Metaphysical Deflationism - Pros and Cons

null, Paula Tomi

The ALEF research group (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) announces an online talk by Paula Tomi (ICUB/Politehnica University of Bucharest) entitled "Metaphysical Deflationism - Pros and Cons". The talk is part of the group's regular seminar and takes place on Friday, MARCH 11, 19.00 EET (please note the unusual starting time!). Please write to [email protected] or check our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ALEF-100692348488914) if you want to participate. For more information about ALEF, as well as the schedule for the seminar in the 2021-2022 winter semester, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/alefgroupcluj.

Here is the abstract of the talk:

When it comes to metaphysics, the easy approach claims that the majority of metaphysical questions have straightforward answers. Thus, some of the existence questions can be answered easily starting from some uncontroversial premises, adding some trivial inferences and ending up with ontological conclusions (Thomasson, 2014). Since it can be considered a deflationary perspective, it deflates the ontological debates about the entities in question. The view is quite attractive because it clarifies and solves many aspects of the methodology and epistemology of metaphysics. However, there are some questions that might be raised about it. One of them being whether the move from uncontroversial premises and trivial rules of inferences to ontological claims does not need some hidden assumptions. Another issue that was raised by Marschall and Schindler (2020) is if we can truly talk about uncontroversial premises that are generally accepted. The aim of this presentation is to present some of the pros and cons of this specific view of deflationary metaphysics and also try to answer some of the counterarguments.