The world as it is from our epistemic perspective shall be called the relative world , and the world as it is in itself shall be called the absolute world . Both concepts refer to one and the same world which is only considered under two different metaphysical aspects. If we do talk about the relative world only, we talk about how we are bound to see the world. If in this case our talk is ontological, we suppose our ontologies to be relative to the special conditions of our epistemic life. This is the rough characterization of the kind of ontological relativism which concerns me in this paper.
Ontological relativism commits to a pragmatic notion of identity.
If, namely, it is not supposed to be a matter of fact which single entities make up the world, then any ascription of the property of being one single entity cannot be supposed to be true or false either, and identity must be considered pragmatically. Under the presumption of ontological relativism, ontological dualism is not at all absurd, simply for the reason that it has no metaphysical dimension. Ontological dualism, understood this way, is pragmatic dualism. It gives no world view at all. If, however, we stop limiting our philosophical interest to the relative world and start talking about the absolute world also, our talk is metaphysical and gives a world view in the strong sense of the word.