3/ The Relations Between Axiology and Ontology

The essential content of ontology seems rooted in an age-old debate between idealism and realism. What is real? Are ideas or things more real? Is thought or matter the true foundation of reality? Alternatively, we might invert the question: is the material world we perceive the real world, or is there another, hidden one?

As we have shown, axiology can bypass this debate, since it does not question the existence of what it seeks to value. When axiology aims to determine the value of an object (a tree, for instance), it need not ask whether that object is an idea, a material entity, a thing-in-itself, a phenomenon in the Kantian sense, or an event or collection of atoms.
Whatever answer ontology provides to these questions, axiology requires only the presence of a 'content of meaning=X' with an undetermined ontological nature, which it must assess for value. This feature grants axiology the distinctive advantage of not needing to take sides in ontological debates, since the answer to such questions, whatever it may be, has no bearing on its inquiry.

The concept of 'content of meaning' is thus essential in meeting this requirement: it does not adjudicate whether the referent of a meaning is a material thing or a mere representation, but abstracts from ontological status to retain only the meaning itself. Whether thing or idea, the X under consideration always carries the same meaning. A photographed horse and a real horse share the same meaning: horse.

To sum up, axiology is entirely independent of the controversy between realism and idealism (in the Kantian sense). This is why axiology holds itself apart from metaphysics, given that the ontological nature of things appears profoundly irresolvable—as is the way with any genuine metaphysical problem.