic, epistemic, ...). I also argue there is no general formula to find out whether a specific debate should be dismissed. On the other hand I argue that debates about what grounds what should be dismissed. I offer two distinct arguments in favour of my claim. Firstly, I argue that disputants are having a verbal dispute when they talk about what grounds what, and thus their disagreement is non genuine. Secondly, I argue that the notion of grounding is underspecified, because it cannot be properly distinguished from causation.