Analyticity and Ontology

The doctrine of analyticity in ontology states that, if some truth f analytically entails the existence of certain things, then a theory that contains f but does not claim that those things exist is no more ontologically parsimonious than a theory that also claims that they exist. The doctrine implies that a table’s existence requires nothing more of the world than that those particles exist and bear the features in question. Analyticity theorists have alleged that this idea may be used to defend controversial existence claims against a battery of objections. This chapter argues that this style of defence fails because the doctrine faces counter-examples. An existence claim may be analytically entailed by some truth and still report a substantial further fact. These counter-examples suggest a picture according to which the theoretical utility of analyticity in the investigation of extra-linguistic reality is virtually nil.