What should we do when two conflicting ontologies are both fruitful, though their fruitfulness varies by context or location? To achieve reconciliation, it is not enough to advocate pluralism. There are many varieties of pluralism and not all pluralisms will serve equally well; some may be inconsistent, others unhelpful. This essay considers another option: local ontology. For a pair of ontologies, a local ontology consists of two claims: (1) each location enjoys a unique ontology, and (2) neither ontology is most fundamental nor most global. To argue for this view and provide an example, I develop a local ontology for two scientific ontologies: processualism and new mechanism. To further support this ontology, I argue against two varieties of pluralism: first, a pluralism based on directly unifying the assumptions of both ontologies and, second, one of allowing both ontologies to coexist within a discipline. I argue that the first option is inconsistent and the second is unhelpful. I conclude that this local ontology provides us with a consistent and fruitful account that includes elements from both mechanism and processualism.

当两个相互冲突的本体论都富有成果时，尽管它们的成果因环境或地点而异，我们该怎么办？要实现和解，仅仅提倡多元化是不够的。多元化有很多种，但并非所有多元化都同样有效。有些可能不一致，有些则无益。本文考虑了另一种选择：本地本体。对于一对本体，本地本体由两个声明组成：（1）每个位置都有一个独特的本体，（2）两个本体都不是最基本的，也不是最全局的。为了论证这一观点并提供一个例子，我为两种科学本体论开发了一个局部本体论：过程主义和新机制。为了进一步支持这一本体论，我反对两种多元化：第一，基于直接统一两种本体论假设的多元主义；第二，允许两种本体论在一个学科内共存。我认为第一个选项不一致，第二个选项没有帮助。我的结论是，这种局部本体论为我们提供了一致且富有成效的说明，其中包括来自机制和过程主义的要素。