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In Defense of Quinean Ontological Naturalism

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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.

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Notes

  1. There is fairly widespread agreement that the theoretical virtues include simplicity, explanatory power, unificatory power, boldness, fruitfulness, and formal elegance. In Quine’s discussion of the theoretical virtues, he describes them as including simplicity, familiarity of principle, scope, fecundity, and success concerning its testable consequences (Quine 1976, p. 247). Either description of the theoretical virtues is open to the Quinean Naturalist (although the former might deviate somewhat from what Quine, himself, had in mind). While I adopt the former, the arguments in this paper are consistent with the latter.

  2. In Sect. 3, I develop a more precise account of Quinean Ontological Naturalism than the simplified version provided here. On the more precise account, it remains true that our ontology is supplied by the values of the bound variables in regimentations of our best scientific theories, but there is an important clarification. The occurrences of bound variables that yield our ontology (as opposed to merely our ontological commitments) are those that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.

  3. I contend that this distinction between the project of determining our ontology (what there is) and that of determining our ontological commitments (what we are committed to) is suggested in Quine (1948, pp. 35–36). (I argue for this at the beginning of Sect. 3.1 in the paper.) Note that this sort of distinction is also suggested by Azzouni (1998, 2004). However, neither Quine nor Azzouni distinguish between the descriptive and normative roles for Quine’s Criterion (See Sect. 3.3). I shall argue that it is the failure to differentiate these roles that leads to the Paraphrase Objection and First Philosophy Objection.

  4. Examples like these can be found in many discussions of Quine’s Criterion. Alston (1958) and Jackson (1980) discuss examples similar to the first one. The second example is discussed at length by Melia (1995). And, the last example, which involves employing numbers to express distances between space–time points, is addressed in Field (1980). Note that these examples along with their respective competing translations are each quite different. For example, Melia’s preferred translation of “The average star has 2.4 planets” involves a sentence reporting how many stars and planets there are in first-order predicate logic (although he recognizes that such a translation is one that we could not actually provide). And, translating “These space–time points are five meters apart” along the lines suggested by Field (1980) requires systematic replacement of talk of distances and location (which involves reference to numbers) with the predicates “between” and “congruent” applied to space–time points.

  5. Alston (1958, pp. 13–14).

  6. Jackson’s target here is actually broader. His criticism is intended to be generally applicable to what he calls ‘referential theories’ of ontological commitment. The account of ontological commitment based on Quine’s Criterion is only one of these theories. However, it is arguably the most prominent referential theory, and it is one that Jackson frequently discusses.

  7. Jackson offers another problem for explicating “S is ontologically committed to Ks” as “S entails ‘There are (exist) Ks’”. The problem arises out of the transitivity of entailment. Let A stand for “There are (exist) Ks”, and suppose that S1 and S2 paraphrase each other. Jackson claims that by the transitivity of entailment, S1 entails A if and only if S2 entails A. Consequently, on the explication of “S is ontologically committed to Ks” above, it turns out that S1 and S2 have exactly the same ontological commitments. I do not consider this ‘transitivity objection’ in detail here since, similar to the objection discussed in this section, it is predicated on the supposed requirement that “S is ontologically committed to Ks” be explicated as “S entails ‘There are (exist) Ks’”. As such, my response in Sect. 4 also serves as a response to this objection.

  8. Jackson (1980, p. 307).

  9. See Hodges (1972, pp. 108–109).

  10. The translations he provides are familiar translations into lengthy statements of predicate logic and translations along the lines suggested by Field (1980). See Melia (1995, pp. 225, 228).

  11. In fact, Melia is explicit in his rejection of the criterion. See Melia (1995, p. 229).

  12. This might be a point where Quinean Ontological Naturalism differs from Quine’s Ontological Naturalism. For it might be objected that Quine does allow metaphysical inquiry to play an important role in ontological investigation. But, on this point, I find myself in agreement with the interpretation of Quine’s ontological views defended by Huw Price (2007). Price argues that while Quine allows that philosophers can play a role in ontological investigation, it must be one that operates within science. At best, he suggests this allows only a very limited role for philosophers. But one thing is clear, it cannot be the practice of ‘first philosophy’ suggested in the criticisms of Hodges (1972) and Melia (1995). On Price’s interpretation then, Quine’s Ontological Naturalism is not so different in this regard from what we are calling “Quinean Ontological Naturalism”. As noted at the outset of the paper, however, I shall put aside the controversial issue of whether Quinean Ontological Naturalism (the ontological program outlined at the beginning of this paper and developed throughout) is one that Quine himself would fully endorse.

  13. Raley (2005) appears to endorse this interpretation, but I contend that she is hardly alone. Most do not distinguish the project of determining our ontological commitments from that of determining our ontology.

