Aristotle’s argument for the conclusion thatbeingis not a genus seems to presuppose
that there is a general concept of being, since one of the premises is that everything
whatsoever (including differentiating characteristics) is a being.^42 It is hard to see
how this argument can even be stated without employing a generic sense.
Regardless, Heidegger seems less committed to the linguistic thesis that“being”is
polysemous than he is to the claim that“being”is analogical. This is important,
because even if there aren’t several senses of“being”in ordinary language, we can
still make good sense of the claim that“being”is analogical. To claim that a univocal
phrase is analogical is to claim that itshould notbe semantically primitive: in a
metaphysically ideal language it would not be. According to the position explicated
here, a language in which the generic quantifier is semantically primitive is not a
metaphysically ideal language. A language is metaphysically better, at least with respect
to its apparatus of quantification, if its generic quantifier is“defined up”out of those
semantically primitive restricted quantifiers that do correspond to the logical joints.
Even those analytic metaphysicians suspicious about the notion of metaphysical
fundamentality and its partners in crimebeing a mere disjunctionandbeing an
arbitrary restrictionshould realize that their own view is a substantive metaphysical
(or meta-ontological) claim, to which Heidegger’s position poses a serious challenge.
These metaphysicians hold thatnoquantifier expression is metaphysically special. Sider
claims that exactlyone(existential) quantifier expression is privileged. Heidegger holds
thatmanybut not all are equally metaphysically basic. Heidegger was right: we must
theorize about the meaning of“being”in order to have a complete ontological theory.
The debate between Heidegger and Sider is not trivial or senseless. There is a
metaphysicalreason to care about the question of the meaning of“being.”If“being”
is analogical, then Sider’s formulation of ontological realism is false.^43
1.4 Heidegger and the Ontological Deflationist
Recent meta-ontological inquiry has been motivated by worries that certainfirst-
order ontological debates are merely verbal. Consider the debate over when some
entities compose a whole.Universalistshold that composition always occurs: when-
ever there are somexs, thosexs compose ay.Nihilistshold that compositionnever
occurs. And there are many moderate positions between universalism and nihilism.
It seems like these views genuinely conflict.
According to theontological deflationalist, there is no genuine disagreement here.^44
What the universalist means by“there is”is not what the nihilist means by“there is.”
(^42) SeeMetaphysicsIII.3, 998b1–20 (Aristotle 1984b: 1577); see also Barnes (1995b: 73).
(^43) Vallicella (2014: 47) claims that every quantificational account of“being”is a“thin”account. The
refl 44 ections here show that this is not so.
The foundations for a defense of deflationalism can be found in Hirsch (2002a, 2002b, 2005). Hirsch’s
own view is subtler. On his view, (i) there could be a linguistic community in which something like
universalism is true because of the meaning of the quantifier expressions in that language, (ii) there could