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    Modal criteria may introduce spurious ontological commitm... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Modal criteria may introduce spurious ontological commitments when there are metaphysically necessary connections between distinct kinds of entity.

    Modality & PossibilityPhilosophy of Language
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Fine's distinction between constitutive and consequential essence shows necessary connections don't collapse distinct ontological categories.
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    • 2.A theory committed to water is not thereby committed to H2O as a separate entity, even if water is necessarily H2O, because modal co-extension doesn't entail ontological multiplication.
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    • 3.Modal criteria that treat all necessary co-extensionals as joint commitments violate the Quinean principle that ontological commitment tracks existential quantification, not metaphysical necessity.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kripke's necessary a posteriori truths demonstrate that necessary connections between kinds are discovered empirically, not legislated by our theories, so a theory's commitments cannot be read off from necessities unknown to its formulators.
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    • 2.A geocentric theory necessarily committed to Hesperus cannot thereby incur commitment to Phosphorus without collapsing the epistemic access condition that grounds ontological commitment attributions in the first place.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.If whales are necessarily mammals, then a theory committed to whales is automatically committed to mammals under modal criteria.
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    • 2.This holds even if the theory explicitly claims there are no mammals and that whales are fish.
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    • 3.If identity is necessary, a theory committed to Hesperus is automatically committed to Phosphorus, even if the theory asserts Hesperus exists and Phosphorus does not.
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    Philosophy of LanguageModality & Possibility

    Related

    A geocentric theory necessarily committed to Hesperus cannot thereby incur commi...A theory committed to water is not thereby committed to H2O as a separate entity...Fine's distinction between constitutive and consequential essence shows necessar...If identity is necessary, a theory committed to Hesperus is automatically commit...
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    If whales are necessarily mammals, then a theory committed to whales is automati...Kripke's necessary a posteriori truths demonstrate that necessary connections be...Modal criteria that treat all necessary co-extensionals as joint commitments vio...This holds even if the theory explicitly claims there are no mammals and that wh...

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    SEP: ontological-commitment
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    But some less pressing objections remain that suggest that metaphysical necessity is too blunt an instrument to capture the notion of ontological commitment. Three will be mentioned here. First, just as extensional criteria could not distinguish between ontological commitments to co-extensional kinds, the modal criteria cannot distinguish between ontological commitments to co-intensional kinds. A theory that is committed to triangular polygons will also be committed to trilateral polygons, and v
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    claim
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    Edits
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