Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Ways of Worldmaking.W. Charlton - 1980 - Philosophical Quarterly 30 (120):279-281.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • On Shaky Ground? Exploring the Contingent Fundamentality Thesis.Nathan Wildman - 2018 - In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and its Structure: Essays in Fundamentality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    The past decade and a half has seen an absolute explosion of literature discussing the structure of reality. One particular focus here has been on the fundamental. However, while there has been extensive discussion, numerous fundamental questions about fundamentality have not been touched upon. In this chapter, I focus on one such lacuna about the modal strength of fundamentality. More specifically, I am interested in exploring the contingent fundamentality thesis - that is, the idea that the fundamentalia are only contingently (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • On Specifying Truth-Conditions.Agustín Rayo - 2008 - Philosophical Review 117 (3):385-443.
    This essay is a study of ontological commitment, focused on the special case of arithmetical discourse. It tries to get clear about what would be involved in a defense of the claim that arithmetical assertions are ontologically innocent and about why ontological innocence matters. The essay proceeds by questioning traditional assumptions about the connection between the objects that are used to specify the truth-conditions of a sentence, on the one hand, and the objects whose existence is required in order for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • The General Truthmaker View of ontological commitment.Bradley Rettler - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (5):1405-1425.
    In this paper, I articulate and argue for a new truthmaker view of ontological commitment, which I call the “General Truthmaker View”: when one affirms a sentence, one is ontologically committed to there being something that makes true the proposition expressed by the sentence. This view comes apart from Quinean orthodoxy in that we are not ontologically committed to the things over which we quantify, and it comes apart from extant truthmaker views of ontological commitment in that we are not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • Grounding: necessary or contingent?Kelly Trogdon - 2013 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (4):465-485.
    Argument that full grounds modally entail what they ground.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   112 citations  
  • (1 other version)A Theory of Properties.Peter van Inwagen - 2004 - In Dean W. Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 1. Oxford University Press. pp. 107-138.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   59 citations  
  • (5 other versions)On what there is.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1948 - Review of Metaphysics 2 (5):21-38.
    Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize certain entities. I should protest of course that he is wrong in his formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognize; but (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   236 citations  
  • How to have a radically minimal ontology.Ross P. Cameron - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 151 (2):249 - 264.
    In this paper I further elucidate and defend a metaontological position that allows you to have a minimal ontology without embracing an error-theory of ordinary talk. On this view 'there are Fs' can be strictly and literally true without bringing an ontological commitment to Fs. Instead of a sentence S committing you to the things that must be amongst the values of the variables if it is true, I argue that S commits you to the things that must exist as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   118 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Meta-ontology.Peter Van Inwagen - 1998 - Erkenntnis 48 (2-3):233--50.
    Quine has called the question, ‘What is there?’ the “ontological question.” But if we call this question by that name, what name shall we use for the question, ‘What are we asking when we ask “What is there?”’? I shall call it ‘the meta-ontological question’. I shall call the attempt to answer the meta-ontological question ‘meta-ontology’ and any proposed answer to it ‘a meta-ontology’. In this essay, I shall briefly sketch a meta-ontology. The meta-ontology I shall present is broadly Quinean. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   96 citations  
  • (5 other versions)On what there is.W. V. Quine - 1953 - In Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.), From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 1-19.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   276 citations  
  • Everything.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Perspectives 17 (1):415–465.
    On reading the last sentence, did you interpret me as saying falsely that everything — everything in the entire universe — was packed into my carry-on baggage? Probably not. In ordinary language, ‘everything’ and other quantifiers (‘something’, ‘nothing’, ‘every dog’, ...) often carry a tacit restriction to a domain of contextually relevant objects, such as the things that I need to take with me on my journey. Thus a sentence of the form ‘Everything Fs’ is true as uttered in a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   201 citations  
  • Nominalism through de-nominalization.Agustin Rayo & Stephen Yablo - 2001 - Noûs 35 (1):74–92.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   139 citations  
  • Ontological commitment.Agustín Rayo - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (3):428–444.
    I propose a way of thinking aboout content, and a related way of thinking about ontological commitment. (This is part of a series of four closely related papers. The other three are ‘On Specifying Truth-Conditions’, ‘An Actualist’s Guide to Quantifying In’ and ‘An Account of Possibility’.).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   55 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ontological relativity.W. V. O. Quine - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (7):185-212.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   356 citations  
  • There is no 'truthmaker' argument against nominalism.Josh Parsons - 1999 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3):325 – 334.
