A Return to the Analogy of Being

Recently, I’ve championed the doctrine that fundamentally different sorts of things exist in fundamentally different ways. On this view, what it is for an entity to be can differ across ontological categories. Although historically this doctrine was very popular, and several important challenges to this doctrine have been dealt with, I suspect that contemporary metaphysicians will continue to treat this view with suspicion until it is made clearer when one is warranted in positing different modes of existence. I address this concern here. The question of when to posit ways of being is closely related to a more general question: when should one think that some philosophically interesting expression is analogous? Accordingly, my strategy here is as follows. First, I briefly explain my interpretation of ontological pluralism, the doctrine that there are ways of being. Second,