Ontologia, pluralizm pojęciowy, deflacjonizm

Despite the recent revival of ontology, Hilary Putnam has argued that conceptual relativity and conceptual pluralism in general undermine the prospects of ontology as a viable philosophical discipline. He has even proclaimed in his book Ethics Without Ontology that ontology is dead and has pronounced its „obituary”. It might seem, however, that this pronouncement is premature. Not only is the doctrine of conceptual relativity and pluralism problematic, but also the versions of ontology considered by Putnam are far from being exhaustive. For instance, there is a view known as ontological deflationism which fits very well with the main thrust of Putnam’s own pragmatic pluralism. Nevertheless, after a close examination of two examples of such an ontological deflationism (proposed by Paul Horwich and Huw Price), it may be concluded that this strategy tends to lead to metaphilosophical quietism and the abandonment of ontology or metaphysics as a legitimate enterprise. So perhaps the recent revival of ontology is much ado about nothing after all.