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    An a priori entailment relation must replace modal entail... — Carmelics
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    An a priori entailment relation must replace modal entailment in the analysis of ontological commitment.

    Modality & PossibilityPhilosophy of Language
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Modal entailment violates the epistemic constraint that ontological commitments be knowable a priori.
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    • 2.An entailment account of ontological commitment requires an entailment relation that satisfies the epistemic constraint.
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    • 3.A priori entailment, unlike modal entailment, satisfies the epistemic constraint.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.A priori entailment is too restrictive: Kripke's necessary a posteriori shows ontological facts can be necessary without being knowable a priori.
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    • 2.If water's composition H2O is an ontological commitment of chemistry, it is discovered empirically, not via a priori reasoning.
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    • 3.Therefore, requiring a priori entailment would wrongly exclude legitimate ontological commitments grounded in necessary a posteriori truths.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's original criterion grounds ontological commitment in the bound variables of our best scientific theories, not in any epistemic entailment relation.
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    • 2.Science routinely incurs ontological commitments—to dark matter, fields, wavefunctions—whose connection to observation is neither a priori nor purely modal.
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    • 3.Replacing modal entailment with a priori entailment smuggles a rationalist epistemic constraint into what is fundamentally a naturalistic, holistic project.
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    Philosophy of LanguageModality & Possibility

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    Related

    A priori entailment is too restrictive: Kripke's necessary a posteriori shows on...A priori entailment, unlike modal entailment, satisfies the epistemic constraint...An entailment account of ontological commitment requires an entailment relation ...If water's composition H2O is an ontological commitment of chemistry, it is disc...
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    Modal entailment violates the epistemic constraint that ontological commitments ...Quine's original criterion grounds ontological commitment in the bound variables...Replacing modal entailment with a priori entailment smuggles a rationalist epist...Science routinely incurs ontological commitments—to dark matter, fields, wavefun...Therefore, requiring a priori entailment would wrongly exclude legitimate ontolo...

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ontological-commitment
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    If the notion of ontological commitment is to play a role in theory choice or clarifying ontological disputes, then the ontological commitments of a theory must be rationally accessible; failure to acknowledge the ontological commitments of one's theory must be a rational failing (see Michael 2008). That puts the following epistemic constraint on the entailment relation that is invoked by an entailment account of ontological commitment: the entailments of a theory must be knowable by any ideally
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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit