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Full Idea
To be assumed as an entity is to be reckoned as the value of a variable. This amounts roughly to saying that to be is to be in the range of reference of a pronoun.
Gist of Idea
To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun
Source
Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], p.13)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'From a Logical Point of View' [Harper and Row 1963], p.13
A Reaction
Cf. Idea 7784.
Related Idea
Idea 7784 'Object' is a pseudo-concept, properly indicated in logic by the variable x [Wittgenstein]