CFP: The Language of Ontology

Metaphysical and ontological debates – debates about what exists and the nature of reality – have long been among the most researched debates in philosophy. However, some argue that ontological debates are non-substantive, pointless, trivial, incoherent, or impossible. Debates about the nature of reality, or about whether tables exist, are taken to be defective in some way. This has led to a burgeoning literature studying the nature of metaphysical disputes themselves.

Major contributions to metaontological research have recently focused on the language of ontology. Under one view, ontology is not a substantive discipline because there cannot be an objectively best language that accurately describes the objective similarities and differences in reality. Instead, different languages might mark different sorts of objective similarities and differences in nature and thus have equal claim to be ‘objectively best’.

Few would expect that natural languages like English, French, or Irish, are the objectively best language, but the principle carries over to the languages of the physicist, biologist, economist, and the metaphysician. This makes all-encompassing questions about existence, and the nature of those things that exist, impossible to answer.

The objective of this conference is to bring together those investigating these issues to facilitate a higher level of collaboration in our attempts to understand what the limits of our language are, what ontological questions are about, and how they can be decided (if they can).

We invite papers on any topic or question related to these issues. Submissions should be in the form of an extended abstract of no more than 1000 words, anonymised for blind review.

Abstracts should be submitted by Friday 26th May 2017, to [email protected]. We hope to have decisions on all submitted abstracts by mid-June.

All papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in an edited volume aimed at both summarising the current positions in the literature and looking forward to where debates in this field might progress.

Accommodation for all accepted speakers will be provided (2 nights). We hope to cover at least some transport costs in addition to this, pending final budget situation.