Abstract

In the late 1940s, Quine influentially talked about “the ontological problem”, claiming that it concerns the issue of what there is. I shall adopt this Quinean notion as a basis for an initial characterization of ontological discourse as language use or thought involving existential assumptions or commitments. I will also assume that we engage in ontological discourse in at least three discernible types of contexts, namely those of everyday experience, the special sciences, and categorial frameworks of being. In this paper, my main argument is that Quine’s way of situating ontological discourse out of the first context of everyday experience and into the second context of the special sciences is somewhat problematic because he mostly doesn’t seem to exhibit a developed enough a conception of the third context of categorial frameworks of being. I suggest that this problem is connected with Quine’s narrow ontological pragmatism which has its eye too restrictively fixed on the context of the special sciences. In place of the narrow Quinean conception, I suggest a broader kind of ontological pragmatism which gives proper acknowledgement to the very general and fundamental nature of the categories of being. The suggestion makes it possible to see that due to its generality, the third context of categorial frameworks of being both transcends and unites the other two. This structural recognition is important in itself, but it also provides an effective metaphilosophical ground for answering many of the much debated issues raised by the naturalistic, reductionist and scientific tendencies often seen in Quine’s thought and influence.