Part I is metametaphysics. Quantifier variance views are criticized, and it’s shown that ontological debate, to be cogent, requires a single existence concept shared by debate participants. Natural language expresses such a concept which has certain formal properties—univocality among them. It’s shown that an ontological neutralist interpretation of quantifier domains (both formal- and natural-language) is consistent and consistent with usage data. Finally, several puzzles, among them Hob-Nob sentences and truth-talk about fictions, are resolved using the neutralist interpretation. A result established here is crucial to establishing the metaphysics argued for in part II: the general invalidity of indispensability arguments. Part II is metaphysics. An austere metaphysical position—feature metaphysics—is presented and argued for. Features aren’t properties or relations or objects of any sort. They have no individuation conditions. A feature-characterization language, with the expressive strength provided by quantifiers, is given; and using the results of part I, it’s shown that no commitments to objects arise when using this language. Feature-characterization languages supplant predication (properties of objects) with an “is at” relation or a co-occurrence relation between features. It’s shown that the resulting notion doesn’t yield a property-bundle view. Feature metaphysics is argued for by showing that the notion of object borders (central to individuation conditions for objects) cannot be interpreted metaphysically. This is also true of the individuation conditions used by philosophers to argue for tropes over universals, or vice versa. The resulting position allows us to distinguish what we project onto the world from what we find there.
Variance Theses in Ontology and Metaethics