    In his two recent books on ontology, Universals: an Opinionated Introduction, and A World of States of Affairs, David Armstrong gives a new argument against nominalism. That argument seems, on the face of it, to be similar to another argument that he used much earlier against Rylean behaviourism: the Truthmaker Argument, stemming from a certain plausible premise, the Truthmaker Principle. Other authors have traced the history of the truthmaker principle, its appearance in the work of Aristotle [10], Bradley [16], and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   65 citations  
  • Ontological commitments.William P. Alston - 1958 - Philosophical Studies 9 (1-2):8 - 17.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   73 citations  
  • (1 other version)To be is to be a value of a variable (or to be some values of some variables).George Boolos - 1984 - Journal of Philosophy 81 (8):430-449.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   280 citations  
  • Truthmakers and ontological commitment: or how to deal with complex objects and mathematical ontology without getting into trouble.Ross P. Cameron - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 140 (1):1 - 18.
    What are the ontological commitments of a sentence? In this paper I offer an answer from the perspective of the truthmaker theorist that contrasts with the familiar Quinean criterion. I detail some of the benefits of thinking of things this way: they include making the composition debate tractable without appealing to a neo-Carnapian metaontology, making sense of neo-Fregeanism, and dispensing with some otherwise recalcitrant necessary connections.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   148 citations  
  • Ontological Relativity and Other Essays.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1969 - New York: Columbia University Press.
    This volume consists of the first of the John Dewey Lectures delivered under the auspices of Columbia University's Philosophy Department as well as other essays by the author. Intended to clarify the meaning of the philosophical doctrines propounded by Professor Quine in 'Word and Objects', the essays included herein both support and expand those doctrines.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   734 citations  
  • Grounding and metametaphysics.Alexander Skiles & Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   86 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Philosophy of Logic.Michael Jubien & W. V. Quine - 1988 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 53 (1):303.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   230 citations  
  • Somehow Things Do Not Relate: On the Interpretation of Polyadic Second-Order Logic.Marcus Rossberg - 2015 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 44 (3):341-350.
    Boolos has suggested a plural interpretation of second-order logic for two purposes: to escape Quine’s allegation that second-order logic is set theory in disguise, and to avoid the paradoxes arising if the second-order variables are given a set-theoretic interpretation in second-order set theory. Since the plural interpretation accounts only for monadic second-order logic, Rayo and Yablo suggest an new interpretation for polyadic second-order logic in a Boolosian spirit. The present paper argues that Rayo and Yablo’s interpretation does not achieve the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Socratizing.Delia Graff Fara - 2011 - American Philosophical Quarterlly 48 (3):229-238.
    In this paper I trace Quine's early development of his treatment of names, first as abbreviations for definite descriptions with "Frege-Rusell" style substantive content, then as abbreviations for definite descriptions containing simple predicative content, through to a treatment of names themselves as predicates rather than as abbreviations for this or that type of more complex expression. Along the way, I explain why—despite ubiquitous claims and suggestions to the contrary—Quine never actually uses the verbized name "Socratizes".
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Necessity and triviality.Ross P. Cameron - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3):401-415.
    In this paper I argue that there are some sentences whose truth makes no demands on the world, being trivially true in that their truth-conditions are trivially met. I argue that this does not amount to their truth-conditions being met necessarily: we need a non-modal understanding of the notion of the demands the truth of a sentence makes, lest we be blinded to certain conceptual possibilities. I defend the claim that the truths of pure mathematics and set theory are trivially (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Truthmaker commitments.Jonathan Schaffer - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 141 (1):7-19.
    On the truthmaker view of ontological commitment [Heil (From an ontological point of view, 2003); Armstrong (Truth and truthmakers, 2004); Cameron (Philosophical Studies, 2008)], a theory is committed to the entities needed in the world for the theory to be made true. I argue that this view puts truthmaking to the wrong task. None of the leading accounts of truthmaking—via necessitation, supervenience, or grounding—can provide a viable measure of ontological commitment. But the grounding account does provide a needed constraint on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   75 citations  
  • Quantifiers and propositional attitudes.Willard van Orman Quine - 1955 - Journal of Philosophy 53 (5):177-187.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   515 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ontological Nihilism.Jason Turner - 2011 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 6:3-54.
