The Logic behind Quine's Criterion of Ontological Commitment
(2020) In European Journal of Philosophy 28(3). p.789-804- Abstract
- This article first explains why Quine took first‐order classical logic to be the only language in which we should formulate a theory or declarative statement to determine its ontological commitments. I then argue that Quineans cannot relax Quine's restriction to classical logic such that any nonclassical logic may be used to uncover a theory's ontological commitments. The reason is that this leads to radical ontological relativism according to which the ontological commitments of a theory are relative to a logic. This is not a Quinean picture of ontology, but a Carnapian one. Finally, I consider whether Quineans can go beyond Quine by allowing for classical and plural logic, but no other logics. I claim that this is not possible because... (More)
- This article first explains why Quine took first‐order classical logic to be the only language in which we should formulate a theory or declarative statement to determine its ontological commitments. I then argue that Quineans cannot relax Quine's restriction to classical logic such that any nonclassical logic may be used to uncover a theory's ontological commitments. The reason is that this leads to radical ontological relativism according to which the ontological commitments of a theory are relative to a logic. This is not a Quinean picture of ontology, but a Carnapian one. Finally, I consider whether Quineans can go beyond Quine by allowing for classical and plural logic, but no other logics. I claim that this is not possible because plural logic is not transparent: it allows for ontologically nonequivalent theories to be formulated such that they come out as ontologically equivalent. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/b16efb2f-f14f-4915-aa09-51b553647478
- author
- Smid, Jeroen LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020-09
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- European Journal of Philosophy
- volume
- 28
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 6 pages
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85081203026
- ISSN
- 0966-8373
- DOI
- 10.1111/ejop.12534
- project
- Principer för val av teori och diskussionen om objekt som sammanfaller
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- b16efb2f-f14f-4915-aa09-51b553647478
- date added to LUP
- 2020-03-11 10:40:01
- date last changed
- 2022-04-18 21:18:59
@article{b16efb2f-f14f-4915-aa09-51b553647478,
abstract = {{This article first explains why Quine took first‐order classical logic to be the only language in which we should formulate a theory or declarative statement to determine its ontological commitments. I then argue that Quineans cannot relax Quine's restriction to classical logic such that any nonclassical logic may be used to uncover a theory's ontological commitments. The reason is that this leads to radical ontological relativism according to which the ontological commitments of a theory are relative to a logic. This is not a Quinean picture of ontology, but a Carnapian one. Finally, I consider whether Quineans can go beyond Quine by allowing for classical and plural logic, but no other logics. I claim that this is not possible because plural logic is not transparent: it allows for ontologically nonequivalent theories to be formulated such that they come out as ontologically equivalent.}},
author = {{Smid, Jeroen}},
issn = {{0966-8373}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
pages = {{789--804}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{European Journal of Philosophy}},
title = {{The Logic behind Quine's Criterion of Ontological Commitment}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12534}},
doi = {{10.1111/ejop.12534}},
volume = {{28}},
year = {{2020}},
}