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Single Idea 7698
[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
]
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.
Gist of Idea
If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available
Source
comment on Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], Ch.6) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology
Book Ref
Jacquette,Dale: 'Ontology' [Acumen 2002], p.177
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.
Related Idea
Idea 1610
To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine]
The
17 ideas
with the same theme
[troubles with theories of commitment]:
19446
|
To our consciousness it is language which looks unreal
[Feuerbach]
|
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
|
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]
|