On ordinary objects

Abstract

In this thesis, I discuss Amie Thomasson’s framework defending the existence of ordinary objects and some criticisms raised by Jonathan Schaffer and Simon Evnine and then provide two original arguments against Thomasson. The first original objection aims to show that application conditions have a higher conceptual priority than terms, so if a common sense ontologist is to introduce new entities which of correspondent terms with application conditions shared with another term already present in his or her ontology, he or she has to be extremely careful in order to not violate parsimony. The second objection aims to show that Thomasson needs to provide more clarification on one important element of her defense, namely analytic entailments if they are to work in the way Thomasson intends them to. This thesis’ purpose is to further the debate on the existence of ordinary objects, not to conclude that ordinary objects do not exist as conclusive blows on any view in philosophy are extremely rare. I hope that any philosophical progress will be possible, thanks to this thesis.