Journal of Social Ontology 2017; 3(1): 129–132

Book Review Open Access

Tuomas E. Tahko: An Introduction to Metametaphysics. Cambridge, UK: C

­ ambridge
University Press, 2015, x + 258 pp.
Reviewed by Guglielmo Feis: State University of Milan – Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche
“Cesare Beccaria”, sezione di Filosofia e Sociologia del Diritto, via Festa del Perdono, 7, 20122
Milano, Italy

DOI 10.1515/jso-2017-0001

One might wonder why a social ontologist should care about metametaphysics
and read an introduction to the topic such as the one written by Tuomas E. Tahko.
Answering the question requires to take stance on some substantial disputes
about social ontology and its methods. Before making some of these general
remarks, let us focus on the book.
Tahko’s Introduction, though not interested in historical questions, follows a
chronological order in presenting the topics of metametaphysics. After an intro-
duction on why we should care about metametaphysics (ch. 1), we start with the
Carnap-Quine debate (ch. 2) before focusing on ontological commitment and its
alternatives (ch. 3). These chapters allow us to distinguish the three main posi-
tions in the contemporary metametaphysics debate (ch. 4): Quiniean views, Neo-
Aristotelian views, and deflationists views – further divided along the realist vs.
anti-realist axis.
After setting the stage and explaining how we arrived at the current state
of the art, the book presents the main contemporary topics of metametaphysics:
grounding and ontological dependence (ch. 5), levels of reality and fundamental-
ity (ch. 6).
Then the book adds something in the last three chapters to the standard view
of (meta)metaphysics, as Tahko is convinced that some (modal) epistemological
issues are deeply entrenched with metametaphysics. The issues discussed are the
status – a priori or a posteriori? – of metaphysics (ch. 7), the role of intuitions and
thought experiments in metaphysics (ch. 8) and the relationships between meta-
physics and science (ch. 9).
A clearly written glossary, a bibliography and indexes (names and concepts)
finish the volume, which targets both graduate students and experts in philoso-
phy whose main interests lie outside metametaphysics.
Now it is time to get into the book and produce some spoilers about it. First,
the book is written by a Neo-Aristotelian: Tahko is clear in stating his background
credo but struggles to remain neutral in presenting the issues. His background

©2017, Guglielmo Feis, published by De Gruyter.

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130      Book review

can be detected more by what he chooses to present rather than by how he dis-
cusses the topics: given a debate, he carefully presents all the leading figures and
positions.
A strategy I have appreciated in the book is that, after presenting the main
positions and issues of a debate in general, Tahko dives into a more specific topic
taking it as a case study. For example: Varzi is discussed as an example of conven-
tionalism, Sider is a case-study for ontological realism and Hirsch for quantifiers
variance. That is a great strategy to avoid students having just a big picture of
“-isms” with nothing substantial attached to them.
Throughout the book, some examples from physics will pop out in different
discussions. Physics investigates the fundamental levels of reality, hence Tahko
thinks it is a good benchmark for every metaphysical position that addresses
issues in fundamentality. The topics from physics will go beyond gold and its
atomic number of 79 or electrons. Fermions, the EPR experiment, the Copenha-
gen interpretation, the standard model, Pauli’s exclusion principle, the Bose-
Einstein condensate and more shall all be there. But fear not, all these topics are
introduced in a way that makes them accessible to the non-physicists and Tahko
readily points out the philosophical significance of the physics he mentions.
Many issues resonate to a social ontologist while reading the book, especially
in chs. 5-6. Grounding, dependence and mereology can help the social ontologist
in many ways. The Searlean question of going from electrons to elections can be
fruitfully investigated as a question of ontological dependence and grounding
which are tools we can use to better explain how brute facts feature in institu-
tional facts.1
Mereology plus dependence shall also help us laying down existence condi-
tions for groups and other collective entities, though probably game theory is still
the more popular tool to explain how groups interacts and reasons.
Getting a more into details (arbitrarily chosen), I will focus on two points
closely connected to social ontology. The first is the discussion of extreme con-
ventionalism. Varzi’s paper is a great example to present extreme conventional-
ist’s logic and some of its problems. My worry is that, as in other writings Varzi
defends a Quineian view of ontology and Universalism in mereology: the book’s
presentation might lead students to place him in a box (extreme conventional-
ism) that does not fully represent him. For sure there is a tension between these

1 Brian Epstein investigated grounding in social ontology, see e.g. (Epstein 2015).

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 Book review      131

two sides of Varzi, as Varzi himself acknowledged in another paper (Varzi 2014).
Such a tension is worth pointing out here in this review as it looks familiar for the
social ontologist: social entities are intrinsically dependent on social practices
and institutions (the conventional part of Varzi’s story), yet they are entities and
they exist (the universalist part of Varzi that takes quantifiers and ontological
commitments seriously).
The second point is related to the prehistory of metametaphysics as we know
it today and concerns ontological commitment.
It is worth noting that one of the most discussed philosophers in social ontol-
ogy, John Searle, entered one of the first debates on ontological commitments. In
his Speech Acts, (Searle 1969, p. 5.3) he offers a “reduction” of (Quineian) onto-
logical commitment (Searle draws in part on the work of Church and Alston of
late 50’s). Such a discussion is omitted in Tahko’s book, I think both for space
reasons and for his aiming to present the live issues and the contemporary state
of the art debates (by the way, it is worth noting that Searle’s paragraph has not
been discussed in deep by social ontologists).
One of the things we learn from Tahko’s book is that there is no need to
follow Quine in defining criteria of ontological commitment, but if we want to do
some serious ontology, we have to deal with this problem, not simply dismiss it.
Tahko’s book helps us unveiling one of the paradoxes of social ontology: it is an
ontological discipline that, at least according to its Searlean form, has no interest
whatsoever in ontology(cal commitment).
The field of social ontology is interdisciplinary: game theory matters, the
impact of cognitive sciences and sociology is huge. If we make room for meta­
metaphysics in social ontology, we would be able to clarify the “ontology part” of
social ontology. Those who, following Barry Smith, argue that in Searlean social
ontology we lack some heavy-weight ontology, will find in the book a great com-
panion of the wonderful but forgotten things that ontology and metaphysics offer
to social ontology.
If you think social ontology has to be kept Searlean and uninformed about
other ontological and metaphysical concepts, reading an introduction to meta­
metaphysics allows you to invest your time in a wise manner as you will quickly
to get to know your enemy.2

2 There is actually a middle position among the two, related to the debate on artifact in social
ontology. Here ontology matters, but has been taken easy, i.e. in some sort of deflationistic fash-
ion. See (Thomasson 2015).

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132      Book review

Bibliography
Epstein, Brian (2015): The Ant Trap. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Searle, John R. (1969): Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge:
­Cambridge University Press.
Thomasson, Amie L. (2015): Ontology Made Easy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Varzi, Achille C. (2014): “Counting and Countenancing”. In: Donald Baxter and Aaron Cotnoir
(Eds.): Composition as Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 47–69.

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