any property had by the object. Properties partition the beings in the world. Onto-
logical categories partitionbeing itself.
Let me state other noteworthy features of the view. First, in formulating the view,
the notion of naturalness was appealed to. In section 4.3, we noted that any plausible
view of ontological categories would probably need to appeal to the notion of
naturalness, but would also need to appeal to other concepts. Since the view defended
here does not identify ontological categories with highly natural classes,first-order
properties, or kinds of things, it does not suffer from the meta-ontological cut-off
problem that plagued the views previously discussed. Electrons, despite forming a
highly natural class, need not form an ontological category, because (I presume) there
is not a special way of existing unique to electrons. Either there is a unique way of
existing had by (and only by) somexs or there is not. When there is, they form an
ontological category, and when there isn’t, they don’t. And so the notion of an
ontological category is not vague on the view defended here.
More carefully, the notion of an ontological category is notsemanticallyvague on
this view; no underdefined notions such as“highly general”appear in the statement
of what it is to be an ontological category. Nothing in the framework developed
here rules out the view it isontologically vaguewhether some entity is a member
of some ontological category. I would reject such a view; just as it is never indeterminate
whether something exists, it is never indeterminate how it exists. But for better or worse
the framework developed here is consistent with genuine ontological vagueness.
There is still the question of why electrons don’t form an ontological category. But
this is not ameta-ontological question. Rather, the task of answering this question
belongs to ontology proper. The view defended here can sensibly interpret the
question, and this is all that it is required to do. It is important to keep in mind the
wide diversity of ontological schemes that philosophers have proposed. At one end of
the spectrum there is the radical nominalist who recognizes only the category of
individual thingand Paul’s (2013, 2017) one category of qualitative characters.
Nearing the other end of the spectrum is the ontological scheme defended by
Heidegger (1962, 1988), according to whichperson(Dasein),equipment,parcel of
matter,living thing, andabstractaeach enjoy different modes of being.^38 The most
radical view of all is that every individual belongs to its own ontological category.^39
None of them is ruled out by the meta-ontological scheme defended here.
The account of ontological categories defended here is silent on a large number of
first-order ontological disputes. It does not tell you, for example, whether substances,
or abstract entities, or modes, or events, belong to distinctive ontological categories.
Note that the account does not in itself require that one believe in any entities that are
the ontological categories.^40 (Unlike, for example, Westerhoff’s account, which is
(^38) See Heidegger (1962: 67, 97–8, 121, 258–9, 285; and 1988: 28, 282, 304).
(^39) We’ll explore the view that each person enjoys her own mode of being in section 6.7.
(^40) Lowe (2006: 6–7, 41–3) says that ontological categories are not entities of any sort.