Dismissivism in Metaphysics

If an American English speaker asks for chips in a UK pub, he might be surprised to be given long cuts of fried potato. He complains to the waiter because he wanted round slices of fried potato instead. The waiter replies that what the customer wants are crisps, not chips. With a simple ordinary dispute like this one it is easy to find the reason why people disagree, and help people get out of the disagreement. Nobody would trouble himself to think about this much, not even a philosopher. Since philosophical disputes are usually more complex than ordinary disputes about food, it is much tougher to find out why philosophers disagree. If philosophical disputes turned out to be as deep as a discussion about the name of a common food, then it would be appropriate to treat philosophical discussions with the same attitude as one treats discussions about names for food: a small shrug. In philosophical jargon, the small shrug is called 'dismissivism'. It is worth discussing dismissivism, because issues to do with it bear on the future of philosophy. If philosophy has has to have a future, we have to make sure that at least some disagreements within it are substantial.