Quine's criterion is not an ontological thesis but a methodological tool for reading off commitments from theories we antecedently accept, as Quine explicitly argues in 'On What There Is'.
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Ontological thesis(what Quine's criterion is NOT, according to the statement)
A claim about what things actually exist in the world.
Quine(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.
Quine's Criterion(Standard account of ontological commitment in meta-ontology)
A criterion that provides a definition of 'ontological commitment', under which existential quantification (e.g., '∃xMx') incurs commitment to the existence of the entities quantified over
Reading off commitments(describing what Quine's tool does)
Figuring out what a theory or statement assumes must be true or must exist.