Meta-ontology

Meta-ontology is the metatheory of ontology, which is to say it comprises discussion of what ontolgy is about and its methods. According to Hofweber: ""it also isn't so clear what an ontological question really is, and thus what it is that ontology is supposed to accomplish. To figure this out is the task of meta-ontology, which strictly speaking is not part of ontology construed narrowly, but the study of what ontology is. However, like most philosophical disciplines, ontology more broadly construed contains its own meta-study, and thus meta-ontology is part of ontology, more broadly construed. Nonetheless it is helpful to separate it out as a special part of ontology. Many of the philosophically most fundamental questions about ontology really are meta-ontological questions.""


 * ——Thomas Hofweber; Logic and ontology

The term 'meta-ontology' is rather new and became more used following a paper titled 'Meta-ontology' by Peter van Inwagen. He phrased the subject of 'meta-ontolgy' as follows: "Quine has called the question ‘What is there?’ "the ontological question." But if we call this question by that name, what name shall we use for the question, ‘What are we asking when we ask “What is there?” ’? Established usage, or misusage, suggests the name ‘the meta-ontological question’, and this is the name I shall use.""


 * ——Peter van Inwagen; Meta-ontology

The question by Quine that Inwagen is referring to was posed in an essay On what there is.