Common Ground and Charity in Conflict

Abstract

Few critics of the received view in metaphysics that ontological disputes are generally substantive have stirred as much response as those that have developed Carnapian arguments turning on considerations of language and interpretation. The arguments from deflationists like Thomasson (2009, 2014) and Neo-Fregeans like Hale and Wright (2009), focus on features of actual language use, others like those from Hirsch (2002, 2009) focus on interpretation. In this paper, I offer a novel challenge to the latter sort of argument. I argue that through their use of the principle of charity, they have unacceptable consequences beyond the ontology room: the best accounts of some natural language phenomena—most importantly, presupposition—cannot be maintained.