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A Resource Guide for Philosophy Students

Created by Jennifer Leslie Torgerson, MA

This page last modified:  September 13, 2015

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School of Athens

 

W. V. O. Quine

1908 – 2000 CE


 

 

THE FUTURE OF ONTOLOGY AFTER ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY

by

Jennifer Leslie Torgerson

January 11, 2000

The American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

 


ABSTRACT

“You cannot step into the same river twice for different and again different waters flow.” 1

This fragment of Heraclitus’ demonstrates the problem of identity. Since all things are in an universal flux, nothing can be the same from moment to moment. Every moment, there is a new river, and the waters continue to flow. Order and regularity were explained by Heraclitus as a result of the Logos, the cosmic ordering principle. Hence, changes are measurable. The problem of identity that is present within Heraclitus’ statement is that the river is a succession of entities, each a new river, yet still river-like. Heraclitus had an ontological commitment to the Logos, the ordering principle, and hence escaped total chaos and confusion. Ontological commitments are very important. Ontological commitment influences one’s entire philosophy.

Ontological commitment influences one's entire philosophy. This paper will examine the ontological commitment of W.V. Quine. He is the most influential analytical philosopher of the twentieth century. His view of ontological commitment changed throughout his career, unfolding in three distinct periods. I will examine the essays "On What There Is" and "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" as examples of his early period; Word and Object is the example used to illustrate the second; Web of Belief and Ontological Relativity for the third. In his early period he claims that experience counts against our beliefs, and that nothing can be systematically said about sentences. He abandons the analytic-synthetic distinction. In his middle period, this denial leads him to the indeterminacy of translation. There are no objective facts about which the words, descriptions, or sentences have the same meaning. The ontology of a theory is the range of things that must exist if that theory is true. Quine holds that we can state a theory of ontology only relative to a translation manual and a background language. In his later period he mixes this with a hint of physicalism, which conflicts with his earlier view of nominalism, and his lack of dependence upon empirical dogmas. It is in his earlier view that we see the most valuable Quine. I hope to make the river stand still.

 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

(only chapters 2 and 3 are published on-line)

ABSTRACT

Chapter

 1. THE RIVER STOOD STILL

·         Ontology: A Brief Historical Overview

 2. QUINE ON ONTOLOGY

·         Meaning and Naming

·         Realism, Conceptualism, and Formalism

·         Phenomenalism and Physicalism

·         Four Kinds of Nominalism: Predicate, Concept, Class, and Resemblance

 3. QUINE ON ANALYTICITY

·         Meaning is not Naming

·         Definition and Meaning

·         The Grounding of Analyticity in Semantic Rules

·         Radical Reductionism in Empiricism and the Problems with the Theory of Verification

·         The Two Dogmas of Empiricism

 4. PREDICATION, MEANING, AND ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY

·         Proxy Functions and Indifference of Ontology

 5. CAN PHILOSOPHY OVERCOME ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY OR WILL ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY ELIMINATE PHILOSOPHY?

·         The River Revisited


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For an extensive listing of all the writings by and about Quine see:

 

“About and With W. V. Quine,” a site maintained by his son (Douglas Boynton Quine). http://www.wvquine.org/wvq-about.html