Abstract
In Quine’ s early work, ontology had its place in regimented theories. The notion of existence was not really problematic, and had been clarified by means of the criterion of ontological commitment “to be is to be the value of a variable”. However, logic alone provides too small a basis for the ontological intuitions that guide one in his ontological commitments. Initially, Quine thought that things were not so bad, because he could rely on physical objects of intermediate size. Physical objects were taken to be readily available. Further reflection forced Quine to give a more elaborate account. The need for this account became more and more pressing, since the inscrutability of reference thesis led to consequences that are completely at odds with the normal ontological intuitions. The ontological debacle for example even seemed to undermine the notion of physical object. From a logical point of view, one only needs a structuralist view of objects; ontology collapses to set theory.
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Notes
See Quine l990a, 23–25; 29–30; Quine 1995a, chapter 3. The word appeared for the first time in “Scope and language of science”, see Quine 1966a, 233. See also Quine 1987a, 180183; Quine 1969d, 95; Quine 1985b, 169–170; Quine 1990a, 6–7.
Some elements of the exposition were already presented in “The scope and language of science”, see Quine 1966a, 228–245.
Four phases are explicitly distinguished, see Quine 1960, 108–109.
Quine 1960, 92.
This is of course behaviourism, and Quine refers to the work of Skinner, see Quine 1960, 80 fn 1.
The singular terms go by the board in the regimentation of natural language to logic, see Quine 1960, 176–186. In Quine 1970c, 396, Quine writes: “These different purposes, the grammarian’s and the logician’s, are not in general best served by the same paraphrases,… One example is the elimination of singular terms other than variables.” Singular terms are to stay in natural language. In later texts Quine will overlook the singular terms and concentrate on the pronoun’s role in the genesis of ontology, see the next section.
See Quine 1960, 91; see also Quine 1974, 52–53.
See Quine 1960, 98.
Quine 1960, 93.
See Quine 1960, 93.
See Quine 1960, 95.
Quine 1960, 96.
This particular genesis already reflects that ontology is not necessarily universal. The subject-predicate structure need not appear in all languages. There is no way of deciding whether for a foreign language the subject-predicate structure is imputed or discovered, see Quine 1970c, 290–291.
Quine 1960, 98.
See Quine 1960, 97–98.
See Quine 1960, 97–98.
Quine 1960, 100.
Quine 1960, 102.
See Quine 1960, 108.
See Quine 1960, 103.
Quine 1960, 104.
This may be more intricate because there may be a difference between mass terms used as a singular term and mass terms used as a general term. For example, “red” may be used for the total red substance of the world. On the other hand it may be used as a general term predicated of objects with only a thin red surface. See Quine 1960, 104–105.
See Quine 1960, 105.
Quine 1960, 105–106.
See Quine 1960, 106–108.
Quine quite extensively discussed the role of positing in ontology, see “Posits and reality”, reprinted in Quine 1966a, 246–254; also Quine 1966a, 223; Quine 1960, §6.
Quine 1960, 109.
Quine 1960, 112.
See Quine 1960, 114.
See Quine 1960, 118–124.
See Quine 1960, 120–121.
See also Quine 1950b, 72–73; Quine 1974, 86–87.
Quine also briefly mentions a third. Attributes can be seen as “vestiges of the minor deities of some creed outworn”, see Quine 1960, 122. This alternative is ascribed to Cassirer.
See Quine 1960, 121–122; Quine 1966a, 50–51.
Quine 1960, 121.
See Quine 1960, §§23–25.
Quine 1966a, 84; see also Quine 1966a, 268–269.
See Quine 1966a, 92–94.
See also Quine 1966a, 236: “Terms which are primitive or irreducible, from the point of view of that scientific notation, may still be intelligible to us only through explanations in ordinary language rife with indicator words, tense, and ambiguity. Scientific language is in any event a splinter of ordinary language, not a substitute.” See also Quine 1953c, 106; Quine 1966a, 148–151.
See Quine 1987b; “Things and their places in theories”, in Quine 1981a, 1–23; Quine 1984a; Quine 1990b; Quine 1994b, Quine 1995b.
Quine 1974, §7. The word already occurs in a non-technical use in Quine 1960, 45.
Quine 1974, §17.
Quine 1974, §14.
Quine 1974, 59.
