Revisionary and Descriptive Metaphysics

The goal of formal ontological inquiry is to reveal the categorial structure of the mind-independent reality. In the first part of this article, I criticize two popular ways to study the categorial structure, Strong and Weak Modelling. In the second part of the article (secs. 3-5), I present my positive account. The systematic description of the different kinds of entities assumed by our commonsense conceptions (Descriptive Metaphysics) forms a starting-point of the study of the categorial structure of the world. However, it is the task of Revisionary Metaphysics to seek for the best conception of the categorial structure. Revisionary Metaphysics proceeds as testing alternative conceptions of the categorial structure (different categorial schemes). The main new contribution of the article is to propose certain general principles for the comparison of such alternative conceptions.