Transcendence and Immanence

Current metaphysical debates (between, e.g., Hirsch, Sider, Hawthorne, and others) are historically centered in an earlier debate between Carnap and Quine. This was a debate over whether formal languages can function as replacements for natural language or whether instead they offer techniques that can be used to modify natural languages. This debate continues to be relevant to contemporary debates between Hirsch and his opponents. Hirsch presupposes the natural-language-centered Quinean position; many of his opponents take Ontologese to be a cogent alternative for metaphysical discourse. In addition, it’s shown that Hirsch’s attempts to demarcate substantial from purely verbal debates derail because of the technical failure to show that finitely specified sentence-to-sentence mappings between disputant claims are available. It’s shown further that quantifier-variant views make no sense of ontological debate. Participants in ontological debate need to share an existence concept if they are to argue successfully with one another.