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Single Idea 14490
[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
]
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.
Gist of Idea
You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it
Source
comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 09.4
Book Ref
Thomasson,Amie L.: 'Ordinary Objects' [OUP 2010], p.167
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.
Related Idea
Idea 14489
Theories do not avoid commitment to entities by avoiding certain terms or concepts [Thomasson]
The
17 ideas
with the same theme
[troubles with theories of commitment]:
19446
|
To our consciousness it is language which looks unreal
[Feuerbach]
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18775
|
Russell showed that descriptions may not have ontological commitment
[Russell, by Linsky,B]
|
14490
|
You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it
[Thomasson on Quine]
|
16261
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If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication
[Maudlin on Quine]
|
7698
|
If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available
[Jacquette on Quine]
|
19492
|
Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology
[Yablo on Quine]
|
13417
|
If a mathematical structure is rejected from a physical theory, it retains its mathematical status
[Parsons,C]
|
13409
|
Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment
[Papineau]
|
9558
|
All scientific tests will verify mathematics, so it is a background, not something being tested
[Sober]
|
18499
|
Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter
[Heil]
|
18205
|
The theoretical indispensability of atoms did not at first convince scientists that they were real
[Maddy]
|
9559
|
If a successful theory confirms mathematics, presumably a failed theory disconfirms it?
[Chihara]
|
9566
|
No scientific explanation would collapse if mathematical objects were shown not to exist
[Chihara]
|
16259
|
Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology
[Maudlin]
|
12438
|
In the vernacular there is no unequivocal ontological commitment
[Azzouni]
|
12441
|
We only get ontology from semantics if we have already smuggled it in
[Azzouni]
|
10637
|
Ordinary speakers posit objects without concern for ontology
[Linnebo]
|