Quine's criterion for ontological commitment requires that existentialclaims in formal systems carry genuine ontological weight only when the existents are specifiable, not merely provably existent.
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(as a proper name referring to the philosopher whose theory is being discussed)
Willard Van Orman Quine was a 20th-century American philosopher who wrote about how we know things and how language works. In this statement, we're discussing one of his specific ideas about observation.
Specifiable(what Quine requires before something counts as really existing)
Able to be clearly defined or described in concrete, meaningful terms rather than being vague or abstract.
ontological commitment(Used to derive that literal truth of 'a is F' entails existence of a)
The criterion by which acceptance of a sentence as literally true commits one to the existence of the objects referred to by singular terms in that sentence, provided the sentence cannot be paraphrased away.