display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
26 ideas
| 12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's approach to ontology asks the wrong question, a scientific rather than philosophical question, and answers it in the wrong way, by appealing to philosophical considerations in addition to ordinary scientific considerations. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948]) by Kit Fine - The Question of Ontology p.161 | |
| A reaction: He goes on to call Quine's procedure 'cockeyed'. Presumably Quine would reply with bafflement that scientific and philosophical questions could be considered as quite different from one another. |
| 18438 | Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Nothing happens in the world, not the flutter of an eyelid, not the flicker of a thought, without some redistribution of microphysical states. | |
| From: Willard Quine (on Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking' [1978], p.98) | |
| A reaction: Is this causation, identity, or baffling supervenience? |
| 10243 | My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine] |
| Full Idea: My tentative ontology continues to consist of quarks and their compounds, also classes of such things, classes of such classes, and so on. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.9), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9 | |
| A reaction: I would call this the Hierarchy of Abstraction (just coined it - what do you think?). Unlike Quine, I don't see why its ontology should include things called 'sets' in addition to the things that make them up. |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
| A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
| 19042 | Terms learned by ostension tend to be vague, because that must be quick and unrefined [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A term is apt to be vague if it is to be learned by ostension, since its applicability must admit of being judged on the spot and so cannot hinge of fine distinctions laboriously drawn. | |
| From: Willard Quine (What Price Bivalence? [1981], p.32) | |
| A reaction: [Quine cites C. Wright for this] Presumably precision can steadily increased by repeated ostension. After the first 'dog' it's pretty vague; after hundreds of them we are pretty clear about it. Long observation of borderline 'clouds' could do the same. |
| 8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Ontological controversy tends into controversy over language, but we must not jump to the conclusion that what there is depends on words. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], p.16) | |
| A reaction: An important corrective to my constant whinge against philosophers who treat ontology as if it were semantics, of whom Quine is the central villain. Quine was actually quite a sensible chap. |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The use of general terms does not commit us to admitting a corresponding abstract entity into our ontology, but an abstract singular term, including the law of putting equals for equals, flatly commits us to an abstract entity named by the term. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 4) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean that in 'for the sake of the children', I have to believe in 'sakes' if I can find a synonym which will substitute for it? |
| 19485 | Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything [Quine] |
| Full Idea: I think there is no commitment to entities through use of alleged names of them; other things being equal, we can always deny the allegation that the words in question are names. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Carnap's Views on Ontology [1951], p.205) | |
| A reaction: Hm. So why can't you deny that variables actually refer to existing entities? If I say 'I just saw James', it's a bit cheeky to then deny that James refers to anyone. He uses Russell's technique to paraphrase names. |
| 10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
| Full Idea: Quine's test of ontological commitment says that anything that can be said truly at all must be capable of being said in a logically perfect language, so there must be a paraphrase of every truth into the language of logic. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (works [1961]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 2 | |
| A reaction: A very nice statement of the Quinean view, much more persuasive than other statements I have encountered. I am suddenly almost converted to a doctrine I have hitherto despised. Isn't philosophy wonderful? |
| 1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
| Full Idea: To be assumed as an entity is to be reckoned as the value of a variable. This amounts roughly to saying that to be is to be in the range of reference of a pronoun. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], p.13) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 7784. |
| 19486 | We can use quantification for commitment to unnameable things like the real numbers [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Through our variables of quantification we are quite capable of committing ourselves to entities which cannot be named individually at all in the resources of our language; witness the real numbers. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On Carnap's Views on Ontology [1951], p.205) | |
| A reaction: The real numbers are uncountable, and thus cannot all be named. This is quite an impressive point. I've always had doubts about the existence of real numbers, on the grounds that they could never all be named. |
| 5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
| Full Idea: Quine's well-known slogan "no entity without identity" means that no object should be admitted into our ontology unless its identity conditions, the conditions that say which object it is, have been settled. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This invites science fiction scenarios, where we admit the existence of something before we have a clue what it is (whether it is physical, hallucination, divine..). Quine's slogan seems attractive but optimistic. How 'settled'? |
| 16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In the quantification '(∃)(x=a)', it is the existential quantifier, not the 'a' itself, which carries the existential import. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.94) | |
| A reaction: The Fregean idea seems to be that the criterion of existence is participation in an equality, but here the equality seems not more than assigning a name. Why can't I quantify over 'sakes', in 'for the sake of the children'? |
| 16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
