Conclusion
My aim has been to adapt Quine's criterion of the ontological commitment of theories couched in standard quantificational idiom to a much broader class of theories by focusing on the set-theoretic structure of the models of those theories. For standard first-order theories, the two criteria coincide on simple entities. Divergences appear as they are applied to higher-order theories and as composite entities are taken into account. In support of the extended criterion, I appeal to its fruits in treating the various examples considered above and to the healthy intuitions of the non-noneists among us. Don't O(m) and E(m) comprise just the things we should have though existed according to a particular interpretation m of a language or a theory? Whatever the answer (and it will hardly be unanimous), I hope to have pointed the way towards a recognition of ontology as a worthwhile branch of modern theory.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bacon, John: 1966, Being and Existence: Two Ways of Formal Ontology (Yale dissertation).
Bacon, John: 1969, ‘Ontological Commitment and Free Logic’, Monist 53, 310–19.
Bacon, John: 1980, ‘Substance and First-order Quantification Over Individual-concepts’, Journal of Symbolic Logic 45, 193–203.
Bacon, John: 1975, Basic Logic, Extensional and Modal (York College, New York. offset).
Bergmann, Gustav: 1954, ‘Particularity and the New Nominalism’, reprinted in Meaning and Existence, University of Wisconsin, Madison Press, 1960, 91–105.
Chihara, Charles: 1973, Ontology and the Vicious-Circle Principle, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.
Gottlieb, Dale: 1980, Ontological Economy: Substitutional Quantification and Mathematics, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Hintikka, K. J. J.: 1966, ‘Studies in the Logic of Existence and Necessity I. Existence’, Monist 50, 55–76.
Jackson, Frank: 1980, ‘Ontological Commitment and Paraphrase’, Philosophy 55, 303–15.
Kripke, Saul A.: 1963, ‘Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic’, Linsky (ed.), Reference and Modality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1971, 63–72.
Leonard, Henry S.: 1957, ‘The Logic of Existence’, Philosophical Studies 7, 49–64.
Quine, Willard V.: 1939d, ‘Designation and Existence’, reprinted in Feigl and Sellars (eds.), Readings in Philosophical Analysis, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1949, 44–151.
Quine, Willard V.: 1939l, ‘A Logistical Approach to the Ontological Problem’, reprinted in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, Random House, New York, 1966, 64–69.
Quine, Willard V.: 1947, ‘Logic and the Reficiation of Universals’, reprinted in From a Logical Point of View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1953, 102–29.
Quine, Willard V.: 1948, ‘On What There Is’, reprinted in From a Logical Point of View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1953, 1–19.
Quine, Willard V.: 1966, Letter to John Bacon (19 September).
Quine, Willard V.: 1968, ‘Replies’ in Davidson and Hintikka (eds.), Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W. V. Quine, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1969, 292–352.
Quine, Willard V.: 1969, ‘Existence and Quantification’, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York, 91–113.
Quine, Willard V.: 1972, Methods of Logic, 3rd ed., Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Stegmüller, Wolfgang: 1978, ‘A Combined Approach to the Dynamics of Theories’, Theory and Decision 9, 39–75.
Thomason, Richmond H.: 1969, ‘Modal Logic and Metaphysics’ in Lambert (ed.), The Logical Way of Doing Things, Yale University Press, New Haven, 119–146.
Thomason, Richmond H.: 1970, ‘Some Completeness Results for Modal Predicate Calculi’, in Lambert (ed.), Philosophical Problems in Logic: Some Recent Developments, Reidel, Dordrecht, 56–76.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Earlier versions of parts of this paper were read at New York University, at the Australasian Association of Philosophy, and at the University of Sydney. I am very grateful to William Barrett, Keith Campbell, Gregory Currie, Kenneth Gemes, Toomas Karmo, and Stephen Read for comments and criticisms.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bacon, J. A model-theoretic criterion of ontology. Synthese 71, 1–18 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00486433
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00486433