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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]