ontological agnosticism

given that ontological categories are not determinate, or at least not rigorous enough for us to give clear and mutually exclusive definitions of them (is a magnetic field material? are numbers purely abstract? does 'belief' transcend the mind/body dualism?), is it possible to formulate a metaontological position that defends an agnostic outlook?

allow me to clarify... some metaphysicians declare that material objects are the only kind of object. others allow for certain abstracta, but not all (such as quine and his acceptance of numbers and sets). others also infamously allow for many kinds of abstract objects and physical objects, but no mental (popper). others still barely mention the abstract or reduce it to the mental (descartes). but not many of these people give justifications for not only their ontology, but their procedures for determining their ontology.

notable exceptions include quine, who said that numbers are real because they are necessary for science to work, and carnap, who said that our ontological decisions depend heavily on a non-rigorous selection of a 'framework' which we work within. this debate in the 1950s set up the more modern field of metaontology, who have a generally positive realist camp inspired by quine, and a generally negative anti-realist camp inspired by carnap.

contemporary names in these debates include peter van inwagen (notre dame) , david chalmers (anu), amie thomasson (miami), steve yablo (mit), ted sider (nyu), and some others. there are the what some people call "hard" realists, who say that these questions are answerable and significant, there are "soft" realists who say that these questions are answerable yet trivial or unimportant, and there is only one distinguishable camp of anti-realists who deny the answerability of these questions completely.

however, shouldn't there be a middle ground position? perhaps a deflationary position that says the entire debate is shoddy, or that the questions themselves don't make any more sense? this i would characterize as a deflationary metaontology.

further, is also a position available closely akin to the position mcginn holds in mind debates: we aren't in a position to know the answers to these questions. we are epistemically handicapped in these matters. this view would be an ontological agnosticism.

[this last section is very speculative] perhaps this is why mcginn holds a view he calls 'ontological pluralism'. he sees that metaontological debates are unanswerable, he supposes that we just roll with the ontological categories we already work with: categories ranging through everyday experience: books, chairs, thoughts, beliefs, etc.

metametametametameta...

there's a specter haunting philosophy:

the specter of reaching inconceivable levels of meta.

the worst part: i'm not helping.

not too long ago i attended a lecture by colin mcginn titled "on the possibility of ontology." his main point was that there is no need to reduce from any of the three traditional ontological categories (i.e. physical, mental, abstract) to any other, mainly because none of the ontological categories are well-defined (or definable) anyway. so mcginn pretty much said let's leave things that "are" as just "being" and accept many things as just plain "being". that's to say: chairs are, just as beliefs are and numbers are. he dubbed this view ontological pluralism.

this position leaves some questions unclear (is this really ontological pluralism? isn't this an argument for ontological category-eliminitavism?), but in the spirit of this post, i'll leave them aside for now.

what bothers me is that, in having ontology the topic of discussion, we are engaging in the the practice of metametaphysics, as ontology is a part of metaphysics; or others have dubbed it metaontology (which 3 out of 3 surveyed found a more pleasing term). anyway, these metaontological talks have already spawned discussions about the plausibility of engaging in in such metaontological discussions, deeming them to be meaningless banter, a sort of psychobabble. this opinion, of course, spontaneously generated metametaontology, or even worse, metametametaphysics.

and i'm making all things worse because whatever level of meta these ontologists achieve, i'll always be, a fortiori one step more meta.

i guess my worry and my reason for this post is this basic pondering: are claims of this nature truth-conditional? are we even still worried about the truth at this level of meta?