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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Quantifiers and variables have no privileged role in determining the ontological commitments of a theory.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's canonical notation thesis holds that regimentation into first-order logic with bound variables is the uniquely perspicuous medium for exposing ontological commitment.
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    • 2.Without a privileged regimentation procedure, the entailment account collapses into triviality, since any sentence can be made to 'entail' existence claims under some interpretation.
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    • 3.Quantifiers and variables in first-order logic provide a syntactically tractable and logically disciplined criterion that no purely semantic entailment account can replicate.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Melia's nominalist strategy of 'weaseling' shows that one can assert a theory and then retract its existential entailments without contradiction, undermining purely entailment-based commitment.
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    • 2.If ontological commitment tracks entailment without privileging quantificational structure, there is no principled basis for distinguishing genuine commitment from rhetorical or instrumental assertion of existence claims.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Under an entailment account, a theory T is ontologically committed to Ks if and only if T entails that Ks exist.
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    • 2.Quantifiers and variables figure into the ontological commitments of a theory only to the extent that they figure into the entailments of the theory.
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    • 3.Other components of the sentences of the theory contribute to ontological commitments in the same way as quantifiers and variables.
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