Abstract

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” said Hamlet, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Whether Hamlet thereby intended to make a pronouncement as to the limitations of current ontology, may be doubted. But it nevertheless stands that most metaphysical theories are criticized on the merits of their ontologies: either too many kinds of entities are admitted, or too few ; or the kinds of entities admitted are brought too little in connection with one another or too much. Whitehead once noted that metaphysical theories are not so much disproved as “abandoned.” This brings forward the analogy of an inadequate ontology with a suit of clothes, which has to be discarded because it is too large or too small, too baggy or too tight. The point is that an ontology cannot be said to be, strictly speaking, either true or false. Rather, some more general and perhaps more vague criterion of ontology must be sought—such as “rightness of fit,” for instance.