  14. Quine (1948, p. 35).

  15. Quine (1948, pp. 35–36).

  16. Henceforth, I use the term “ontology” to stand for “what there is”. In contrast, I use the term “ontological commitment” to stand for “what we are committed to”. Thus the project of determining our ontology is that of determining what there is, whereas the project of determining our ontological commitments is the project of determining what we are committed to.

  17. An anonymous referee suggested that instead of the distinction between (a) determining our ontology (what there is) and (b) determining our ontological commitments (what we are committed to), we might take the relevant distinction to be between (a) expressing an ontology and (b) deciding on an ontology. While interesting, this suggestion does not quite capture what appears to ground the earlier distinction. As we shall see, what ultimately differentiates the project of determining what there is from that of merely determining our ontological commitments is that the former (unlike the latter) involves determining which entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories. The contrast between expressing an ontology as opposed to deciding on an ontology does not seem to track this underlying distinction. We could decide on an ontology that included things that are not indispensable to our best theories. Or what appears even more likely, something could be part of our ontology (given the indispensable role it plays in our theories) even though this was not something we decided on.

  18. Quine himself appears to endorse this view. This is supported by his remarks shortly following the passage in which he discusses how to determine ‘what there is’. He proceeds to talk about the entities under a conceptual scheme as given by the values of bound variables (Quine 1948, p. 36). Although he is not entirely clear about which bound variables he is referring to, they would seem to be those that result from regimentations of the theories that supply the conceptual scheme. Here then, the ontology supplied by conceptual schemes comes from the values of bound variables in regimentations of our best scientific theories. This supports my claim above that the ontological guidance provided by a conceptual scheme appears to be exhausted by the theories it accommodates. But we should be careful here. Conceptual schemes do not supply anything ‘over and above’ the bound variables of the theories accommodated by the schemes. But this does not mean our ontology is given by all the bound variables. As I argue in the balance of this section, our ontology (as opposed to our ontological commitments) is supplied by those bound variables present in occurrences of existential quantification that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.

  19. Elsewhere, I have formulated the argument with ‘Theory Naturalism’ instead of ‘Quinean Naturalism’. This is to emphasize that the only part of Quinean Naturalism that is required for this premise is the view that we accept (as true) our best scientific theories. (See Dieveney 2007).

  20. Typically included among the premises of The Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument is Cofirmational Holism. Elsewhere, I have argued that this premise is not required. (See Dieveney 2007).

  21. We can, in principle, eliminate any undesirable ontological commitments from a theory; and it would still be axiomatizable provided some minimum conditions are satisfied (i.e., that we can partition the vocabulary of the theory into the part that involves reference to the ‘undesirable ontological commitments’ and the part that does not). As many philosophers have pointed out, including Field (1980, p. 8) and Colyvan (2001, p. 77), this follows from Craig’s Theorem. But, neither Field nor Colyvan think the resulting theory would be a good theory.

  22. Field also offers criteria for evaluating theories. The most significant difference between the evaluative criteria of Field and Colyvan, is that Field requires that good scientific theories provide ‘intrinsic explanations’. One of the problems Field sees with appealing to mathematical objects (e.g., numbers) in explanations of physical phenomena is that they are causally irrelevant to the phenomena. As such, explanations of physical phenomena that appeal to mathematical objects are not intrinsic explanations. On the other hand, Colyvan argues that mathematical formalizations of scientific theories are often preferable to mathematics-free formalizations (Colyvan 2001 pp. 76–90). This suggests that Colyvan would not accept Field’s intrinsic explanations requirement; or at the very least, he would only take it to be one evaluative criterion among many and not a necessary requirement for a good theory.

  23. She likens the situation of commitment to mathematical objects to that of other ‘idealizations’ in scientific theories, e.g., the existence of infinitely deep oceans and matter being continuous. Although she admits that these may be indispensable to a workable theory of ocean waves and fluid dynamics, respectively, we find in scientific practice that scientists are not committed to their existence. See Maddy (1997), pp. 143–144; and Maddy (1992, pp. 281–282).

  24. For a more detailed discussion of this distinction between normative and descriptive ontological commitments, see Dieveney (2008).

  25. It might appear objectionable to talk about the normative sense of “ontological commitment” in the assertion “Sentence S is (normatively) ontologically committed to entities of kind K”. In what sense can we say a sentence ought to be committed to certain entities? Admittedly, this is odd; but this oddity is the result of our previous abuse of language in taking about sentences having ontological commitments. Presumably, the original assertion (“Sentence S is ontologically committed to entities of kind K”) is shorthand for something like “The person who accepts sentence S is ontologically committed to entities of kind K.” With this latter sentence, the oddity disappears.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the anonymous referees of Erkenntnis for providing helpful and constructive reports.

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Correspondence to Patrick Dieveney.

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Dieveney, P. In Defense of Quinean Ontological Naturalism. Erkenn 76, 225–242 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9326-7

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