Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Elimination of Metaphysics by Analysis of Language' and 'Plurals and Complexes'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

21982	I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
	Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
	From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
	A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment

10668	We are committed to a 'group' of children, if they are sitting in a circle [Hossack]
	Full Idea: By Quine's test of ontological commitment, if some children are sitting in a circle, no individual child can sit in a circle, so a singular paraphrase will have us committed to a 'group' of children.
	From: Keith Hossack (Plurals and Complexes [2000], 2)
	A reaction: Nice of why Quine is committed to the existence of sets. Hossack offers plural quantification as a way of avoiding commitment to sets. But is 'sitting in a circle' a real property (in the Shoemaker sense)? I can sit in a circle without realising it.