Abstract
This chapter discusses the ontology of Rudolph Carnap, which states that all ontological issues amount to nothing more than choosing one language or another—a position the author cannot entirely agree with, due to his adoption of realist ideals and rejection of the verificationist notions inherent in Carnap's formulations. Instead, the proper argument for ontological disputes as merely verbal requires a condition: that each party can plausibly interpret the other side as speaking a language in which the latter's asserted sentences are true. To clarify these arguments, consider the dispute between perdurantism and endurantism, in which the issue is illustratively verbal in nature. A revised Carnapian approach that emphasizes common-sense ontology and semantics can rectify the issue, if not outright disprove the popular revisionist adoption and manipulation of “ordinary language”.