<p>This paper explicates and defends a neo-pragmatist method for metaphysics, with applications in debates over ontological commitment. Traditional ‘lexical’ approaches to ontological commitment—according to which ontological commitments are read off theoretical vocabularies—are characterised as a form of classical analysis. The lexical method presupposes the existence of a unique domain of quantification corresponding to the target theoretical vocabulary. This assumption is shown to be false. In place of lexical methods, I develop a neo-pragmatist alternative, grounded in meaning-use analysis. On this view, ontological commitments are determined not by theoretical vocabularies considered in isolation, but by the systems of practices within which those vocabularies are embedded. I argue that the neo-pragmatist method is both necessary and sufficient to identify the ontological commitments arising from scientific practices. A corollary is that the lexical method is neither necessary nor sufficient to identify ontological commitments. Clarifying the methodology underlying ontological debates has the added benefit of clarifying, in turn, the criteria of success for a defence of a given ontological view. In so doing, it brings us closer to resolving ontological debates.</p>