We need a better way to look at (the features of) the world than Folk Ontology.
Any alternative ontology should be more parsimonious,
i.e. postulate fewer entities. This reduces the cognitive cost of using
it and makes it more universal, i.e. cover a wider range of phenomena
more adequately.In the language of Bayesian epistemology: We want prior
beliefs that generate as many (true, correct, useful) posterior beliefs
as possible, i.e. that are as broad as possible or have the highest
possible informational entropy. A parsimonious ontology drives the
overall parsimoniousness and hence generality of our belief
system, i.e. our
Models.
If this deflationary character of the ontology is combined with a greater openness for diverse descriptions of reality, the ontology also becomes more productive, i.e. allows us to generate more Insights.
Thus a better ontology should be more parsimonious and productive.