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Full Idea
One's hypothesis as to there being universals is at bottom just as arbitrary or pragmatic a matter as one's adoption of a new brand of set theory or even a new system of bookkeeping.
Gist of Idea
Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping
Source
Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], x)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.132
A Reaction
This spells out clearly the strongly pragmatist vein in Quine's thinking.
| 13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
| 13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
| 9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
| 9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
| 9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
| 9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
| 13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
| 9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
| 9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |