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Full Idea
Existence is what existential quantification expresses. …It is unreasonable to ask for an explication of (general) existence in simpler terms. …We may still ask what counts as evidence for existential quantifications.
Gist of Idea
All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express
Source
Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.97)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.97
A Reaction
This has been orthodoxy for the last 60 years, with philosophers talking of 'quantifying over' instead of 'exists'. But are we allowed second-order logic, and plural quantification, and vague domains?
| 5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
| 8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
| 4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
| 14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
| 16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
| 18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
| 16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
| 16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
| 16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
| 16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |