Lecture Title: Easy Ontology and its Consequences

Absrtact: Over the past several decades, there has been a great resurgence in debates about what exists. Participants in these debates typically assume that their disputes are substantive, and insist that they cannot be answered by conceptual methods nor by straightforward empirical means. In my view, the biggest threat to this metaphysical revival comes from the .easy. approach to ontology.a view developed by neo-Fregeans in the philosophy of mathematics, by Stephen Schiffer for properties, propositions, events and other entities, and that I have applied to debates about the existence of fictional characters, social objects, and ordinary objects such as tables and chairs. The purpose of this paper is to draw out these three different forms of easy ontology, show their interrelations, and examine their consequences for first-order ontology and for metaontological debates.

• Reception Follows
• Free & Open to the Public
• Funded by The Mark J. Byrne 1985 Fund in Philosophy

Philosophy Department Events webpage
Amie Thomasson's webpage