AbstractEli Hirsch argues that certain ontological disputes involve a conflict between “equivalent” languages, and that the principle of charity compels each disputant to interpret the other as speaking truly in their own language. For Hirsch, a language's semantics maps sentences (in context) onto sets of possible worlds but assigns no role to reference. I argue that this method leads to an overly uncharitable portrayal of the disputes at issue whereby ontologists who speak “equivalent” languages can only argue about syntax. Lack of charity stems from the fact that this portrayal likely fails to uphold the self‐conception of the disputants – and particularly what I will call the weak self‐conception. As a result, Hirsch's deflationism falls victim of the same principle of charity that informs it.