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118 PORRO
‘There are particles arranged table-wise’). Bennett clearly explains this in the following terms
(Bennett 2009: 64):
The high-ontologist multiplies objects while the low-ontologist multiplies properties.
[The nihilist] buys her way out of ontology with the coin of ideology. So even if the lowontologist
wins the battle of ontological commitment, he does not win the war of
simplicity. On at least one way of reckoning simplicity, the two come out roughly on a
par.
Lastly, Bennett describes in details four challenges that arise both for the believer and the
nihilist. This shows, according to Bennett, that both views have the same amount of negative
features, since they run into the same issues. A detailed analysis of these four challenges is
not relevant to the pursuit of the purpose of this paper, thus I am not going to discuss them.
According to Bennett, since the composition debate meets the four requirements listed above,
it should be dismissed for epistemic reasons. The question whether simples compose larger
things is a genuine one, and the debate over the correct answer is not due to a
misunderstanding about what ‘simples’, ‘things’ or ‘exist’ mean. However the two views seem
to display the same positive and negative features, while neither is more complex than the
other. Thus we have no good reasons to prefer one over the other. In turn this is, according to
Bennett, a good reason to dismiss the debate about composition, i.e. stop trying to find out
which view is right.
2. Moving Forward
So far I have discussed Bennett’s work in general, describing her taxonomy of reasons to be a
dismissivist. I have also described her argument strategy to show when some debate should
be dismissed for epistemic reasons. Now I turn to analyse and criticize her argument strategy
in favour of epistemicism. This is interesting because if Bennett’s argument is sound, it can be
used as a general ‘test’ for all metaphysical debates. If some metaphysical debate meets
conditions (1) to (4) above, then it should be dismissed for epistemic reasons. The purpose of
this section is to discuss this argument in detail, to check whether it is sound and applicable
in general.
Before I start it is important to highlight an aspect of Bennett’s thought about this. Bennett
states the argument in general terms. However she never explicitly says that this argument is
meant to be a general strategy that we can use to diagnose other metaphysical debates. Her
conclusion is that the composition and colocation debates should be dismissed for epistemic
reasons, and not that all debates that fit the described argument strategy should be dismissed
for epistemic reasons. However, since she states the argument in general terms, it is
reasonable to think that Bennett hopes that her strategy could be used in other debates. Even
if this is not Bennett’s intention though, I still think it is a possibility worth exploring, in the
context of this work. Given these remarks it should be clear that when I argue that Bennett’s
strategy cannot be generalised, I do not mean this as a criticism of her view, because she
might not have meant it to be generalisable.
Let us start by briefly summarising Bennett’s argument:
(1) If in a debate there are high and low-ontology sides;
(2) if a debate is difference-minimizing;
(3) then no view is simpler than the other;
(4) and both face similar issues;
(C)
then we should dismiss the debate for epistemic reasons.