    Ontological nihilism is the radical-sounding thesis that there is nothing at all. This chapter first discusses how the most plausible forms of this thesis aim to be slightly less radical than they sound and what they will have to do in order to succeed in their less radical ambitions. In particular, they will have to paraphrase sentences of best science into ontologically innocent counterparts. The chapter then points out the defects in two less plausible strategies, before going on to argue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   56 citations  
  • Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):278-279.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2878 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Meta-Ontology.Peter van Inwagen - 1998 - Erkenntnis 48:233-250.
    Quine has called the question, ‘What is there?’ the “ontological question.” But if we call this question by that name, what name shall we use for the question, ‘What are we asking when we ask “What is there?”’? I shall call it ‘the meta-ontological question’. I shall call the attempt to answer the meta-ontological question ‘meta-ontology’ and any proposed answer to it ‘a meta-ontology’. In this essay, I shall briefly sketch a meta-ontology. The meta-ontology I shall present is broadly Quinean. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • Inscrutability and ontological commitment.Berit Brogaard - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 141 (1):21 - 42.
    There are two doctrines for which Quine is particularly well known: the doctrine of ontological commitment and the inscrutability thesis—the thesis that reference and quantification are inscrutable. At first glance, the two doctrines are squarely at odds. If there is no fact of the matter as to what our expressions refer to, then it would appear that no determinate commitments can be read off of our best theories. We argue here that the appearance of a clash between the two doctrines (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Quantification, naturalness and ontology.Ross P. Cameron - 2010
    Quine said that the ontological question can be asked in three words, ‘What is there?’, and answered in one, ‘everything’. He was wrong. We need an extra word to ask the ontological question: it is ‘What is there, really?’; and it cannot be answered truthfully with ‘everything’ because there are some things that exist but which don’t really exist (and maybe even some things that really exist but which don’t exist).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ontological relativity: The Dewey lectures 1969.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (7):185-212.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   68 citations  
  • Neo-fregeanism and quantifier variance.Theodore Sider - 2007 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1):201–232.
    NeoFregeanism is an intriguing but elusive philosophy of mathematical existence. At crucial points, it goes cryptic and metaphorical. I want to put forward an interpretation of neoFregeanism—perhaps not one that actual neoFregeans will embrace—that makes sense of much of what they say. NeoFregeans should embrace quantifier variance.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   46 citations  
  • Towards ontological nihilism.John O'Leary-Hawthorne & Andrew Cortens - 1995 - Philosophical Studies 79 (2):143 - 165.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   66 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ontological Nihilism.Jason Turner - 2011 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 6. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Ontological Commitment.Phillip Bricker - 2014 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Existence, ontological commitment, and fictional entities.Peter van Inwagen - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Eine logisch mathematische Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl.Gottlob Frege - 1884 - Wittgenstein-Studien 3 (2):993-999.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   320 citations  
  • Second-order and higher-order logic.Herbert B. Enderton - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Natural Deduction: A Proof-Theoretical Study.Richmond Thomason - 1965 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 32 (2):255-256.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   171 citations  
  • (1 other version)Philosophy of Logic.Leslie Stevenson - 1972 - Philosophical Quarterly 22 (86):80.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   107 citations  
  • Neutralism within the Semantic Tradition.Robert Trueman - 2012 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (3):246-251.
    A neutralist framework is an account of the second-order quantifiers which does not by itself tell us what the ontological commitments of second-order quantification are, but which does tell us that those commitments cannot exceed those of predication. Recently, Wright has suggested that an inferentialist account of the second-order quantifiers is an adequate neutralist framework. I show that we do not have to become inferentialists in the pursuit of a neutralist framework: such a framework can be established within the semantic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Properties and the Interpretation of Second-Order Logic.B. Hale - 2013 - Philosophia Mathematica 21 (2):133-156.
    This paper defends a deflationary conception of properties, according to which a property exists if and only if there could be a predicate with appropriate satisfaction conditions. I argue that purely general properties and relations necessarily exist and discuss the bearing of this conception of properties on the interpretation of higher-order logic and on Quine's charge that higher-order logic is ‘set theory in sheep's clothing’. On my approach, the usual semantics involves a false assimilation of the logic to set theory. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • .W. V. Quine - 1966
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   85 citations  
  • Truthmaking and Metametaphysics.Ross Cameron - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation