• Hirsch
• Thomasson
• Sider
• neo-carnapianism
• neo-quineanism
• quantifier variance
• easy ontology
• structure
• deflationism
• revisionism
• criterion of genuineness
• epistemology of metaphysics
• meta-metaphysics
• metaphysics
• meta-ontology
• ontology

Absurd, irrelevant, meaningless, and detached from any important human affair are the etiquettes that siege metaphysical queries and claims. After too many blows that metaphysics has received, such adjectives could or could not be justified. The question about such adjectives became a subject of study, and problems regarding whether, in fact, metaphysical and ontological issues were relevant became a pressing matter. Complete disengagement and indifference were not enough, nor was complete optimism. Compulsive reasons to claim such indifference dissolve in a discussion about metaphysical and ontological disputes. This work aims to study a minute parcel of that extensive topology.
The dispute analysed here is between the neo-Quinean and neo-Carnapian traditions of ontology, metaphysics and meta-ontology, and meta-metaphysics. More precisely, such dispute is between Theodore Sider’s neo-Quinean metaphysics and Amie Thomasson’s and Eli Hirsch’s neo-Carnapianism and their conception of ontology, metaphysics, meta-ontology, and meta-metaphysics. Among the many neo-Quinean metaphysics and meta-metaphysics today, Sider’s may be considered one of the most controversial and discussed by their direct neo-Carnapian contenders. Likewise, Sider has addressed the challenges these neo-Carnapian philosophers made to his theses. This work wants to present a linear and straightforward way in which the dispute emerges, the main theses at play, the problems that arise, and the further queries that may be pressing to such positions, which may be studied in future research. In order to examine their differences in detail, the main theses regarding ontology, metaphysics, meta-ontology, and meta-metaphysics are evaluated. It emphasizes what can be claimed to be the main problem that unites them: whether metaphysical and ontological disputes are genuine, or if nothing serious worthwhile is at issue, and what amounts to claiming that genuineness or dismissal.
The first chapter considers the positions from which these philosophers inherited their views, Carnap’s and Quine’s ideas on ontology, and the theses from which their dispute revolves. This chapter addresses how Carnap developed a criterion to dismiss or engage in ontology by introducing frameworks and the internal/external distinction while contrasting these theses with Quine’s discussion and his claims regarding ontology, theory choice, and ontological commitment. In this chapter, the premises disputed are about the reach of ontological and metaphysical inquiry. This difference, then, decanted in the distinction between deflationist and revisionist metaphysics. To see how such labels become relevant for the discussion in meta-ontology and meta-metaphysics, this chapter illustrates the reception of Quine’s theses as read by Peter Van Inwagen. Then, it examines a case study that has been one of the most discussed in ontology and meta-ontology: the problem of coincidence. Such a presentation aims to clarify how Quine’s views were present in the theories that advance solutions to the riddle and how such adoption faces challenges put forward by neo-Carnapians.
Presented the common ground in which each party has advanced their views on ontology and the challenges that deflationists have advanced to revisionists, the second chapter analyses and discusses Sider’s proposal to solve those challenges while advancing a program in metaphysics, ontology, and meta-metaphysics. This work has opted to spotlight Sider’s theory since its goal is to embrace most of the problems that deflationists see in metaphysics and answer them in a revisionist way.
In order to show how Sider answers and advances his metaphysics, the chapter initially takes at face value Sider’s arguments to what he believes to be the main problems that neo-Carnapians deflationists proposed to neo-Quinean revisionists. First, conceptual analysis does a sufficient job of ontological inquiry, and there is no need for the theory advanced by the neo-Quinean. The second challenge amounts to the possibility of being pluralist about theories and the descriptions of reality. The first challenge is met through his meta-semantics, claiming that genuine metaphysical and ontological terms are those that fit better use plus eligibility (where eligibility means the adoption and extension of Lewis’s meta-semantics to terms) and denominate such terms as those that “carve nature at its joints.” From here, the second challenge is addressed. Sider claims that pluralism about ontology is incoherent; the reason rests on the impossibility of having multiple meanings and interpretations of the existential quantifier.
Once analysed his answers and further challenges to the deflationist Sider’s ontology and metaphysics are examined. The idea is to investigate how Sider characterizes his notion of structure from which he develops and justifies different projects in ontology and metaphysics, such as criteria to determine the fundamental nature of space, time, causality, and composition, but also other meta-metaphysical issues, like whether some disputes are pointless or not. In these sections, the goal is to provide a clear picture of the relevant assumptions and theses that hold Sider’s project. Lastly, since his notion is relevant outside the discussion between neo-Carnapians and neo-Quineans, it was essential to swiftly discuss how his conception of structure and fundamentality relates to and differs from its competitors. The chapter finally summarizes and reviews Sider’s most delicate points from which his theses are cohesive.
The third chapter reviews Sider's answers and challenges under neo-Carnapian lenses. Firstly, Thomasson's Easy Ontology is presented to advance arguments in favour of conceptual analysis while arguing against the neo-Quinean paradigm of ontology. This part focuses on an alternative proposal that evades some of Sider's most conflictive issues, the relation of his metaphysics and epistemology, and his meta-semantics. Secondly, Hirsch's Quantifier Variance defends the other horn of the challenge. This part analyses Hirsch's arguments to coherently advance a neo-Carnapian pluralist idea of ontology while criticizing Sider's project. The main challenge that Hirsch addresses is that ontological theories, as conceived by the neo-Quinean, are just the preferred conceptual apparatus metaphysicians choose to make claims. Nevertheless, such theories do not discuss any substantive issue. Both positions are problematic to Sider's metaphysics since they not only re-evaluate his responses to the challenges posed by neo-Carnapians but also put forward versions of such challenges that consider the metaphysics and meta-metaphysics of Sider's structure.
Finally, Thomasson's and Hirsch's claims are assessed and problematized once a picture of each side has been analysed and their central thesis and assumptions are made plain. From here, the chapter discusses the most critical points that emerge in investigating the challenges and how such points converge or differ. The goal is to understand the strategy behind such convergence for the neo-Carnapian: the priority of semantic issues over metaphysical theses. This result is discussed and problematized to open a landscape of queries regarding the common goal of these philosophers and where the most delicate tensions emerge between neo-Quineans and neo-Carnapians, but also between deflationists and revisionists. This allows us to understand the puzzles and questions that underlie the idea of finding and characterizing a criterion of genuineness for ontology, metaphysics, and meta-metaphysics. This work ends by claiming that Sider's metaphysics is not entirely rejected nor victorious against the deflationist, and the same goes for the deflationist against Sider's proposal. A claim for a draw or a possible stalemate is made, and it is left open and problematized for further research, as well as the project of drawing the map of the questions regarding such criterion, which, from this discussion, seems to be one of the most sensitive and delicate points for the debate about the relationship between ontology, metaphysics, and meta-metaphysics.