Abstract
Externalism holds that the content of our utterances and thoughts are determined partly by the environment. Here, I offer an argument which suggests that externalism is incompatible with a natural view about ontological commitment–namely, the Quinean view that such commitments are fixed by the range of the variables in your theory. The idea briefly is that, if Oscar mistakenly believes that water = XYZ, the externalist ontologically commits Oscar to two watery kinds. In contrast, the Quinean commits him to one such kind (albeit a metaphysically impossible kind). The penultimate section addresses a variety of objections to the argument.
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Notes
N.B., I do not assume that externalism entails a causal theory of content or reference. After all, even a Sellarsian inferentialist is an “externalist” if language-entry and -exit moves are individuated widely.
Sider on (SUF) and (QC): “as a general epistemology of metaphysics I prefer the vague, vaguely Quinean, thought that metaphysics is continuous with science…Quine’s advice for forming ontological beliefs is familiar: believe the ontology of your best theory…We should believe generally what good theories say; so if a good theory makes an ontological claim, we should believe it” (2012, p. 12). Whereas, Sider adopts Lewis’ (1984) semantic doctrine of “reference magnatism” which Sider sees as an “externalist” departure from a pure descriptivism (cf. p. 27).
I take it there are such grounds. For instance, a direct reference theorist might prefer Quine’s critierion over a name-based criterion, since one can ontologically commit to objects that have no names.
This should not suggest that the quantifier- versus predicate-view makes no difference to ontological commitment whatsoever. E.g., if ‘exist’ is always a predicate in logical form, then translating (i) back into English should not have the English speaker committed to Obama’s existence. Still, my point is (SUF) and (QC) allow either way of translating ‘exist’ into logical form, without affecting the ontological commitments incurred via English.
Intensionally individuated beliefs may be rejected by some Millians. I do not believe this is tenable; however, I am unfortunately unable to pursue the arguments at this time.
Since Oscar’s two i-commitments denote the same object in his model (=the model where his beliefs are all true), then ‘water’ and ‘H2O’ are intersubstitutable in sentences that express Oscar’s beliefs. However, I assume the object is still individuated intensionally, since other co-referring terms might not intersubstitute (e.g., ‘dihydrogen monoxide’). If this is contentious, then I could concede that the object is not individuated in a wholly intensional way; one might call it “quasi-intensional” instead without loss to the main arguments.
The scare quotes on the variable are a reminder that it can be substituted with an empty name. (In which case, our Quinean says that to put “x” in one’s ontology is to put an ersatz, fictional, etc., object in one’s ontology, per above).
Arguably, there are ontologically neutral uses of ‘exist’ in English; see Azzouni (2004, 2007). If so, then clearly (SUF*) should add that “x exists” suffices for ontological commitment only if ‘exist’ is used in an ontologically loaded way. Regardless, I shall ignore this subtlety in what follows. Quine at least regarded ordinary existence-statements as committing. (Quine 1952: “Sheep are real, unicorns are not...Such is the ordinary usage of the world ‘real’, a separation of the sheep from the unicorns;” p. 212).
‘Stipulative’ is not quite a fair word here, since ‘i-commitment’ does not express a thoroughly novel concept. It rather expresses a (rationally motivated) “successor concept” to the more imprecise, ordinary notion of “belief in what exists.”
Here, ‘2water’ is assumed to be the English translation of ‘water’ in Twin English. Puzzles arise when a speaker is ascribed a belief in a language different from the language of her assertions. [Pierre apparently believes both that London is pretty and that London is not pretty, even though he intuitively does not belief a formal contradiction; see Kripke (1979).] Yet such puzzles will be irrelevant here. The issues in what follow do not concern Oscar believing formal contradictions (though his capacity to believe metaphysical impossibilities is pertinent).
Here, as elsewhere in the literature, a “watery” substance is one with the superficial properties of water.
Similarly, some have worried about a case where Oscar’s theory contains the statement that there are no metaphysical impossibilia. But to simplify things, I am considering a case where Oscar does not have such a belief. (This is not far fetched by the way, since ‘metaphysical impossibility’ is philosophers’ jargon).
It is worth remarking that an analogous problem does not arise for a proxy vis-à-vis the phlogiston theory. For in that case, ‘phlogiston’ keeps its standard interpretation by remaining empty in all models of concern.
An anonymous referee objects that I also face difficulties with the “standard” interpretation of ‘XYZ’, for it standardly denotes an imaginary object. Premise (1) of the incompatibility argument is then false, since imaginary objects are not a watery kind. (They are perhaps mental objects of some sort.) However, this is a case where the fictional status of “XYZ” is getting in the way; I would invite one to replace ‘XYZ’ in the argument with a term for a non-fictional twin, such as ‘D2O’.
The referee also objects that if Oscar can use ‘XYZ’ (or ‘D2O’) as a nonstandard name for water/H2O, then there would be no pressure to put a second watery kind in his ontology. For it should contain only what he refers to when he says what exists. This, of course, contravenes the proviso that ontological commitments are fixed via a standard interpretation of the terms. Yet perhaps one should instead consider the “speaker’s reference” of a term, rather than its “semantic reference” (cf. Kripke 1977). But, following remarks by Burge, we miss out on part of what Oscar believes if we interpret “D2O exists” as expressing only his belief that water exists. Specifically, we fail to capture that Oscar has the mistaken, object-level belief that the stuff in question is D 2 O. (This is the same sort of move given concerning Adam and sofas; so I won’t belabor it again.) Hence, while Oscar is clearly committed to water, the externalist holds he is also committed to D2O (even if de facto the “speaker referent” of ‘D2O’ is water).
‘True only’ is meant to block a dialetheist reply. Though in some dialetheic logics, a sentence can be true only and false… Let us then add that ‘Bertie = Möbius’ is not false. Yet a dialethic logic can also have wffs that are true only, not false—and false. So we would need a proviso against that too, and so on, ad trans-infinitum.
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Acknowledgments
My thanks to Derek Ball, David Chalmers, Jonathan Dixon, Jessie McCormack, William Lycan, and two anonymous referees, for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Parent, T. Content Externalism and Quine’s Criterion are Incompatible. Erkenn 82, 625–639 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9835-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9835-5