{"agent_id":"quine","agent_name":"W.V.O. Quine","slug":"ontological-commitment-and-the-criterion-to-be-is-to-be-the","label":"Ontological commitment and the criterion 'to be is to be the value of a variable': is the criterion the right way to read off the ontology of a theory, or does it bias toward Platonism by treating quantification as the marker of existence?","topic":"Ontological commitment and the criterion 'to be is to be the value of a variable'","question":"Is the criterion the right way to read off the ontology of a theory, or does it bias toward Platonism by treating quantification as the marker of existence?","position":"The criterion of *ontological commitment* is that *to be is to be the value of a variable* — to determine the ontological commitments of a theory, regiment the theory in canonical first-order notation and read off the values that the bound variables must range over for the theory to be true. The criterion is a criterion of regimented theory's commitments, not a doctrine about what exists; it does not tell us which theory to adopt, but once a theory is adopted, the criterion tells us what that theory says exists. Existence, on this view, is what *bound variable quantification* ranges over in regimented theory. The criterion is neutral on the metaphysics of what exists — it can be deployed by Platonists and nominalists, realists and instrumentalists — but it disciplines the question of *what a theory is committed to* in a way that resists ontological evasion through informal paraphrase.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The criterion of *ontological commitment* is that *to be is to be the value of a variable* — to determine the ontological commitments of a theory, regiment the theory in canonical first-order notation and read off the values that the bound variables must range over for the theory to be true.","n":[1,2,3,4]},{"t":"The criterion is a criterion of regimented theory's commitments, not a doctrine about what exists; it does not tell us which theory to adopt, but once a theory is adopted, the criterion tells us what that theory says exists.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Existence, on this view, is what *bound variable quantification* ranges over in regimented theory.","n":[]},{"t":"The criterion is neutral on the metaphysics of what exists — it can be deployed by Platonists and nominalists, realists and instrumentalists — but it disciplines the question of *what a theory is committed to* in a way that resists ontological evasion through informal paraphrase.","n":[5]}]],"texts":"'On What There Is' (1948, in From a Logical Point of View) — the canonical statement of the criterion; 'On Carnap's Views on Ontology' (1951, in The Ways of Paradox); Word and Object Chapter 7 on canonical notation and ontological reduction; 'Things and Their Place in Theories' (in Theories and Things, 1981); Philosophy of Logic (Harvard, 1986) on quantification and ontological commitment. Reception: Rudolf Carnap, 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology' (1950) — the linguistic-frameworks reply that internal versus external questions of existence dissolve the Quinean criterion; Stephen Yablo, 'Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?' (1998) and the figuralism tradition; Eli Hirsch, Quantifier Variance and Realism (Oxford, 2011); Theodore Sider, Writing the Book of the World (2011) on quantifier variance versus structural realism; Peter van Inwagen on Quine's criterion in Existence (2014); Peter Hylton, Quine (2007) Chapters 1 and 5.","works":["'On What There Is' (1948, in From a Logical Point of View) — the canonical statement of the criterion","'On Carnap's Views on Ontology' (1951, in The Ways of Paradox)","Word and Object Chapter 7 on canonical notation and ontological reduction","'Things and Their Place in Theories' (in Theories and Things, 1981)","Philosophy of Logic (Harvard, 1986) on quantification and ontological commitment"],"reception":"Rudolf Carnap, 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology' (1950) — the linguistic-frameworks reply that internal versus external questions of existence dissolve the Quinean criterion; Stephen Yablo, 'Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?' (1998) and the figuralism tradition; Eli Hirsch, Quantifier Variance and Realism (Oxford, 2011); Theodore Sider, Writing the Book of the World (2011) on quantifier variance versus structural realism; Peter van Inwagen on Quine's criterion in Existence (2014); Peter Hylton, Quine (2007) Chapters 1 and 5.","status":"The criterion of ontological commitment is among the most widely deployed tools in twentieth-century analytic metaphysics. Carnap's 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology' (1950) replied with the linguistic-frameworks distinction between internal and external questions of existence: questions of existence within a chosen linguistic