In Defense of Quinean Ontological Naturalism

Erkenntnis 76 (2):225-242 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Quinean Ontological Naturalism addresses the question “What is there?” Advocates of the view maintain that we can answer this question by applying Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment to our best scientific theories. In this paper, I discuss two major objections that are commonly offered to this view, what I call the “Paraphrase Objection” and “First Philosophy Objection”. I argue that these objections arise from a common uncharitable characterization of the Quinean Ontological Naturalist’s project that fails to distinguish two distinct roles for Quine’s Criterion, a descriptive role and a normative role. The objections target the descriptive role, but only the normative role is important to Quinean Ontological Naturalism

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

How to Express Ontological Commitment in the Vernacular.Jamin Asay - 2010 - Philosophia Mathematica 18 (3):293-310.
Ontological infidelity.Patrick Dieveney - 2008 - Synthese 165 (1):1 - 12.
Implicit ontological commitment.Michaelis Michael - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 141 (1):43 - 61.
Ontology: minimalism and truth-conditions.Juan José Lara Peñaranda - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (3):683-696.
A Defense of Quinean Naturalism.Lars Bergström - 2008 - In Chase B. Wrenn (ed.), Naturalism, Reference, and Ontology. Peter Lang Publishing Group.
Indispensability Without Platonism.Anne Newstead & James Franklin - 2012 - In Alexander Bird, Brian Ellis & Howard Sankey (eds.), Properties, Powers, and Structures: Issues in the Metaphysics of Realism. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 81-97.
Naturalistic epistemology for eliminative materialists.Alex Rosenberg - 1999 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2):335-358.
Theory change, structural realism, and the relativised a priori.Dan McArthur - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (1):5 – 20.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-10-07

Downloads
159 (#110,379)

6 months
1 (#1,027,696)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Patrick Dieveney
California State University, Long Beach

References found in this work

Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
The Indispensability of Mathematics.Mark Colyvan - 2001 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Naturalism in mathematics.Penelope Maddy - 1997 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophy of logic.Hilary Putnam - 1971 - London,: Allen & Unwin. Edited by Stephen Laurence & Cynthia Macdonald.
On what there is.W. V. Quine - 1953 - In From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 1-19.

View all 22 references / Add more references