Much Ado about Something from Nothing; or, Problems for Ontological Minimalism
Ontological minimalism with respect to a kind K is a view which combines realism about Ks with a deflationary metaontological take on how to understand such realism.1 Nihilists and maximalists (or 'serious metaphysicians' as maximalists are sometimes called) about Ks disagree with each other over whether Ks exist, but they take their disagreement to be a standard, first order metaphysical one. The minimalist's view is irenic in this context. It says, with the realist, that there are Ks, but because of its deflationary understanding of this claim it also says that the nihilist has correctly described what there is. To illustrate: Peter van Inwagen (1990) is a nihilist about all types of complex objects other than organisms. So, in particular, he denies the existence of chairs, holding that where others take there to be a chair, all that exist are simple things (pieces of wood, for the sake of argument) arranged chair wise. The maximalist about chairs, by contrast, affirms that there are chairs as well as pieces of wood arranged chair wise and that this is a substantive claim. Minimalism holds that there are indeed chairs but maintains that it is analytic, and hence not a substantial piece of metaphysics, that if there are pieces of wood arranged chair wise, then there are chairs. Ontological minimalism is an increasingly popular view, with a number of defenders and sympathizers. It is sometimes described as neo Carnapian since it finds its roots in Carnap (1950) In this chapter, I shall examine the views of two prominent contemporary minimalists, Stephen Schiffer (2003) and Amie Thomasson (2001, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2015, and this volume) (and of these, I shall focus mostly on Thomasson) My contention will be that there are serious difficulties in implementing their version of minimalism.2 The Thomasson/Schiffer approach is not the only version of