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Single Idea 6060

[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment ]

Full Idea

When you take any propositional function and assert of it that it is possible, that it is sometimes true, that gives you the fundamental meaning of 'existence'.

Clarification

A 'proposition function' says something about something

Gist of Idea

'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true

Source

Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]), quoted by Colin McGinn - Logical Properties Ch.2

Book Ref

McGinn,Colin: 'Logical Properties' [OUP 2003], p.18

A Reaction

Functions depend on variables, so this leads to Quine's slogan "to be is to be the value of a variable". Assertions of non-existence are an obvious problem, but Russell thought of all that. All of this makes existence too dependent on language.

The 21 ideas with the same theme [nature of existence commitments]:

10784 Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato]
13879 For Frege, ontological questions are to be settled by reference to syntactic structures [Frege, by Wright,C]
6060 'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true [Russell]
13938 A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap]
19485 Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything [Quine]
11101 General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine]
8496 What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine]
10667 A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack]
15785 Our commitments are to an 'ontology', but also to an 'ideology', or conceptual system [Hintikka]
10548 The context principle for names rules out a special philosophical sense for 'existence' [Dummett]
10281 The objects we recognise the world as containing depends on the structure of our language [Dummett]
18211 You can reduce ontological commitment by expanding the logic [Field,H]
12226 The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright]
7678 Ontology must include the minimum requirements for our semantics [Jacquette]
8258 Two of the main rivals for the foundations of ontology are substances, and facts or states-of-affairs [Lowe]
8301 Some abstractions exist despite lacking causal powers, because explanation needs them [Lowe]
12449 Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences [Azzouni]
10643 We speak of a theory's 'ideological commitments' as well as its 'ontological commitments' [Linnebo]
10668 We are committed to a 'group' of children, if they are sitting in a circle [Hossack]
14491 Rival ontological claims can both be true, if there are analytic relationships between them [Thomasson]
18770 We can distinguish 'ontological' from 'existential' commitment, for different kinds of being [Anderson,CA]