Ontological cheats might just prosper

Abstract

A popular view in metaphysics is that which propositions are true depends upon how the world is (see, for instance, Bigelow 1988; Lewis 1992; Sider 2001). In more evocative (as well as ontologically committing) language, truth requires ground. This thought then gets used to do some serious work. As Sider (2001: 40) has it, ‘[t]he point of … the principle that truth supervenes on being is to rule out dubious ontologies’. Here, I argue that (at least some) ‘dubious’ ontologies are theoretically virtuous. ST: Necessarily, if is true, it would be impossible for to be false unless at least one entity which does not exist were to exist, and at least one entity which exists were not to exist. (Bigelow 1988: 126)

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