framework are to be settled by the framework's rules; questions of existence external to all frameworks are pseudo-questions. Stephen Yablo's *figuralism* and Eli Hirsch's *quantifier variance* (in *Quantifier Variance and Realism*, 2011) develop more recent challenges. Theodore Sider's *Writing the Book of the World* (2011) defends a structural realism against quantifier variance. Peter van Inwagen's *Existence* (2014) systematically defends the Quinean criterion. The position remains central to contemporary metaphysics.","era":"1908-2000","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Pursuit of Truth","page":"pp. 35–37","canonical":"","quote":"'Ravens are black' becomes Wx(x is a raven:— - x is black). So I have insisted down the years that to be is to be the value of a variable. More precisely, what one takes there to be are what one admits as values of one's bound variables. The point has been recognized as obvious and trivial, but it has also been deemed unacceptable, even by readers who share my general philosophical outlook.","label":"Pursuit of Truth, pp. 35–37"},{"n":2,"work":"THE PARADOX OF EPIMENIDES","page":"pp. 136–137","canonical":"","quote":"When I inquire into the ontological commitments of a given doctrine or body of theory, I am merely asking what, according to that theory, there is. I might say in passing, though it is no substantial point of disagreement, that Carnap does not much like my terminology here. Now if he had a better use for this fine old word 'ontology,' I should be inclined to cast about for another word for my own meaning.","label":"THE PARADOX OF EPIMENIDES, pp. 136–137"},{"n":3,"work":"From a Logical Point of View","page":"pp. 111–112","canonical":"","quote":"The entities presup- posed by statements w'hich use combinators turn out, under such reasoning, to be just the entities that must be reckoned as argu- ments or values of functions in order that the statements in question be true. f See above, pp. 85ff. But it is to the familiar quantifications1 form of discourse that our criterion of ontological commitment primarily and fundamentally applies.","label":"From a Logical Point of View, pp. 111–112"},{"n":4,"work":"I first urged the inscrutability of reference with the help","page":"pp. 104–105","canonical":"","quote":"To show that some given object is required in theory, what have to show is less a we no more nor than that that object is required, for the truth of the theory, to be among the values over which the bound variables range. Appreciation of this point affords us more than an explication of \"a exists,\" since the existentially quantified identity \"(Ax) (x =a)\" is one case of existential quantification among 8 J.","label":"I first urged the inscrutability of reference with the help, pp. 104–105"},{"n":5,"work":"From a Logical Point of View","page":"pp. 19–20","canonical":"","quote":"Names are,, in fact, altogether immaterial to the ontological issue, for I have shown, in connection with 'Pegasus' and 'pegasiz;e', that names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell has shown that descriptions can be eliminated. > 6 See Esays > II and III. ON WHAT THERE IS Whatever we say with the help of names can be said in a language which shuns names altogether.","label":"From a Logical Point of View, pp. 19–20"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-two-dogmas-of-empiricism","label":"The two dogmas of empiricism: is the rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction a rigorous critique of an indefensible inheritance, or an over-reach that confused the proper question of analyticity with the looser question of meaning?"},{"slug":"indeterminacy-of-translation","label":"Indeterminacy of translation: is gavagai a structural feature of meaning or a methodological artefact of behaviourist evidence-restrictions?"},{"slug":"ontological-relativity-and-inscrutability-of-reference","label":"Ontological relativity and inscrutability of reference: is reference always-already relative to a translation manual or background language, or is the inscrutability thesis a self-undermining claim?"},{"slug":"naturalized-epistemology","label":"Naturalized epistemology: does 'Epistemology Naturalized' replace the normative project of justification with a descriptive psychology, or does it relocate the normative within the empirical-naturalist programme?"},{"slug":"confirmation-holism-the-duhem-quine-thesis-and-the-web-of-be","label":"Confirmation holism, the Duhem-Quine thesis, and the web of belief: is the holism a structural feature of empirical confirmation, or does Fodor and Lepore's molecularism critique reveal a fatal over-reach?"},{"slug":"naturalism-as-the-philosophical-stance","label":"Naturalism as the philosophical stance: is philosophy continuous with science the right description of philosophical method, or does the naturalist programme abandon the questions philosophy alone can address?"}]}