I am skeptical of this whole thing, because calling someone else’s side of a debate a “folk ontology” assumes that their side is the wrong side. So the whole article is basically saying “now that I’ve determined that my opponent is wrong, how should I deal with it?”—it sounds like a recipe for skipping that pesky debate stuff and prematurely assuming that one’s opponent is wrong.
This post was meant to apply when you find either that your own folk ontology is incorrect or to assist people who agree that the folk ontology is incorrect but find themselves disagreeing because they have chosen different responses. Establishing the folk ontology to be incorrect was a prerequisite and like all beliefs should be subject to revision based on new evidence.
This is in no way meant to dismiss genuine debate. As a moral nihilist, I might put moral realism in the category of incorrect “folk ontology”. However, if I’m discussing or debating with a moral realist, I will have to engage their arguments not just dismiss it because I have already labeled their view as a folk ontology. In such a debate, it can be helpful to recognize which response I have taken and be clear when other participants may be adopting a different one.
Thanks for mentioning this concern. I’d kind of obliviously steelmanned it to “how to deal with my own folk ontologies”, where my own intuitions about how something works doesn’t match all the currently-available evidence. This happens to me on many many topics, and I gravitate toward the “restrict and recognize” mechanism, but was grateful to be reminded of other options.
If you’re using this to categorize someone else’s beliefs as “folk” when they don’t agree that there are more complete models available, that’s not likely to help much.
I think this is a valid point, but figuring out which side’s ontology is “more accurate” is a different topic that just isn’t what original essay was about.
I guess my point is that all ontologies are not “fundamentally correct” in the sense that your worldview of concepts exists as merely an abstraction layer over reality. But it could definitely be the case that certain ontologies are “more accurate”, in that they have nicer mappings onto reality, or satisfy other properties which make them nicer to handle. In which case, you might find it both instrumentally / epistemically useful to try and convince others to adopt such ontologies (and depart from the ones they are using, hence providing the need for the techniques above).
(But that of course would require you to demonstrate the nicer properties of your ontology, etc. which is a different topic.)
I am skeptical of this whole thing, because calling someone else’s side of a debate a “folk ontology” assumes that their side is the wrong side. So the whole article is basically saying “now that I’ve determined that my opponent is wrong, how should I deal with it?”—it sounds like a recipe for skipping that pesky debate stuff and prematurely assuming that one’s opponent is wrong.
This post was meant to apply when you find either that your own folk ontology is incorrect or to assist people who agree that the folk ontology is incorrect but find themselves disagreeing because they have chosen different responses. Establishing the folk ontology to be incorrect was a prerequisite and like all beliefs should be subject to revision based on new evidence.
This is in no way meant to dismiss genuine debate. As a moral nihilist, I might put moral realism in the category of incorrect “folk ontology”. However, if I’m discussing or debating with a moral realist, I will have to engage their arguments not just dismiss it because I have already labeled their view as a folk ontology. In such a debate, it can be helpful to recognize which response I have taken and be clear when other participants may be adopting a different one.
Thanks for mentioning this concern. I’d kind of obliviously steelmanned it to “how to deal with my own folk ontologies”, where my own intuitions about how something works doesn’t match all the currently-available evidence. This happens to me on many many topics, and I gravitate toward the “restrict and recognize” mechanism, but was grateful to be reminded of other options.
If you’re using this to categorize someone else’s beliefs as “folk” when they don’t agree that there are more complete models available, that’s not likely to help much.
I think this is a valid point, but figuring out which side’s ontology is “more accurate” is a different topic that just isn’t what original essay was about.
I guess my point is that all ontologies are not “fundamentally correct” in the sense that your worldview of concepts exists as merely an abstraction layer over reality. But it could definitely be the case that certain ontologies are “more accurate”, in that they have nicer mappings onto reality, or satisfy other properties which make them nicer to handle. In which case, you might find it both instrumentally / epistemically useful to try and convince others to adopt such ontologies (and depart from the ones they are using, hence providing the need for the techniques above).
(But that of course would require you to demonstrate the nicer properties of your ontology, etc. which is a different topic.)