Abstract
It is widely assumed that if ontological disputes turn out to be verbal they ought to be dismissed. I dissociate the semantic question concerning the verbalness of ontological disputes from the pragmatic question on whether they ought to be dismissed. I argue that in the context of ontological disputes ontologists ought to be taken to communicate views with conflicting ontological commitments even if it turns out that on the correct view of semantics they fail to literally-express their disagreement. I argue, that is, against dismissing ontological disputes on grounds of verbalness. This serves to discharge the ongoing debate on the verbalness of ontological disputes from the metaontological consequences typically associated with it.
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Notes
* I wish to thank Katherine Hawley for discussion and for kindly sharing her precious insights on earlier drafts, may she rest in peace. Special thanks to Meir Buzaglo and to Sonia Roca Royes for essential advice. I also thank Mark Bowker, Ran Lanzet, Aviv Hoffmann and Andrew Peet for very helpful comments. Special thanks to anonymous referees of Erkenntnis for insightful comments that have made the paper much clearer and more precise.
E.g. Bennett (2009), McGrath (2008), Sider (2007; 2009; 2011), Dorr (2005), Hawthorne (2006), Eklund (2008).
Page numbers in references to Hirsch (2010) are to the collection of papers. For convenience, the original papers will also be referred to in square brackets.
According to Hirsch’s fully developed (necessary and sufficient) condition: Two parties A and B are having a verbal dispute iff, were A and B to inhabit an A-community and a B-community (respectively) in which everyone exhibits the same sort of linguistic behavior that A and B actually exhibit (respectively), then on the correct view of linguistic interpretation, A and B would agree that both speak the truth in their own language. Hirsch, ([2005, 2009], 2010, p.146–7, 229). Where in specifying the correct view of linguistic interpretation, Hirsch appeals to the principle of charity; roughly: the idea that “other things being equal, an interpretation is plausible to the extent that its effect is to make many of the community’s shared assertions come out true or at least reasonable” ([2005], 2010, p.148).
The debate is usually associated with van Inwagen's special composition question (roughly ‘in what conditions do some things compose another’ see van Inwagen (1990, ch.2) for his formulation). For our purpose, it would be much more convenient to use the quantified mode above.
See van Inwagen (1990, ch.9).
Hirsch does not think that QV implies that there are no language-independent structured facts. He only thinks that if different parties mean different things by ‘a thing’ they must also mean different things by “the way a fact is built up of things and properties” (see p.79 for his treatment of this subtle issue).
For another formulation, see Sider, (2009, p.395).
A disagreement about whether some action is wrong, can always be introduced as a disagreement about whether it falls under the extension of ‘wrong’. Yet it seems misleading to say that the disagreement in such cases turns on meaning.
If, despite communicating a genuine disagreement this dispute is still pointless, it will not be due to verbalness.
The semantics/pragmatics divide is hotly debated. I’m following Stanley and Szabo (2000) here. But on other views, pragmatics contributes to what is said (see e.g. modulation theorists like Recanati (2004) and relevance theorists like Carston (1998)). The most significant thing for me is far less controversial, and it concerns the two roles of context I refer to.
See ([2008], 2010, p.206).
See also ([2002a], 2010, p.72).
Hirsch might not like the term ‘ontological commitment.’ Wrapped in its Quinean connotations Hirsch takes this concept to convey “an unfortunate aura of theoretical hype and pseudo-depth” ([2002a], 2010, p.89). But my choice to characterize the substantial claim behind QV using Rayo’s notion of ontological commitment is really, at bottom, a terminological choice. QV figures in Hirsch’s argument for semanticism essentially for implying that despite appearances, the theories in question pose the same ontological demands on the world. Indeed: What makes QV intriguing in the context of metaontology is the idea that apparently very different theories have “no real disagreement about ontology”. That’s the most striking and relevant difference between Hirsch and self-described ontologists regarding the semantics of ontological disputes. I chose to characterize QV so as to emphasize that. Since ‘ontological commitment’ is so generally characterized, merely as an aspect of truth-conditions, and since Hirsch thinks of ontological theories as truth-conditionally equivalent, I find this characterization legitimate; Since it’s the ontological aspect of truth conditions that most interests Hirsch in this context, I find it faithful and precise.
Philosophers with no affliction to minimal ontology would be in a good position to take the failure of ordinary existence assertions in wearing their ontological commitments on their sleeves to be an ideological burden. Other considerations will continue to play a role in the dispute about where to set the bar for minimal ontology. Some philosophers take causal non-redundancy to be the most relevant factor, and would continue to be committed to composite objects. Others take non-arbitrariness considerations to make a radically minimal view (admitting of simples only) to be the only plausible minimal ontology. I do not wish to address the question of whether the composition as identity thesis resolves COMP or, as (Cameron 2012) and (McDaniel 2010) think, leaves it open.
This is by no means taken to imply that there is any privilege in expressing ontological commitments in Quinean fashion.
Let me introduce some of the debate on (2), if only to discharge it from its supposed inevitability. Following Lewis (1983, 1984), Sider (2007, 2009, 2011) argues that metasemantics cannot be based solely on charity, and that another source of metasemantic pressure is eligibility: good interpretations must, as much as possible, assign meanings that “carve nature at its joints.” Hirsch’s criterion for verbalness (formulated in terms of “correct norms of interpretation”) is thereby challenged. Since Hirsch can argue that charity trumps eligibility in the case of natural language quantifiers, Sider also has a backup reply. According to Sider, “Ontology could be conducted in “Ontologese”, a language in which quantifiers are stipulated to stand for the joint-carving meanings” (Sider, (2014, p.1–2)). Both of Sider’s manoeuvres leave much room for debate. Sider’s first reply explicitly leaves the objection to semanticism to be decided on holistic grounds (charity vs. eligibility). Sider’s second reply depends on there being a singular perfectly natural candidate meaning for the quantifier. Once again: we are left with holistic considerations to decide whether this point of departure is more theoretically fruitful than the assumption (in QV spirit) that several quantifiers are equally joint-carving. Much of Sider’s project in (2011) is dedicated to show the fruitfulness of his approach.
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Pitcovski, E. Semanticism and Ontological Commitment. Erkenn 89, 27–43 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-022-00521-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-022-00521-1