Abstract
Thomasson is a simple realist about the vast majority of entities: she thinks that they exist, and that their existence is to be accepted as a trivial consequence of the truth of various uncontroversial sentences (Thomasson, Ontology Made Easy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 156). This position is to be taken in contrast to the explanatory realism familiar from dominant post-Quinean metaontology: the view that entities are posited to explain phenomena, and that (very roughly) we should believe in whatever we need in order for our best scientific theories to come out as true. Recent literature further suggests an approach I’ll call ‘fundamentality realism’: the idea that we should understand realism in connection with notions of fundamentality and metaphysical priority. I introduce these notions and the relations between them before describing an objection to Thomasson-style simple realism. I argue that this objection can be overcome by combining simple realism with elements of fundamentality realism, and that such a view can nevertheless be seen to fit with Thomasson's overall metaphysical worldview.
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Notes
- 1.
Of course, some would deny that we can gain knowledge of any kind of entity through induction into language games.
- 2.
I can’t defend here the view that mind-dependent entities are ontologically shallow, but I think it has some prima facie plausibility.
- 3.
Many philosophers deny that the existence of something suffices for realism, further requiring that we think of the relevant thing also as mind-independent. We can think of these as two conditions for realism about something. I’ll follow Thomasson in largely setting aside the mind-independence condition and focusing on the existence condition. (We can, if we like, think of the discussion here as involving a kind of minimal realism which is a necessary basis for a more substantial realism which includes mind-independence.)
- 4.
This is not to say that we should be realists about everything on Thomasson’s view. Thomasson rejects, for example, realism about witches on the basis that the application conditions associated with the term ‘witch’ include that a woman be endowed with supernatural powers following a pact with the devil. Since there are no supernatural powers and no devil, these application conditions are not met (2015, p. 154).
- 5.
This of course is not the whole story. Lewis’ metasemantics involves a trade-off between interpreting speakers charitably such as to maximise the numbers of their utterances that come out as true under the interpretation, and constraining the interpretation in accordance with the eligibility of the referents.
- 6.
Note that strictly speaking, structure is a piece of ideology rather than ontology. It is clear though that Sider uses the same kind of methods to establish the existence of something as he does to justify the inclusion of some ideology in his best theory.
- 7.
Perhaps low-enough-level explanation is enough, as it would have to be if there are no ultimate explainers. In such worlds, the notion of joint-carvingness must be reinterpreted along the lines discussed for naturalness in Schaffer (2004). I do not have the space here to discuss this in detail.
- 8.
The details of the position might go various different ways. For example, we might be realists about only whatever is fundamental, and restrict our ontology to the fundamentals. We might think that reality comes in degrees, and that the fundamental is maximally real and the derivative less real the less closely connected it is to the fundamental. We might be permissive about ontology but think that all that really counts when it comes to keeping metaphysical scores is the fundamental. I’ll not take a stand on these issues here, though I will describe some positions in more detail in the next sections.
- 9.
Again, perhaps realism as it is traditionally conceived also involves a denial that the xs are somehow mind-dependent, but we could imagine mind independence being built in to the interpretation of the relevant structural quantifier.
- 10.
It is important that Thomasson deny this because accepting that there is a joint-carving quantifier allows for the possibility that Thomasson’s easy ontological claims are definitional but not true (because the relevant inferences might not be truth preserving on the most eligible interpretation of the quantifier)—see Sider (2011, p. 196).
- 11.
Warren (2016, p. 2431) makes a similar point.
- 12.
It’s no good to object that there’s clearly a difference in that the fictionalist thinks that there is ultimately pretence involved. The quasi-realist similarly thinks that ultimately attitudes are involved; my point is that we need to think about what is ultimately the case in order to see the difference between these views.
- 13.
Earlier I suggested that ontological shallowness might go with mind-dependence. These proposals are not in conflict, as it might be that one way in which entities can be non-fundamental is to be mind-dependent.
- 14.
This view is developed in detail in Thompson (2019).
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Thanks to Darragh Byrne for discussion and comments.
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Thompson, N. (2023). Realism, Deflationism, and Metaphysical Explanation. In: Garcia-Godinez, M. (eds) Thomasson on Ontology. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23672-3_4
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