Quine 1995a, 16.
Quine 1974, 17. The term “disposition” does not appear in Quine 1995a, but the analogue “propensity”, see o.c., 19.
Quine 1974, 17–18.
In Quine 1974, 21, Quine mentions a third similarity relation, viz behavioural similarity: “There is behavioral similarity,… which relates episodes according to the output of overt behavior at those times, regardless of causal factors.… It might be sought in terms of the total set of fibres of striped muscle that are contracted or released on one occasion and on another, or a more functional approach might be devised.” Between the receptual similarity, based on the input, and behavioural similarity, based on the output, there is perceptual similarity in between.
Quine 1974, 16; Quine 1995a, 17.
Since a conference in Stanford in 1986 there has been some discussion between Davidson and Quine on this matter. In contradistinction with Quine, Davidson took the environment of the observer as the basic material for experience. This was called the distal theory of experience, while Quine’s was called a proximal theory. See Quine 1990a, 41–42; Quine 1990b, 3; Quine 1993, 113–116; Davidson 1994b; Davidson & Quine 1994. See also Picardi 1999, Picardi 1994; Koppelberg 1999, George 2000; Yalowitz 1998.
Quine 1995a, 18; see also Quine 1974, 25.
See Quine 1995a, 19. The standards of similarity are quite stable, or they would not be useful for survival, see Quine 1974, 22. The change is related to pleasure, see Quine 1974, 28.
Quine 1995a, 20; see also Quine 1993, 109.
See Quine 1960, §10; Quine 1970c, 394; Quine & Ullian 1970, 22ff, Quine 1974, §10; Quine 1975b, 72–73; Quine 1981a, 25; 49; Quine 1984a, 14–15; Quine 1987b, 81ff, Quine 1990a, §2; Quine 1990b, 1–2; Quine 1993; Quine 1995a, 22; Quine 1996, 162–163. There is some change in Quine’s use of the term In Quine 1960, 42–46 there was a grade of observationality. In later work the `observation sentences’ became absolute. To decide whether a sentence was an observation sentence became a yes-or-no affair. In the recent “Progress on two fronts” observation sentences are kept absolute, but a degree of theoreticity was added.
These views on sentential connectives have already been elaborated in the context of radical translation, see Quine 1960, §13; Quine 1970b, 11–12; Quine 1987c, 6. They turn up in the context of language acquisition in Quine 1974, §20; Quine 1984a, 18.
See Quine 1995a, 24; or also Quine 1990a, 4.
Quine 1995a, 24.
The importance of Goodman’s mereological heritage can be seen from the fact that Quine makes the analogy between spatial inclusion and predication. Predication is learned on analogy with the predicate “in”, see Quine 1974, 61–62.
Observation categoricals are not explicitly called standing sentences in Quine 1995a, but they are in Quine 1990a, 10. Also in Quine 1974, 63–67 categoricals are associated with standing and eternal sentences, though the term observation categorical does not appear in this book.
The term is introduced in Quine 1960, 35–36.
The term is introduced in Quine 1960, 193.
The term `observation categorical’ was first introduced in the text “Empirical content” from 1975, see Quine 1981a, 27–28; see also Quine 1981a, 70; Quine 1984a, 16–17; Quine 1987a, 161; Quine 1990a, §4; Quine 1990b, 8–9; Quine 1993, 110; Quine 1995a 25.
See Quine 1995a, 25.
Quine 1995a, 25.
Quine 1995a, 25.
Quine 1995a, 27.
The word focal is related to the focus of the eye, see Quine 1987b, 105; Quine 1990a, 64.
In Quine 1990b, 9, Quine gave a similar account but used the terms “primitive observation categorical” and “objectual observation categorical”. The term “focal observation categorical” was used in Quine 1990a, 11.
See Quine 1995a, 29. For a discussion of the notion serendipity, see Quine 1974, §18.
See Quine 1995a, 36–38.
Quine 1995a, 39; see also Quine 1950b, 67; Quine 1981a, 12; 125; Quine 1985b, 169–170; Quine 1987a, 91.
/bid.
Quine 1995a, 40.
Quine 1983a, 501.
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Decock, L. (2002). Genesis of Ontology. In: Trading Ontology for Ideology. Synthese Library, vol 313. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3575-9_6
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