Coincident Entities and Question-Begging Predicates: an Issue in Meta-Ontology

Abstract

Meta-ontology (in van Inwagen's sense) concerns the methodology of ontology, and a controversial meta-ontological issue is to what extent ontology can rely on linguistic analysis while establishing the furniture of the world. This paper discusses an argument advanced by some ontologists (I call them unifiers) against supporters of or coincident entities (I call them multipliers) and its meta-ontological import. Multipliers resort to Leibniz's Law to establish that spatiotemporally coincident entities a and b are distinct, by pointing at a predicate F() made true by a and false by b. Unifiers try to put multipliers in front of a dilemma: in attempting to introduce metaphysical differences on the basis of semantic distinctions, multipliers either (a) rest on a fallacy of verbalism, entailed by a trade-off between a de dicto and a de re reading of modal claims, or (b) beg the question against unifiers by having to assume the distinction between a and b beforehand. I shall rise a tu quoque, showing that unifiers couldn't even distinguish material objects (or events) from the spatiotemporal regions they occupy unless they also resorted to linguistic distinctions. Their methodological aim to emancipate themselves from linguistic analysis in ontological businesses is therefore problematic. Some philosophers think that the variety of the world we talk about depends on the variety of the linguistic expressions we use; some believe that the world itself is variegated. This paper deals with (bits of) this issue: where should we draw the line between features of the world and features of the language we use to talk about the world? I shall approach it by considering a philosophical dispute concerning the composition of material objects. I will begin with a single argument, but broader ontological and, more importantly, meta-ontological issues will quickly enter the stage.