Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Existence and Quantification' and 'De modo distinguendi phaenomena'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
If experience is just a dream, it is still real enough if critical reason is never deceived [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Even if this whole life were said to be only a dream, and the visible world only a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough if we were never deceived by it when we make good use of reason.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
     A reaction: I find this response more satisfactory than his response in Idea 12740. As a supporter of the coherence account of justification, I take the closest we get to knowledge to be when our full critical faculties and experience are brought to bear, and shared.
The strongest criterion that phenomena show reality is success in prediction [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The most powerful criterion of the reality of phenomena, sufficient even by itself, is success in predicting future phenomena from past and present ones.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
     A reaction: I would say that this is clutching at straws, as there is no reason at all to deny that dreams could be thoroughly coherent and predictable in their events. We must just live with these doubts, not try to defeat them.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine]
     Full Idea: In the quantification '(∃)(x=a)', it is the existential quantifier, not the 'a' itself, which carries the existential import.
     From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.94)
     A reaction: The Fregean idea seems to be that the criterion of existence is participation in an equality, but here the equality seems not more than assigning a name. Why can't I quantify over 'sakes', in 'for the sake of the children'?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine]
     Full Idea: Another way of saying what objects a theory requires is to say that they are the objects that some of the predicates of the theory have to be true of, in order for the theory to be true.
     From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.95)
     A reaction: The other was for the objects to be needed by the bound variables of the theory. This is the first-order approach, that predication is a commitment to an object. So what of predicates which have no application?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: According to Quine, we find the ontological commitments of a theory by expressing it in first-order predicate logic, then determining what kind of entities must be admitted as bound variables if the theory is true.
     From: report of Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.216
     A reaction: To me this is horribly wrong. The ontological commitments of our language is not the same as ontology. What are the ontological commitments of a pocket calculator?
Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine]
     Full Idea: I hold that the question of the ontological commitment of a theory does not properly arise except as that theory is expressed in classical quantificational form.
     From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.106)
     A reaction: He is attacking substitutional quantification for its failure to commit. I smell circularity. If it must be quantified in the first-order classical manner, that restricts your ontology to objects before you've even started. Chicken/egg.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine]
     Full Idea: Quine's test for ontological commitment ignores the fact that there are often implicit commitments to certain kinds of entities even where we are not yet quantifying over them.
     From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 09.4
     A reaction: Put this with the obvious problem (of which Quine is aware) that we don't quantify over 'sakes' in 'for the sake of the children', and quantification and commitment have been rather clearly pulled apart.