Page 56 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Language, Metaphysics, and Ontology
Some philosophers influenced by Meinong, insist that people can talk and think about nonexistent objects; fictional characters might be examples. If one can quantify over nonexistent things, Quine is wrong to believe that existence is what is expressed by the 'existential quantifier.' Others question his reliance upon extensional First Order Logic, claiming that other logics are better equipped for displaying the contents of thoughts. Yet others object than an adequate semantic account of First Order Logic shows that ontological commitments can be carried by expressions other than quantifiers.
2. Ontological Relativity
If Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation is correct, there are implications for his account of ontological commitment. The indeterminacy of ref- erence, a corollary of the more general indeterminacy thesis, suggests that there is no fact of the matter as to what the general terms of a language apply to. By systematically adjusting the translations of other expressions, one could interpret the same native predi- cate as applying to rabbits, to stages in the history of rabbits, to areas of space one mile to the north of rabbits, and so on. Any translation, that might be found, would be compatible with all the relevant evi- dence. According to the translation manual used in formalizing the native language and applying Quine's criterion, commitment to an ontology of rabbits, rab- bit stages, or areas of space, and so on will be found. At best one can state the ontological commitments of a theory or theorist relative to a manual for translating his speech into our own. Other than relative to a
translation manual, there is no fact of the matter as to what the ontological commitments of sentence or theory are (Quine 1969: ch. 2). This is Quine's thesis of 'ontological relativity,' a doctrine he describes as a mere corollary of the indeterminacy or inscrutability of reference. Ontology may be less important than often supposed.
This does not mean that the criterion is without value. When one examines one's own ontological commitments, these relativities are disguised since one uses the 'identity transformation' as the translation manual: one translates 'rabbit' as 'rabbit,' and so on. Reliance on such a translation manual is deeply embedded in the practice of reflecting on thoughts and commitments. But it simply disguises the relativity; according to Quine, it does not eliminate it.
See also: Indeterminacy of Translation; Ontology; Universals.
Bibliography
Alston W P 1958 Ontological commitment 25. Philosophical Studies 6:8-16
Church A 1958 Ontological commitment. Journal of Phil- osophy 55:1008-14
Davidson D 1980 Essays on Actions and Events. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Meinong A 1960 The theory of objects. In: Cnisholm R M (ed.) Realism and the Background of Phenomenology. The Free Press, Glencoe, IL
Quine W V O 1953 From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Quine W V O 1969 Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. Columbia University Press, New York
Quine W V O 1990 The Pursuit of Truth. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Ontology is the branch of metaphysics which aims to discover what entities exist and attempts to sort these entities into categories. Examples of such categories are: individuals, events, processes, properties, relations, facts, numbers, classes. Other attempts to categorize the contents of the world lead to cross- classification. For example, entities may be abstract or concrete, actual or merely possible. In constructing metaphysical theories, philosophers are guided by Ockham's razor: 'entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.' Other things being equal, a theory
is to be preferred if it posits the least number of cat- egories of entity.
1. Quine's Criterion of Ontological Commitment
How do we tell what a theory says there is? We might claim that to each name of the theory's language there corresponds an entity named. But in ordinary dis- course we use names of nonexistent objects such as 'Pegasus.' Are we to suppose that Pegasus has a mys- terious grade of existence inferior to that of ordinary real objects?
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Ontology
A. D. Oliver