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    Quine's indispensability criterion demands that ontologic... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Hybrid ontological objects (intersections of mental, abstract, and physical categories) are metaphysically permissible

    Quine's indispensability criterion demands that ontological commitment track explanatory necessity, not conceptual convenience.

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    1 reason for
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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Scientific theories commit us only to entities genuinely required by their best explanations, not mere mathematical conveniences.
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    • 2.Distinguishing explanatory necessity from conceptual convenience prevents ontological bloat and maintains parsimony principles.
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    • 3.Entities like numbers may be conceptually useful but explanatorily dispensable if science can be reformulated without them.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The distinction between explanatory necessity and conceptual convenience is itself vague and theory-laden, not objectively determinate.
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    • 2.Mathematical objects appear indispensable to our best physics explanations, challenging whether the criterion excludes abstracts coherently.
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    • 3.What counts as 'necessary' for explanation depends on background assumptions that vary across epistemic frameworks and contexts.
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    Connections

    2 topics

    Modality & Possibility1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Distinguishing explanatory necessity from conceptual convenience prevents ontolo...Entities like numbers may be conceptually useful but explanatorily dispensable i...Hybrid ontological objects (intersections of mental, abstract, and physical cate...Mathematical objects appear indispensable to our best physics explanations, chal...
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    Scientific theories commit us only to entities genuinely required by their best ...The distinction between explanatory necessity and conceptual convenience is itse...What counts as 'necessary' for explanation depends on background assumptions tha...

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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    1 edit