| Full Idea: The highly intuitive methodological programme enunciated by Quine says that as our knowledge expands we should unhesitatingly expand our ideology, our stock of predicables, but should be much more wary about ontology, the name variables. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (works [1961]) by Harold Noonan - Identity §3 | |
| A reaction: I suddenly embrace this as a crucial truth. This distinction allows you to expand on truths without expanding on reality. I would add that it is also crucial to distinguish properties from predicates. A new predicate isn't a new property. |
| 16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Another way of saying what objects a theory requires is to say that they are the objects that some of the predicates of the theory have to be true of, in order for the theory to be true. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.95) | |
| A reaction: The other was for the objects to be needed by the bound variables of the theory. This is the first-order approach, that predication is a commitment to an object. So what of predicates which have no application? |
| 8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: In fiction, 'Once upon a time there was an F who...' obviously does not make an ontological commitment, so Quine says the question of which ontology we accept must be dealt with in terms of the role an ontology plays in a scientific worldview. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to invite questions about the ontology of people who don't espouse a scientific worldview. If your understanding of the outside world and of the past is created for you by storytellers, you won't be a Quinean. |
| 8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Our acceptance of ontology is similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory; we adopt the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged. | |
| From: Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], p.16) | |
| A reaction: Quine (who says he likes 'desert landscapes') is the modern hero for anyone who loves Ockham's Razor, and seeks extreme simplicity. And yet he finds himself committed to the existence of sets to achieve this. |
| 4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: According to Quine, we find the ontological commitments of a theory by expressing it in first-order predicate logic, then determining what kind of entities must be admitted as bound variables if the theory is true. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.216 | |
| A reaction: To me this is horribly wrong. The ontological commitments of our language is not the same as ontology. What are the ontological commitments of a pocket calculator? |
| 18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
| Full Idea: I hold that the question of the ontological commitment of a theory does not properly arise except as that theory is expressed in classical quantificational form. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.106) | |
| A reaction: He is attacking substitutional quantification for its failure to commit. I smell circularity. If it must be quantified in the first-order classical manner, that restricts your ontology to objects before you've even started. Chicken/egg. |
| 18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Ontology is doubly relative. Specifying the universe of a theory makes sense only relative to some background theory, and only relative to some choice of a manual of translation of one theory into another. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.54) | |
| A reaction: People tend to forget about the double nature of Quine's notion of ontological commitment, and usually only talk about the commitment of the theory being employed. Why is the philosophical community not devoting itself to the study of tranlation manuals? |
| 3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical entities (which is everything, according to Quine) are postulated by us in a threefold fashion as an object (1) to which we refer, (2) of which we predicate, and (3) over which we quantify. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (works [1961]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 |
| 16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
| Full Idea: If Quine restricts himself to first-order predicate calculus, then the ontological implications concern the subjects of predicates. The nature of predicates, and what must be true for the predication, have disappeared from the radar screen. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948]) by Tim Maudlin - The Metaphysics within Physics 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Quine's response, I presume, is that the predicates can all be covered extensionally (red is a list of the red objects), and so a simpler logic will do the whole job. I agree with Maudlin though. |
| 7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
| Full Idea: To apply Quine's criterion that to be is to be the value of a quantifier-bound variable, we must already know the values of bound variables, which is to say that we must already be in possession of a preferred existence domain. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], Ch.6) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology | |
| A reaction: [A comment on Idea 1610]. Very nice to accuse Quine, of all people, of circularity, given his attack on analytic-synthetic with the same strategy! The values will need to be known extra-lingistically, to avoid more circularity. |
| 19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's advice is to countenance numbers iff the literal part of our theory quantifies over them; and to count the part of our theory that quantifies over numbers literal iff there turn out really to be numbers. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Stephen Yablo - Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? XIII | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit devastating. Presumably it is indeed the choice of a best theory which results in the ontological commitment, so it is not much help to then read off the ontology from the theory. |
| 14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's test for ontological commitment ignores the fact that there are often implicit commitments to certain kinds of entities even where we are not yet quantifying over them. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 09.4 | |
| A reaction: Put this with the obvious problem (of which Quine is aware) that we don't quantify over 'sakes' in 'for the sake of the children', and quantification and commitment have been rather clearly pulled apart. |