Meta-ontological anti-realists, on the other hand, deny that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology.
One example of such an approach is Rudolf Carnap's thesis that the truth of existence-claims depends on the framework in which these claims are formulated.
[4] Its first Anglo-American use can be found in the work of Peter van Inwagen, in which he analyzes Willard Van Orman Quine's critique of Rudolf Carnap's metaphysics,[2] where Quine introduced a formal technique for determining the ontological commitments in a comparison of ontologies.
[5] Thomas Hofweber, while acknowledging that the use of the term is controversial, suggests that meta-ontology constitutes a separate field of enquiry besides ontology as its metatheory, when understood in a strict sense.
[9] The meta-ontological realist holds that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology.
[13] Quine himself developed a specific version of this approach relying on first-order logic and pre-existing scientific theories in order to answer existence-questions.
[15] Thomasson's approach differs from Quine's not just concerning her commitment to common sense but also concerning her account of quantification.
[13] For example, it is sometimes held that elementary particles are more fundamental than the macroscopic objects (like chairs and tables) they compose.
This thesis doesn't deny our common-sense intuition that the distinct objects we encounter in our everyday affairs like cars or other people exist.
In an ordered ontology, on the other hand, the entities are part of a complex hierarchical structure with different levels.
The meta-ontological anti-realist holds that there are no objective answers to the basic questions of ontology.
One example of such an approach is Rudolf Carnap's thesis that the truth of existence-claims depends on the framework in which these claims are formulated.
Amie L. Thomasson summarizes the disagreement underlying this debate with reference to the distinction "between existence questions asked using a linguistic framework and existence questions that are supposed to be asked somehow without being subject to those rules—asked, as Quine puts it 'before the adoption of the given language'.