Fiction, metaphysics and easy ontology
Abstract
Amie Thomasson’s Easy Ontology is a deflationist methodology that maintains that we can easily answer questions about the existence of a given entity K. To do so, it is necessary that we articulate the existential questions within a linguistic framework, so that we will establish their respective answers through empirical and/or conceptual means. Starting from a non-controversial statement that employs a term ‘K’ whose application conditions we master, we will infer an ontologically ampliative statement about the existence of Ks. We have, therefore, two objectives in this paper: (1) to apply Easy Ontology to the problem of the existence of fictional objects; and (2) to verify the compatibility of Amie Thomasson’s projects in Fiction and metaphysics (1999) and Ontology made easy (2015a). We will conclude that, despite notable differences, the author’s two projects are not only compatible, but complementary, as they establish, on a more systematic methodology, that fictional objects exist (ontological question) and are abstract artifacts (metaphysical question).
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