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Single Idea 10548
[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
]
Full Idea
The dictum that a name has meaning only in the context of a sentence repudiates the conception of a special philosophical sense of 'existence', which claims that numbers do not exist while affirming existential statements about them.
Gist of Idea
The context principle for names rules out a special philosophical sense for 'existence'
Source
Michael Dummett (Frege Philosophy of Language (2nd ed) [1973], Ch.14)
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Frege Philosophy of Language' [Duckworth 1981], p.497
A Reaction
He refers to Frege's Context Principle. Personally I would say you could make plenty of 'affirmations' about arithmetic without them having to be 'existential'. I can say there 'is' a number between 6 and 8, without huge existential claims.
The
21 ideas
with the same theme
[nature of existence commitments]:
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10784
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Whenever there's speech it has to be about something
[Plato]
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13879
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For Frege, ontological questions are to be settled by reference to syntactic structures
[Frege, by Wright,C]
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6060
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'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true
[Russell]
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13938
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A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question
[Carnap]
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19485
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Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything
[Quine]
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11101
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General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do
[Quine]
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8496
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What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language
[Quine]
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10667
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A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible
[Quine, by Hossack]
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15785
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Our commitments are to an 'ontology', but also to an 'ideology', or conceptual system
[Hintikka]
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10548
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The context principle for names rules out a special philosophical sense for 'existence'
[Dummett]
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10281
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The objects we recognise the world as containing depends on the structure of our language
[Dummett]
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18211
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You can reduce ontological commitment by expanding the logic
[Field,H]
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12226
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The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence
[Hale/Wright]
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7678
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Ontology must include the minimum requirements for our semantics
[Jacquette]
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8258
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Two of the main rivals for the foundations of ontology are substances, and facts or states-of-affairs
[Lowe]
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8301
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Some abstractions exist despite lacking causal powers, because explanation needs them
[Lowe]
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12449
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Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences
[Azzouni]
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10643
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We speak of a theory's 'ideological commitments' as well as its 'ontological commitments'
[Linnebo]
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10668
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We are committed to a 'group' of children, if they are sitting in a circle
[Hossack]
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14491
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Rival ontological claims can both be true, if there are analytic relationships between them
[Thomasson]
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18770
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We can distinguish 'ontological' from 'existential' commitment, for different kinds of being
[Anderson,CA]
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